The Innocent: FBI Psychics, Book 2 (5 page)

Jay hated when she had to let another in her mind.

But she understood necessity.

When she felt the soft brush against her thoughts, she allowed it. “
If there’s anything you can do to make this easier, do it. Right now, I don’t have a legal reason so help me out.”

The woman’s mental “voice” was smooth, controlled and unfamiliar, sliding through Jay’s mind, barely creating a ripple. The control relaxed her a little. Working with an unfamiliar psychic could be hell, but this woman had control and that made it easier.

Her ability to project was shit, but it wouldn’t matter. This woman would pick up, she could already tell. She just let herself think in actual words, the way she would if she were going to speak. The woman’s abilities would do the rest.

“I acted in self-defense—there couldn’t be a more clear-cut case, but they still brought me here. They never read me my rights. They gave me no legit reasons for keeping me here. I wasn’t given a phone call.

“They never gave me a chance to call my lawyer, although they were given the impression that I’d already called so they may dance around that.

“I don’t know if they plan on keeping me overnight or not, but I haven’t been offered so much as a glass of water and the sink in my cell is broken. I’ve been offered no meal.

“The guy I was brought in with? They never read him his rights. He wasn’t given a phone call.”

A few seconds of silence passed and then the woman spoke again. Her voice was tinged with heat as she replied,
“Oh, I think I can work with that.”

“Was the prisoner given a chance to speak with her lawyer?” the woman demanded, her voice carrying down the hall. “Be
very
careful how you answer that question because I
can
and
will
find out that answer and heads will roll if you bullshit me.”

“Uh…”

“That’s not an answer. Was she read her rights? What reason did you give for detaining her
overnight
?”

Jay smiled.

Oz, I dunno who you sent but I like her already.

Two minutes later, the woman came striding down the hall.

Jay had the shock of her life.

She knew the woman, all right.

Almost every psychic even remotely affiliated with law enforcement knew this woman. Hell, plenty of people not
affiliated with the Bureau or even law enforcement knew her name.

Taige Branch—no, it was Taige Morgan now. She was married. She had only been a teenager when her status as a legend was firmly cemented in this part of the country.

Unlike most of the psychics affiliated with the Bureau, it was no secret what Taige could do. There had been newspaper articles, even a TV show or two done on her. Not that she’d ever agreed to any of it. But she didn’t have to agree for people to talk about all the shit she’d done, the lives she’d saved.

Her abilities had emerged when she was very young, and she’d saved the lives of countless children.

Now she was here in Hell…with Jay.

Curling a hand around one of the bars, she eyed Taige narrowly. “Wow. I didn’t realize I was going to have a superstar ride to my rescue.”

“Shut the hell up,” Taige said, her face tight. She gave the man in the cell a dark look. “Did
you
get a phone call or did they ride roughshod over your civil rights too?”

Linc shrugged.

“Unless a phone call fairy snuck in here, he didn’t get a call, either.” Jay gave Taige a serene smile. “I don’t think civil rights exist in this town.”

Taige turned and stared at the deputy hanging on her heels, then she turned and looked at the officer who was glaring at every last one of them. “Are
you
the one who arrested them? Although whether or not it’s a legit arrest is yet to be seen. Did you read them their rights?”

He opened his mouth and Taige just continued. “Unless that is a simple
yes
or
no
, shut your fucking mouth. You don’t want to know the sort of shit I can bring down on you.”

He jerked up his chin. “The Feds have no jurisdiction over this. This was a simple public disturbance dispute. So you will keep a civil tongue or I’ll arrest you as well.”

Taige cocked out a hip and rested her hand on it. “Yeah? For cussing?” She started to laugh. “You do that, boy, and I’ll be calling every news station from here to Atlanta.” A sleepy smile curved her lips. “They’ll be camped out on your lawn from now to Labor Day.
Small-town police department in violation of civil rights. Federal agent arrested for saying fuck
. I might even accept one of those interviews to go on the
Today Show
. I’ll mention you. By name.” She flicked a glance at his badge and then looked back up at him. “Now, you want to discuss whether or not they were read their rights or do I start making phone calls? Trust me, if I don’t
make a phone call within the next thirty minutes,
you
will be getting phone calls. And think big when you consider who’ll be calling. Think FBI Headquarters out of Washington.” She smiled serenely. “Are you getting the picture yet, officer?”

The deputy behind her started to shuffle his feet. “I think maybe it’s in our best interest to let them all out with a warning, Biff.”

Biff narrowed his eyes to slit. “I’ll be damned if I let them out just because some FBI cunt thinks she can scare me.” He dropped his hand to his weapon. “They’ve been arrested. They’ll fucking stay in jail.”

“And about that civil rights issue?” Taige asked softly, unconcerned with the way Biff stroked his gun.

“What civil rights issue?” Biff looked like he wanted to spit on her.

“Why the hell are you even wearing a badge?” She shook her head. “Were they read their rights? Given a chance to a phone call, a chance to speak with legal counsel? Is there a reason they are being detained or are you just fucking with them?”

The deputy moved up between them. “I think maybe we need to call the chief, Biff. He ain’t gonna be happy with this.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, jerking a look between Biff, the agent and Jay, then back to the cell. “I think maybe we’ve got a misunderstanding, Agent Morgan. What I’d like to do is call the chief, see if we can work this all out—”

“Like hell,” Biff growled. “A man’s leg was broke. There was damage caused. Federal agent or not, somebody is gonna pay for that.”

“I’ll be happy to,” Jay said, looking at Taige through the bars. “Of course, I’ll be bringing up charges of harassment, as well as charges of the violation of my civil liberties. I figure by the time I’m done, I’ll all but own this town, so I can easily pay for the damages done at the gas station.” She slid the officer a narrow smile. “What was the fine levied on that town the last time a cop failed to read a person their rights, Agent? Up in Marietta, remember that?”

Taige blinked, her lashes drooping low over her eyes. “I think it was something to the tune of over a million. So far, you’ve been denied a phone call, you’ve yet to be told just why you’re being held. Plus, there are two of you. Wow.” She cocked her head and looked over at Jay. “Just
why
are you here?”

“Some fine, upstanding citizen decided to put his hands on me. I defended myself and his leg was broken in the altercation. I’m the one who got hauled to jail. Not him, even though he is the one who started the whole fucking mess.”

Taige had pale gray eyes. Against the soft brown of her skin, they glittered like winter ice and she turned her head, stared at the cop. A muscle pulsed in his jaw and he slowly started to wither under that stare. “Do you understand how serious an offense it is to detain a woman over a matter like this? She defended herself and instead of dealing with the actual perpetrator, you violated
her
rights.” She gave Jay a serene smile. “It looks like you and I are going to hang around town for a while, Jay. We’ll need to contact a lawyer and see about getting all this straightened out.”

A new voice cut through the hall. “What in the
fuck
is going on here?”

It was, Linc decided, kind of sweet, watching as hell froze over.

That was what was happening too.

It hadn’t even been six weeks since he’d turned in his badge and that pissant had told him that if he hadn’t let his bastard girl run wild, maybe she wouldn’t be missing.
A bad girl will come to a bad end
, Steve Mays had told him when he’d tried to push the cops to investigate. He had been doing his own investigation, but there was only so much a man could do when every fucking door shut in his face.

When the town’s cops were practically laughing at you.

Linc had stood face to face with that man, the chief of police, a man who’d let his own son run wild, who’d golfed with the judges and talked his way out of all the tickets Linc had written for that boy. When his son had assaulted not one, but three
high school girls, Mays had swept it all under the rug. Except one of the assault cases had happened outside city limits and when that happened, it fell into Linc’s lap and the small city’s police force couldn’t do shit about it.

He’d investigated, he’d worked with the county DA to build a case.

Then the girl’s family came and told him she was leaving the state. She didn’t want to prosecute. She was going to school up in New York and her life would be better if she could just let this go.

They didn’t even try to lie when he found out about the check that had been written to them.

Mays had bought their silence.

The day Linc had turned in his badge, he’d told Mays he’d find answers.

Mays had laughed at him.
If you’d kept that little tramp under control, there wouldn’t be a problem
.

He’d hit him and the days Linc had spent in jail had only hardened his resolve.

There would be hell to pay.

Sooner or later, he’d find answers.

And he’d see Mays suffer.

Maybe this wasn’t quite what he had in mind.

But as Mays looked from the FBI agent to Jay to Linc, Linc could almost see the fine little lines of strain fanning out from his eyes.

It’s the beginning of the end for you, old man.

It wasn’t a cold day here in Hell, but good ol’ Steve was about to be brought down. He just didn’t know it yet.

Jay… He ran his tongue across his teeth, trying to process what he was hearing. Jay had ties to the FBI. Jay. His girlfriend. Well, not exactly. Less than a week after his baby disappeared, he’d cut ties with her. He didn’t have room for her in his life. Room for anything or anybody.

But there had been a connection, yes. All online. They’d Skyped. Emailed. Texted. Plus, well, yeah, he had to be honest. Texting had led to some hot and heavy sexting that had him under a cold shower far more often than he cared to admit.

But they’d never met. He’d looked into her background. He was a cop—or had been. Of course he’d checked her out. Nothing had seemed out of place, so if she
wasn’t
a security specialist, whoever had built that fake background of hers had done a fucking-A job of it.

None of that changed the fact that she had ties to the FBI.

Taige Morgan.

She was the woo-woo nutbag almost every person affiliated with law enforcement in this part of the country knew about. Some people revered her. Others steered clear. Linc would just as soon not have anything to do with her. He didn’t know how she helped close so many cases but the psychic line was bullshit.

Now she was talking to Jay in a low, steady voice.

Jay had her arms hanging through the bars, a sneer in her voice as she answered.

“Do you all have dicks shoved in your ears or what?” Mays demanded, his eyes burning a hole in Jay’s skull. “I just asked what in the
fuck
is going on here and I want an answer.”

A slow smile came across Taige’s face as she turned to face him.

“I’d kind of like to know the answer to that myself. I take it you’re Chief Mays?”

Mays blinked, staring at her with dumb stupefaction rolling across his face. Then his expression went carefully blank.

Linc could have laughed. Mays must have recognized her too.

Yeah, son. You just realized you and your boys have a fuckload of problems here, didn’t you?

Taige glanced Linc’s way, oh so briefly, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her mouth twitched in a smile. Then she looked back at Chief Mays. She didn’t offer her hand. Instead she flashed him her ID. “Taige Morgan, FBI.”

“I know who you are, Agent Morgan.” He ran his thumb down his jaw and then flicked a look back into the cell. “Dawson, are you so desperate now that you’re hiring a psychic?”

He saw Jay’s shoulders tighten.

Closing his eyes, he braced himself for the questions. But she never turned to look at him.

Taige was the one who spoke up.

“Chief Mays.” She gave him a sharp-edged smile. “I wasn’t hired by anybody. I
was
just going to make a quick in and out, see what the hold-up was—Roberts was expected to check in recently and she didn’t. Now I understand why. Is there a reason she wasn’t given a phone call?”