Except he’d come awake like this a hundred times, a thousand. More. Ever since he was nineteen, and he’d stumbled across that mausoleum. Before that, he’d just dreamed about her.
After that, he’d dreamed about his death. The bullet tearing into him. His knowledge that he’d leave her alone. That she’d be vulnerable, that he wouldn’t be able to protect her.
So much worse. So very vivid.
And anytime he was close to where he’d found her, close to the cemetery, the dreams were even more powerful.
Apparently, Orlando was close enough to jack him up.
Somehow, Joss didn’t think he’d be getting many restful nights. He was stuck here for a while.
* * *
“THERE’S nothing in these damn reports,” Joss growled, throwing down a thick stack of paper.
Hours after he’d climbed out of bed, he was ready to fall straight back into it, but he didn’t know if he’d get that wish anytime soon. Taylor had kept his ass trapped inside this hotel all damned day, and he was about ready to go out of his ever-loving mind.
And they hadn’t even done the thing that was going to really drive him up a wall. Joss had to assume they were still awaiting the arrival of whatever agent they needed to sync him with, but he wished they could get it the hell over with.
Taylor eyed him from across the sleek, gleaming wood of the dining room table, one blond brow cocked. The boss had been doing the same thing Joss had—studying reports, photographs, websites—things that had Joss’s brains about to bleed out of his ears, but he looked unperturbed and collected, just like he had looked eleven hours earlier.
Joss felt like strangling himself with his shoelaces at this point.
“Is there a problem?”
Shoving back from the table, Joss stood up and started to pace. The understated luxury of the hotel room felt like it was closing in on him. It was a nice hotel—nice with a capital N, meaning Jones was probably paying for it out of his own pocket. The Bureau wouldn’t spring for places like the Peabody.
Jones normally didn’t, to Joss’s recollection, but maybe it had something to do with his new wife. Dez was stretched out on the couch, doing the same thing they’d been doing. Reading reports. Well, right now, she was pretending, but Joss wasn’t fooled.
She was running on the same, maxed-out level of stress that he was, but he suspected she had reason. There were shadows in her eyes, sadness in her face. A ghost tugging at her, he could tell. Maybe more than one.
He hadn’t done a damn thing yet and he was already going nuts. He didn’t even know why.
Joss felt like his skin had shrunk down about two sizes, and he couldn’t stay there and keep twiddling his thumbs . . . waiting. Eyeing the neatly organized mountains of paperwork, Joss shook his head. “There’s nothing here for me, boss.”
He lifted up a photograph, staring at the girl’s picture and wishing it would bump something loose inside his brain, but all he felt was a stir of pity, a rush of anger.
She had been thirteen years old when she went missing.
Yaeli was found three years later, thanks to an anonymous tip. The tip led them to an unmarked grave in Rhode Island. Her father was still in Mexico. Her mother lived in New York. They hadn’t gone to the police when she disappeared because her mother was in the States illegally . . . a common story. One that would have no happy ending, and possibly no justice, either.
Joss stroked his finger down the picture. I’m sorry, sweetheart.
If he was going to find any justice for her, it would be after they synced him with his next gift set, because he felt absolutely nothing now . . . except that pity, and the rage.
Unable to stare into those dark eyes anymore, he set the picture aside and looked up at Taylor. “There’s nothing here for me. Call me when there’s either new information or you’re ready to do the mind-fuck on me.”
He was done.
He couldn’t keep reading about all those lost souls . . . disappearance after disappearance.
Not when he kept hearing the sad echo of a woman’s soft cry in his mind.
* * *
“WOW. He’s as charming as ever,” Dez murmured as Joss stalked out. He didn’t exactly slam the door, but he definitely closed it with a lot of emphatic firmness, she decided. Slanting her husband a look, she added, “No wonder