you two get along. You’re like birds of a fricking feather. Only he’s not as diplomatic as you are.”
Jones shrugged. “Crawford can use diplomacy when he has to. Right now, he doesn’t have to and he’s pissed off. I’ve run him into the ground lately. There’s just no . . .” Sighing, he dropped his pen onto the table and rubbed his eyes.
“No choice,” Dez finished for him. Absently, she rubbed her arms and then reached for a blanket. She was cold to the bone, something she might as well get used to, because she couldn’t do her part on this job until Jones had done his part. She was the cleanup crew, and the cleanup didn’t start until everybody else had finished.
Morosely, she stared at the door, still feeling the heavy weight of Joss’s presence. “Can he do this?”
“Yeah.” Joss was right about one thing. Going through the files, photos, and reports wasn’t anything he needed to be here for. It was busy work, something Taylor had hoped would keep the guy occupied while they waited.
Obviously it hadn’t worked. Joss was keyed up over something, and Taylor didn’t think it was just the mind-fuck. And that mind-fuck was going to be brutal. Worse than normal, because the more complex the gift, the longer it took Joss to acclimate. The psychic he was planning on using had the most complex set of gifts Taylor had ever seen . . . even more complex than Joss’s ability to mirror anybody’s gift set.
Still staring at the closed door, he blew out a breath. He wished he could act like he wasn’t worried, but this sort of thing was harder on Joss than the man liked to show, and the word mind-fuck didn’t exactly bring up images of hugs and kittens.
Right now, he was probably heading straight to his room to psych himself up for what was to come. Knowing Joss, his form of psyching himself up involved getting himself good and pissed at Taylor. There may or may not be copious amounts of liquor.
That was fine. It wasn’t anything personal toward him, Taylor figured.
“You don’t sound too certain there, baby,” Dez said.
He slanted a look at her and shrugged. “Oh, I’m certain. Hell, he’s the only one we’ve got who can do this.”
“This has gotta be the craziest gift out of any of them,” she murmured. “And it’s not like any of us have normal ones.”
“Joss is . . . unique,” Taylor said after a moment. He pushed away from the desk. Scowling, he thought back to the past night and Joss’s wisecrack about asking Dez on a date. “He’s also a moron if he thinks I wouldn’t deck him if he tried to ask you out on a date.”
Dez slid him a sidelong look. Something about the smile on her lips sent his blood straight to the boiling level. Of course, everything about her had that power. “Oh, I think he knows that. Somehow, I think he’s known that all along. He was just jerking your chain . . . funny, that. He actually realizes you have a chain to jerk. Most people don’t.”
“Sure I’ve got a chain . . . and a ball.” He gave her a smile. “And it’s got your name on it.”
“You calling me a ball and chain there, Jones?”
He bent his head back over the pages spread out before him. “Why, yes, Jones. I think I am.”
She snorted and adjusted the blanket she had draped over her, shivering a little. He could see her from the corner of his eye and he watched as she stretched out, wished he could say she was relaxing, but he knew better. She hadn’t slept well ever since they’d wandered through a dark, supposedly abandoned warehouse. He’d gotten the address from Jillian. Everything else had come from Dez.
It had been full of ghosts. New ones . . . mostly female, mostly young . . . and all of them had screamed. They wouldn’t rest for her, not until they were laid to rest, but Dez couldn’t do this job and they couldn’t afford to let her work it until they had the men responsible in custody.
That was what was really getting to her, knowing she couldn’t help. The tension in her eyes, the rage in her soul, all of it would eat at her until they’d laid those souls to rest.