She’d whispered that to him. On the plane, as they flew in from Alabama. He’d come, mostly because he’d wanted to hit Taylor and convince the son of a bitch to stay away from his daughter. From his little girl. Because he’d thought he could protect her . . .
They need me, Daddy . . .
“What exactly are you expecting her to do?” he demanded. “Jilly’s just a kid.”
SEVEN
NO, there hadn’t been any information in that forest of paper and file folders and pictures, but he’d picked up a few stray images from Dez’s brain.
A warehouse.
So Joss had left and was driving around.
Following his gut, he found himself in an area of town he doubted many tourists ever went. It was on the outskirts and he suspected it had seen better days. The warehouse had a For Sale sign on the side, but it had so much graffiti covering it, the only letters he could really make out were part of the F and the L and E.
Nothing back at the hotel had jumped out at him . . . except the images Dez had tried to keep trapped inside her brain.
They’d made his skin burn.
Made it hurt.
And it was even worse now.
There was death here.
He didn’t know how long ago it had happened, but people had died here and it tarnished the air, a vicious black stain that would never fully fade.
It was fucking cold, too. The lingering echo of those trapped here. Which was why the place was so heavily imprinted on Dez’s brain, why he’d followed the trail to it so easily. Probably all but infested with ghosts.
He couldn’t see them but he felt that eerie echo . . . heard it. Like somebody was whispering just behind him, but it went silent every time he turned around.
Circling around the warehouse, he came to a stop when he caught a glimpse of the moon glinting off the water somewhere in the distance.
It was one of the numerous lakes. No telling which one . . . He’d have to dig out a map just to figure it out. But for some reason, standing there and staring at it hit him like a fist.
A pang of deep, gripping sorrow. Joss could feel his damn throat closing up on him as the wave of grief struck him.
Cold danced along his skin. It was almost the way it hit him when he was picking up a ghost—except he had to have the right gift for that. He didn’t have the ability to see them right now. Sense them, maybe, but this . . . this was different.
Pain swelled inside him, stealing away the ability to breathe, to see, to think.
And still, Joss didn’t know what this was. What he was feeling. Under the weight of the grief, his shields trembled, shuddered.
The grief pressed closer. Weighed in heavier.
And he thought he heard the faintest echo of a sob. A woman’s sob—
Amelie—
Just thinking her name was like a crushing weight had been dropped on his heart, and he slumped, almost went to the ground. The sound of crying grew louder and louder . . .
And then, the loud, raucous blast of his phone sliced through the night, shattering whatever it was that gripped him.
* * *
THE drive back to the hotel, thanks to traffic, took a good forty minutes, and Joss relished every single second of it. It had been Jones on the phone. The other psychic had arrived.
It was time for Joss to get his mind-fuck on.
Yippie ki-yay. Now if he could have stalled for another two hours. Gotten smashed. Yeah, shit-faced drunk might make this easier to get through, he thought as he stepped off the elevator.
The tension slammed into him, a brutal, double-fisted punch. All around, he could pick up on other thoughts and they were everywhere, but none were as chaotic as those coming from Taylor Jones’s room.
It wasn’t thoughts, either.
Wasn’t just tension . . . anger. Chaos. Fear. Worry. Regret. An ugly miasma that he didn’t even want to step into, but he had no choice.
Who in the hell had Taylor found to . . .
The door opened and he found himself face-to-face with a child.
“What the fuc . . .”
He bit his tongue to try and hold the cuss word back, tasted blood.
She smiled at him. Black curls fell in crazy corkscrews and spirals all over