Taylor gave him a withering stare. “How is your head?”
“Feels like it’s about to split into a million pieces.” Joss shrugged. “Dez, I can handle her talent. It’s creepy sometimes. I can feel these whispers, even in my sleep if I’m not careful. But I can handle that one. The girl, though . . .” He snapped his mouth shut, staring off into nothing. He could still feel the echo of her terror, rooted deep inside him, and it was a raw, twisting ache. He could hear the echo of screams, and unlike Dez’s ghosts, these women were still alive. He knew it—this unreal, uncanny insight that he couldn’t even define. He could feel the echo of their pain, and the knowledge of what awaited them . . .
Now he just had to figure out how to save them. How to stop the monster behind this. Sometimes, this job really sucked.
“It was getting to be too much for her,” he finally said, slanting a look at Jones. “You know that?”
Jones lifted a brow. “I suspected. Once I saw her. She was . . . fragile. Jillian’s been through hell. Kids tends to be fairly resilient anyway, and she’s even more so. But I suspected she was too close to an edge this time.”
“Suspected?” Joss studied his friend’s face. He knew Jones didn’t categorize himself as psychic, but there was something there. Jones had a knack for finding people like Joss. Taige. Dez had sought the unit out, but most of the psychics had joined after Jones had ferreted them out. He also had a way of knowing who was the right one for the job, who needed to take a break. Who was walking a line. “Or knew?”
Taylor shrugged. “Semantics. She’s a child who saw something nobody should have to see. It’s no surprise it’s hurting her.”
“That’s why you used her.” The power of Jillian’s gift was twisting through him, too much and too strong. Joss knew it would come in handy. But there were others who could get him through this. A telepath could have connected with Jillian and gotten the information Joss needed. An extra step, they both knew, but it would have left Joss a little less keyed up. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing. “You’re trying to find a way to let her exorcise this demon.”
Taylor’s lids drooped, shielding the unreadable blue of his eyes. “Save the armchair psychology for somebody else, Crawford. Her abilities will be useful, and she came to me. I didn’t seek her out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He nudged Jones in the shoulder. “You just don’t want anybody to know you’ve got a heart inside there.”
Once more, that withering stare returned. “Do you have any idea how you’re going to go about making contact?”
As the job reared its ugly, ever-present head, Joss sighed. “Now that . . . is already done. The rest of it will be hard.” Turning around, he headed back to his car. Jones followed along behind him, the two of them doing another casual look around. There were people everywhere. The Waffle House was packed, people inside chowing down on a good old American breakfast. Eggs. Bacon. Waffles. His belly growled just thinking about it. Joss was going to head in there shortly and do what he could to clog his arteries. He’d invite Taylor, but Taylor wasn’t going to be interested.
Resting the bag on the hood of the car, he glanced inside. At first look, all he saw was a neat jumble of electronics. It was too heavy for that to be all, though. Slipping Joss a quick look, he arched a brow.
Taylor leaned in and tapped the bottom.
Joss smiled.
“I need to think this through for a while before I talk it over,” he said in reply to Taylor’s question. “But I made contact last night. Give me some time to think everything through, okay?”
Under his breath, Taylor grumbled. Joss grinned.
There weren’t a lot of people who could get by with that—think it through. Taylor was a control freak and wanted, almost needed, to be involved every step of the way.
“How much time?”
“A few hours, a day maybe.” He sighed and shrugged, looking out across the parking lot. “Too much shit crammed into my head. Got to let it all settle and then see what pops up out of the madness. Once that happens, I’ll know if I’m working this the right way.”
Taylor reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “See what pops up? I don’t