The Departed

by Shiloh Walker

  Blocking all of that out, she leveled out her breathing and just…drifted.

  Drifted until she came in touch with something that didn’t quite fit.

  There.

  Faint…it was so faint.

  A thin, insidious thread of rage. So tenuous and weak, even one false step would break it.

  I’ll just have to be careful not to break it, then…

  She started to follow, one slow step at a time.

  * * *

  We had a lovely day together, my angel.

  Although we did have an unpleasant interruption—I’m sorry for that. You shouldn’t have to tolerate such behavior.

  The pen paused, tapping against the paper.

  That punk. So rude.

  I’m sorry he had to interrupt our time together, angel. It won’t happen again. I’ll see to it. Not that it will be necessary. He doesn’t even see how easily everything is tied to him…

  Again.

  * * *

  BRENDAN stared at his father, a distraught, terrified look plastered on his face, and all the while, he was thinking, Fucking again…somebody fucked things up again…

  “Beau. You said Beau’s in the hospital,” he whispered. “In a coma. But I just saw him. Last night. And he was fine.”

  Not supposed to be in the fucking hospital. Should be in the damn morgue. What the hell happened?

  “I know.” With understanding, compassionate eyes, Joshua Moore reached out and rested his hand on Brendan’s.

  His wife sat at his side, sniffling delicately—all without ruining her makeup, Brendan noticed. Classy bitch—that was Jacqueline. She wasn’t his mom—his mom was dead. Jacqueline was nothing more than a brainless bimbo who’d fuck his father’s friends in exchange for favors. Brendan wasn’t supposed to know, of course, but he did. He knew all sorts of shit about his dad.

  And he bet his dad knew exactly what had happened last night with Beau, too. Looking down at the table, he waited until he had a few tears in his eyes and then he looked up. With his voice shaking, he said, “What happened, Dad? Was…is this my fault? We…we had an argument, you know. Nothing’s been right ever since Tristan died. Beau was in one of his moods and wanted to get drunk and I didn’t…” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Man, I shouldn’t say this.”

  “Come on, buddy. You can tell me anything.”

  He gave his dad a tremulous smile. “Yeah. I know. Beau was talking about taking some of his dad’s liquor again. I didn’t want to. We yelled at each other.” He reached up and probed his eye, gave his dad a sheepish smile. “This…well, it wasn’t from me and Kyle wrestling around like I said. It was Beau. I told him I wasn’t going to let him get my ass in any more trouble and he called…” He shot Jacqueline a nervous look. “He called me a pussy. I shoved him and he hit me. I told him—sorry, Dad—I told him to fuck off and then I got out of the car and headed over to Kyle’s. I…he didn’t have a wreck or anything, did he? Was it my fault? I know he’s screwed up in the head. Maybe I should have…”

  “It wasn’t a wreck.” Joshua patted his hand. “It was an accident—a terrible one, but I think he got drunk and just fell asleep.”

  “Thank God for that girl Tiffany,” Jacqueline said, her voice soft. She shot her husband a quick look and then lowered her gaze, sighing. “She’s like his angel or something.”

  Brendan felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. “Tiffany?”

  Both of them gave him an odd look and it wasn’t until then that he realized he’d said it all wrong. Giving them a weak smile, he said, “I’m just all messed up. I want to go see him. Can I?”

  “I don’t know yet,” his dad said, sighing. “I’ll have to make some calls and see.”

  “Okay.” He licked his lips and then, careful not to let anything show in his voice, he said, “What did Tiffany do? And what happened to Beau, anyway?”

  “He fell asleep in the garage with his car running. Or maybe he passed out.” The man sighed, looking exhausted. “I don’t know. But for some reason, Tiffany was in the area and she heard his car.”

  “That engine,” Jacqueline murmured. “It’s hard not to hear it.”

  “Yes. She ended up breaking the side window and going into the garage, opening up the door. If he lives, it’s going to be because of her.”

  That little bitch.

  * * *

  SURREAL wasn’t a word that normally belonged in Taylor Jones’s vocabulary, but today it did. The logical, normal part of his brain kept trying to intrude, but for once, the rest of him was louder, able to silence that logical, normal part of him.

  Even now, as he trailed along behind Dez through the frost-covered grass, his brain was only half focused on the job. The rest of him was thinking about everything but the job.

  Was he really going to do this? Try for some sort of relationship with her? Was she really going to give him that chance? Had he lost his fucking mind? Those were the thoughts eating up the other half of his brain as they walked through the meadow.

  Still, half a brain was enough to notice when she tensed up and stopped. Under the beat-up leather coat, her shoulders were tense. Her head slumped. Her hands, hanging at her sides, curled into fists so tight, her knuckles were bloodless.

  A soft, nearly soundless moan escaped her and everything in him demanded that he go to her.

  But he didn’t—couldn’t—because that could too easily break the connection. So as much as he wanted to grab her against him and keep her away from whatever was hurting her, he shoved his hands into his pockets and held still, watching.

  Watching her so closely, he knew the exact moment she started to tremble, the exact moment she started to sway.

  Oh, fuck—

  He lunged forward just before she would have hit the ground. Catching her shoulders, he pulled her back, bracing her against him and staring down at her face. Her eyes were wide and fixed, staring upward at something he’d never be able to see.

  “Dez,” he snapped out, keeping his voice hard and flat. “Come on, Dez, snap out of it.”

  She only whimpered, huddling back against him, shaking, shuddering. This was bad. Dez wasn’t generally one of his people to get hit like this. It had happened before, but not often. Usually her connections were a lot more peaceful, a fact that he’d always been thankful for. He knew how to bring her out of this, but damn it, he didn’t want to have to do that with her…

  Unaware of the plea in his voice, he whispered, “Come back to me, Dez. Come on, don’t make me do this…”

  She tensed, almost like she was seizing. Squeezing his eyes closed, he gathered her against him and sank to the ground. Fuck—

  Setting his jaw, he pressed his fingers to her neck, tried to pretend he wasn’t stalling. Her pulse was strong and steady against his fingers, her skin warm. And her eyes, those dark brown eyes, were still locked, still fixed on whatever hell she’d lost herself in. Whatever hell she’d stay lost in until he pulled her out, or forced her out.

  Lowering his head, he pressed his brow to hers.

  “Dez…”

  She jerked again, the motions of her body unnatural, harsh and erratic. Her hand came up, almost nailing him in the side of the head. One of his psychics sometimes had what looked like a grand mal seizure with her visions and this was too fucking close. And it was Dez, damn it.

  A strangled, choking sound left her and he swore. Shit, he had to get her out of whatever she was lost in—now.

  As a fist closed around his heart, he lifted his head and stared down at her head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he lifted his hand.

  Before he could strike, though, abruptly, she screamed. And then, just like that, her eyes cleared and she sagged against him, gasping for air. Small, broken sounds, almost like sobs, escaped her lips.

  “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…”

  IT was almost an hour before she could focu
s enough to think.

  How did some of the others do this? she wondered. Nausea, pain, and grief swirled inside her and she wanted to gouge her eyes out, scrub her brain with bleach—anything that might undo what she’d gone through.

  What that girl had gone through…Oh, God, that poor baby…

  Wrapped up in a blanket, curled in the corner of a couch, she stared down at the glass of whiskey Taylor had pushed into her hand and tried to get her throat to work so she could speak.

  “You ready to talk?”

  She looked up at him and noticed lines of strain fanning out from his eyes. Odd. She’d never seen that on him before. She sipped from the whiskey and distracted herself by looking around. She didn’t recognize where she was—didn’t even remember how they’d gotten there.

  “Where are we?” she asked softly.

  Taylor sighed and came farther into the room. He sat on the ornate coffee table, just inches away from her, elbows braced on his knees. A bitter smile twisted his lips as he looked around the room. “My…home, I guess you’d call it,” he said.

  She blinked. “You…you guess?” she said.

  “Doesn’t feel like home.” He shrugged. “The manor hasn’t been home to me in a very long time. But it is mine. I don’t live here. I only come here once a year. It was closer than the house where you’re staying, though, and I wanted to get you someplace warm.”

  Then he glanced at the whiskey and added, “And someplace that had something for you to drink. You looked like you needed it.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured faintly. She stared at him for a moment and then shifted her gaze to the room. It was…enormous. She thought of the little, squalid apartment she’d grown up in with her mother, back before the woman had abandoned her. Most of the apartment could have fit in this room. Swallowing, she looked back at Taylor. “Man. I had a feeling you came from money, but this…well. This is a little more opulent than I’d bargained for.”

  “Money doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot, sometimes,” he said brusquely. A bitter smile came and went. “People think it can solve all ills, fix all problems. It doesn’t.”

  He shoved up off the table and moved away, stalking over to the window and staring outside. The stiff set of his shoulders, the rigid line of his back, they spoke of pain. And more, she could feel the pain in him. She wasn’t always able to pick up much from him and she was glad of that. But right then, she could feel so much misery inside him, it almost swamped her. She suspected it was because her shields were just about decimated, thanks to whatever had hit her earlier, leaving her more vulnerable.

  She wanted to go to him, but she wasn’t sure she could handle the pain in him just yet.

  “I take it whatever made this place stop being your home—that was something money couldn’t fix.”

  Taylor closed his eyes. “Yeah.” Then he blew out a harsh breath and shot her a narrow glance. “But I don’t want to get into this. We’ve got other problems on our hands. The boy. And whatever it was you felt out in the meadow.”

  * * *

  AS Dez lowered her gaze to stare at the glass of whiskey, Taylor stared at her. She was still off—her color ashen, her hands shaking. Every once in a while, a shudder would wrack her body and he’d glimpse something in her eyes that just about tore his heart out.

  Whatever it was, he couldn’t protect her from it, either.

  “What happened out there, Dez?” he asked softly.

  She shot him a look through her lashes. “I…” Her voice trailed off and she sighed, leaning back into the cushions of the couch. “I’ve been aware of something ever since Tristan moved on. A ghost. Old. Faint. Her presence…she feels young.”

  Taylor tensed. His heart slammed against his ribs. Casually, he leaned back against the windowsill. “She?”

  “I think.” She gave him a strained smile. “And I can’t even be sure that’s who I touched today. I do know today was a girl.” She lifted the glass to her lips but her hands were shaking so hard, the whiskey was splashing out.

  Taylor went to her. Dread curled through him, flooding every last inch of him. Not Anna, not Anna, not Anna…Automatically he started to slip a hand into his pocket, only to realize the necklace wasn’t there. Fuck.

  Dez’s hands were shaking. Focusing on that, he covered her hands with his, steadied them as she sipped, and then he pulled the glass away. “What happened?”

  She looked at him, her eyes all but black with horror. “He called her his angel.”

  Tears burned in her eyes and her voice broke. “His pretty and perfect angel…his one and only.” A harsh sob left her, and for a moment she was quiet as she struggled to get herself under control. She took a deep breath, then a second. When she looked back at him, her eyes glittered with rage, with hurt, with horror. “I can’t see either of them, not yet. She’s too fractured and I was lost inside her. I’ll try again—I have to. She’s a very big part of why I can’t leave yet. I just feel like I’m still supposed to be here. Although why she’s pulling at me like this, I don’t know. I’ve never connected with any of my ghosts like this.”

  She took a deep, shaky breath and rested her head back against the couch. “I hope I never do again.”

  Taylor felt like he was going to snap. He wanted to rage—wanted to scream. Instead, he took a sip of the whiskey he’d poured for himself. Cool. Be cool. He didn’t know if this was anything connected to him at all.

  Like hell—

  No. He might not have any documented gifts, but his gut rarely steered him wrong. And everything inside him screamed a warning. This was Anna. After all these years…Anna.

  And, coward that he was, he wanted to force Dez to leave. Not just the house, but the entire fucking town. Keep her the hell away from here, so maybe she couldn’t ever establish the deeper connection she needed to solve this one. Then he looked at her, her dark, soft eyes locked on his eyes, and he felt his heart all but shatter.

  What if that deeper connection came from him? Things had gotten weird for Dez from the get-go here. She’d had an odder, deeper connection almost from the time she’d stepped foot inside the town. No, he didn’t have any connection to Ivy, to the boys who’d hurt her. But he had one to this town that went deep—very deep. And Dez had a connection to him. Psychics worked on a different wavelength than others. Sometimes those connections defied logic. He’d seen it happen more than once.

  Was he the reason all of this was happening now?

  Swearing, he turned away, slamming his glass down on the mantel. Whiskey splashed out but he barely noticed. He gripped the icy marble in his hands. Blood roared in his ears, and grief, pain, tore through him. Anna—

  The misery he’d seen in Dez’s eyes, the horror.

  No. Not Anna…

  Lifting his head, he stared at the back of a silver frame. He kept it turned away because he couldn’t stand to constantly see her face when he was here.

  * * *

  DEZ stared at Taylor’s back, her belly in knots. What… ?

  A wave of agony all but swamped her. She gasped, pressing one hand against her belly as she stared at him. Oh, shit—what in the hell?

  A voice, familiar, whispered, Not Anna, not Anna…

  Taylor…? Oh, shit.

  And yet again, that true psychic skill that had been so erratic became clear. The words were distinct and solid and real. She knew, as well as she knew her own name, that voice had come from him.

  No.

  Oh, no.

  Rising, although she wasn’t sure she could trust her legs to support her, she made her way over to him. The second she touched his back, the wave of grief intensified and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She did, biting down until she tasted blood.

  She stroked the rigid muscles of his back, studying his face. He wouldn’t look at her, and that was strange. Taylor always seemed to be looking at her, she realized. Always.

  But right now, he was staring very in
tently at a photo frame. Or rather, the back of it.

  Dez closed her eyes.

  “Dear God.” She reached out and turned it around. But even before she looked, she already knew who she’d see. The child was beautiful. And she had Taylor’s eyes—that steely blue, although they didn’t have that cool, untouchable look on the girl. The same gilt-edged hair, though. Even the same smile. The resemblance was eerie.

  Taylor stared at the picture, a muscle jerking in his jaw.

  And tears on his face.

  Dez felt her heart shatter into a million pieces.

  Reaching up, she wiped the tears away. He caught her wrist and shifted his gaze from the picture to her face. His eyes, not so cold now, but burning hot and intense, bored into hers. “Is it her?” he rasped.

  Dez said softly, “I haven’t seen her outside of a dream.”

  “Is it her?” The demand was unmistakable.

  “Yes. I think it is.”

  The grip on her wrist tightened—bordering on pain—but she just stood there. Then, abruptly, he jerked her close. He went to his knees, then, and pressed his face to her belly.

  Broad shoulders shook as he cried.

  * * *

  “WAS she your daughter?”

  They were the first words spoken between them in hours. Dez felt him jerk in surprise. Then he lifted his head and stared at her. “No…Anna…she was my little sister.”

  Dez winced and touched a finger to his mouth. “I’m sorry.” Pushing a hand through his hair, she asked, “How old was she? And you?”

  “I was fourteen.” He shifted on the couch, rolling onto his back and pulling her on top of him. “She was six.”