The Departed

by Shiloh Walker

  He backed away, his face pale. He looked shaken, she thought.

  Journal—it was a journal—

  He crashed into one of the aides coming out of the room at his back. As both of them hit the floor, Dez lunged forward. Instinct drove her. The journal. “Are you okay?” she asked, not worrying if she didn’t sound convincing, not worrying if she didn’t look convincing. She knelt by his side with one thought in mind—for the first time ever, she wanted to connect with a living, breathing person.

  She closed her hand around his arm and stared at him. He jerked back, his breathing erratic. “Hey, let go.”

  Dez just tightened her grip, staring at him. Her heart raced and her vision constricted, narrowing down until all she could see was him, all she could think was him, and that cloying, nasty evil. The journal, she thought, reaching out and trying to establish a link. You’ve got one, right?

  She smacked into his shields—the living had stronger, more resistant shields than the departed and since she’d always been more drawn to the dead, they’d never worked on refining her abilities with the living. But she didn’t let that deter her. Even when she saw him flinching, even when she knew she was hurting him, she pressed on.

  A hand caught her arm. Taylor—

  She shrugged him off. Not now…

  More images, a rush of them, like a movie reel in fast-forward. She felt his panic, felt his confusion. The boy knew something was wrong, knew something was off. Too bad—

  Yes—an intact memory. Last night. He’d written in it last night. She heard that rapid-fire succession of his thoughts. Beau, Jack Daniel’s, the rage…

  Gasping, she pulled away, and at the same time, she stood up, jerking him to his feet. “Okay, pal, you gotta watch where you’re going.” She gave him a brittle, hard smile. “Like I was saying to Tiffany, be aware of what’s around you.”

  The journal. He kept track of everything in it, she suspected. She hadn’t seen anything beyond last night’s events, but her gut insisted there was more. Uncurling her hand from his arm, she backed away from him, bumping into Taylor’s body.

  Brendan stared at her, anger flicking in those cold, dead eyes. Anger…and fear.

  “I’ll keep a better eye out…Ms. Lincoln, right?” He smiled at her.

  Dez just stared at him. If that little punk thought he could scare her the way he’d scared Tiffany, he needed to think again. She’d be careful around him, no doubt about that—but fear? No chance in hell.

  Deliberately she held his gaze, and then she grinned at him and said, “You do that, kid.”

  Then she turned her back on him.

  * * *

  PULLING his mind out of the past, focusing on the here and now, was harder than it had ever been, but as the smug bastard stared at Dez, Taylor was able to focus just fine. Taking a single step, he put himself between the boy and the woman. As Brendan blinked and looked up at him, Taylor crossed his arms over his chest.

  Behind them, the hospital worker finished gathering things off the floor. “Housekeeping will be over in a few minutes to mop up the spills,” the man said. “Be careful of the wet areas.”

  Taylor nodded and waited until the man was out of earshot. “I guess you were distracted, worried about your friend.”

  The hesitation was so small, somebody who hadn’t been looking for it never would have seen it. Brendan sighed, his face settling into a sad, grieving expression, and damn if it wasn’t believable. “Yeah.” He reached up and touched the bruise around his left eye. “Distracted is one way to put it. We had a fight last night…I don’t want that to be the last time I talked to my best friend.”

  “Hmm.” Taylor reached up and stroked his chin.

  Brendan gave him a sheepish smile. “Guess maybe I shouldn’t be saying that to you, huh? I heard how you’re some hotshot FBI type, right, Mr. Jones? Or is it Special Agent Jones or what?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” What had Dez seen? he wondered. There was something—he knew it. And whatever it was, it had her either damned excited or damned spooked. What was it? He continued to study the boy, watching as Brendan grew more uncomfortable, watching as he squirmed and shifted his feet and fidgeted.

  “Well…” Brendan shot a look around Taylor to peer at Dez again. “I want to get back in there with Beau. It’s a damn good thing Tiffany found him, you know.”

  “Yes. It is. We’re going to make sure she’s well aware of how much it’s appreciated,” Taylor said, emphasizing the we, watching as Brendan’s lashes flickered, suppressing a smirk as that flash of anger heated his eyes for the briefest moment.

  The boy wasn’t as good as he thought he was, Taylor mused. “You go on in and be with your friend.” He paused, then added, “I want to speak with his mom while I’m here, but I won’t take up too much of her time.”

  “Why—” Brendan clamped his mouth shut.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, um, why do you need to talk with her?”

  Taylor shook his head and gave Brendan his best deadpan stare. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss that with you. I’ll leave you alone now. I need to talk to Tiffany, see where her folks are—I have to speak with them as well.” He waited long enough to see if Brendan would have much of a reaction, but there wasn’t one. Technically, he had no grounds to speak with anybody on this case. Of course, if he was going to be speaking to anybody, he wouldn’t necessarily be informing Brendan of his plans…unless, of course, he wanted to see the kid’s reaction. Or he wanted the kid to think people were on to him.

  Possibly both…

  For now, this just looked like a sad accident, but it couldn’t hurt for Brendan to think he was being watched. Hell, he was being watched and it was probably a good thing for him to know it.

  Brendan stood there for a few more seconds, shuffling his feet and trying his best to look unhappy, but all Taylor could see in his eyes was anger. The boy was pissed and trying not to show it.

  Then he followed in Dez’s footsteps and gave the boy his back, trailing along after her.

  “You try not to worry too much about your friend. Considering how he managed to pull through the night, I wouldn’t be surprised if he made it through the day,” Taylor said. He’d hang around a few more minutes, though. He wasn’t leaving that kid alone with Beau. He smiled at Brendan and added in parting, “I think I’ll have a word with the nurse before I leave.”

  There…give the little asshole something to think about, and hopefully make Beau a little safer as well. Tiffany, too. As of yet, Taylor still wasn’t here in any official capacity. He might have had a contract for Dez that he could whip out if he had needed to keep her out of trouble, but there wasn’t anything yet to justify calling in his unit. Still, he didn’t need to be here officially to make people uncomfortable.

  Make them worry.

  He made his way over to the nurse’s station, staying in full view of the open door…in full view of Brendan as he slid back into the room.

  The boy’s eyes slid his way and then darted back to the still form on the bed. He was involved in this shit—it was all but written on his forehead.

  Taylor would focus on that matter for now, and only that matter, because if he tried to split his attention between this and the bombshell Dez had dropped on him earlier, he would lose his fucking mind.

  Even though, he realized, in some part of his soul, he’d already known this was going to happen. From the time he’d heard Dez was in his town, he’d known. Should have tried harder to get her out, he thought. But even thinking that filled him with shame. She could lay Anna to rest. Even if he had to live with the horror of knowing, Dez’s continued presence here had something to do with Anna…and that meant Anna couldn’t rest. And Ivy O’Malley lived because of Dez’s arrival in town.

  He was such a fucking coward.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “BEAU’S mom doesn’t seem at all surprised by what happened,” Taylor said as he and Dez sat in the
hospital cafeteria over bottled juice and coffee.

  “He’s gotten in trouble before,” she said.

  Lifting a brow, Taylor waited.

  “I talked to Tiffany. Beau’s not exactly known for being an exemplary kid. Drinking, fighting. He was well on his road to screwing up his scholarships for a while, and then things got better for a while. After her brother kicked his ass. Sounds like Tristan offered an olive branch and the two of them became friends of a sort. He straightened up for a while. But then Tristan died and things got worse. He’s drinking again, wilder.” She lowered her gaze to the apple juice he’d pushed on her—his bribe of coffee was still out of her reach, but she was drinking it because she knew under that hard-nosed line he’d drawn, he was only doing it because he was worried. And he was worried. She could feel it. It was kind of…well, weird having somebody worry about her like that. Worry enough to do something that would piss her off.

  Nobody else had ever really cared enough.

  “I need to get inside Brendan’s house,” she said softly, shifting her focus away from Beau and back to what had happened outside his room earlier. She lifted the juice to her mouth and polished it off. Then she slammed it down and demanded, “Give me my coffee.”

  “Why do you need to get inside his house?” He continued to hold her coffee hostage, tapping a finger on the side of the cup, staring at her with grim eyes.

  “I just do. Give me my coffee.”

  “Dez…you’re a pain in the ass.” He pushed it over to her and leaned back in the chair, his arms folded across his chest.

  The first sip of caffeine was both wretched and wonderful—hospital coffee was usually lousy, and this was. But it was strong, and hot, and Taylor had added enough cream and sugar to make it tolerable. As it burned its way down her throat, she studied him from under her lashes—the way the cotton shirt clung to the leanly sculpted muscles of his arms and shoulders, the way he stared down at the table, gold-tipped eyelashes shielding his gaze from her view.

  And the strain on his face. He was tired. He never really looked tired, but he did now. Tired, and sad. Grieving, she knew. Why wouldn’t he be?

  Abruptly, she set her coffee down and leaned forward, straining to place one hand on his. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine—shit.” He turned his hand over and caught hers, squeezing her fingers in a grasp so tight it hurt. His head lifted and he stared at her, his steel blue eyes burning and intense. “Fuck, Dez. I’m not fine, but I can’t discuss this now. Anna…”

  His eyes closed. When he looked back at her, those raging emotions were banked and his voice was level. “What happened then is done, and regardless of whether we can figure it out, a few days here or there won’t make a difference, I don’t think. But what’s going on now—a few days, a few minutes—that makes all the difference. We’ve already seen that. We handle this, then we focus on…”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Okay.” She smiled at him. “It’s not like I’ve got anyplace to go. No mean-ass boss riding my tail or anything.”

  A faint grin tugged at his lips. “I can ride your tail if you want.”

  Heat burst through her belly and a startled laugh escaped her. “Oh. Um. Sure. Please do. But…this first. That assaholic boy first. Brendan. Again, I need inside his house.”

  “Again, Dez, you’re a pain in the ass.” He leaned forward, his hand still holding hers, although his grip loosened. “Fine. Just why do you need inside his house? What did you see earlier?”

  Just like that, she wished she hadn’t had the coffee. It pitched in her belly and she had to swallow against the bile rising in her throat. That nasty little shit—he had gotten under her skin but good. Taking a deep breath, she told him, getting it out as quick as she could, trying not to dwell on everything she’d picked up from him.

  There was a reason she preferred to deal with the dead…the people she helped were generally decent people who just needed to move on. She saw ugliness through their eyes, and she had to live with their pain. But she’d never felt that much vile, foul evil inside her before—pure, straight from the source, so to speak.

  “So this journal. You want to find it.” Taylor watched her from under his lashes, his thumb still stroking over the back of her hand. “Shit, Dez. We can’t just sail inside. Officially, we aren’t here, you know that, right?”

  “So that should make it easier.” Dez shrugged.

  “And if you find whatever it is you’re looking for?” He cocked a brow at her. “What happens when you find the journal? It’s not like we can just take it. It’s not like any of my people have legit reasons for being here. I can keep your ass out of trouble—I can’t make things like illegal searches legal.”

  She made a face at him. “I’m not going to do an illegal search—although technically, anything I do…would it be legal or illegal?” She smiled at him serenely. “How does the freelance gig work, anyway?”

  “Again, you’re a pain in the ass.” He rubbed his forehead. “Exactly what do you plan on doing once you’re in there if you don’t plan on searching for the damn thing?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m kind of making this up as I go.” Sipping from her coffee, she stared at the table, trying to figure out just what to do, which way to go from here. “He thinks he’s in control, you know—thinks he’s as cool as a damn cucumber.”

  “He’s a spoiled, uncontrolled little asshole,” Taylor said, shaking his head. “A sociopath in the making.”

  “He’s already made.” He might think he was in control, but he wasn’t. Now, as far as cool went—he might be cool as in cold, but that was an empathy thing there. The boy had none. Looking at Taylor, she said quietly, “I don’t even know if Tristan was his first victim. Touching him, it was like touching hell. There’s so much wrong inside him, I wouldn’t know where to begin if you asked me.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “I’m not asking.” Blowing out a breath, he said, “The kid’s dad is the mayor. That’s one way in. We won’t go in as anything official.”

  “What does his father being the mayor have to do with it? Especially if we’re not official?” Dez scowled even as she fought the urge to melt as heat raced up her arm just from the light brush of his lips on her skin. He’d kissed her. In public. It hadn’t even been anything remotely sexual, but it had been intimate—extremely. Anybody could kiss you on the cheek—friends, even distant friends sometimes did it. But for a guy to kiss a woman on the wrist…shit, that was intimate.

  Swallowing, she reminded herself she needed to focus. In a very bad way. The job. Think about the job. She stared at Taylor, tried to do it in a dispassionate manner, and saw that he had a humorless smile on his face.

  “That’s easy,” he said, shrugging. “He’s the mayor. I go up, knock on his door. He’ll let me in.”

  Dez lifted a brow, confused. She was missing something but…Shaking her head, she sighed. “Okay, you’ve got to spell this out for me, slick, because I’m clueless. Is this a small-town Indiana thing? You go knock on a mayor’s door in small-town Indiana and they just let any old FBI agent in?”

  “No.” Taylor laughed a little. “It’s got nothing to do with small-town Indiana, with me being an FBI agent, or any of that.”

  “O-o-okay…”

  Taylor stood up, grabbing her coffee.

  “Hey! I’m still drinking that!”

  “Then get up and get it before I toss it out.” He also grabbed the empty juice bottle.

  She managed to save the coffee, glaring at him. “You’re so fricking evil sometimes,” she muttered. “What’s the deal with the mayor, Jones?”

  “That’s easy.” He shot her a sidelong glance before he turned and headed for the door.

  She had to trot to catch up with him. Once she did, he reached down and caught her hand, absently stroking his thumb along her wrist. Her irritation abruptly fizzled and even managed to stay that
way, although she was able to pretend it hadn’t as she sarcastically said, “If it’s so easy, why can’t I figure it out?”

  “Because you look at me and see me. You don’t look at me and see a rich son of a bitch.” He glanced down at her, then paused, reaching up to stroke her cheek. “I don’t know why you don’t see the son of a bitch. I am one. I know that. It never bothered me up until you came along. But that’s all anybody else sees—the s.o.b. Here, though, they see the s.o.b. and dollar signs.”

  “Taylor.” Reaching up, she closed her hand around his wrist. Then she leaned against him and pressed her lips to his mouth. “Don’t delude yourself. I see the son of a bitch—he’s part of you. But I also see the guy who paces the floor when one of his people gets hurt. I see the guy who went into a career that guts him and now I even know why. I see a man who looks at me in a way nobody else ever has, who makes me feel like nobody else ever has.”

  She settled back on her feet, turning her face into his hand and kissing his palm. She squeezed his wrist gently and then looked back at him. “I see the s.o.b., all right, because he’s part of you. And I’ve always seen you.”

  “If you see me, then why are you still around me?” He pushed his hand into her hair.

  She glanced around. Did they really need to discuss this here? Hell. They were here…She reached up and fisted a hand in the front of his shirt, tugged him close. “Because I see you. All of you. The s.o.b., the guy who cares too much and doesn’t let it show, the man who turns my bones to mush with just a look. That’s who you are and if you don’t see it, then maybe I just see you better.” She pressed a quick, hard kiss to his lips and then let him go, pushing him away. “Now, come on. We can’t do this here.”

  She started down the hall at a quick pace. No, they couldn’t do this here, and they couldn’t do it now, period.

  “Turns your bones to mush?” he murmured, falling into place at her side.