Part 8 (2/2)

Shrugging restlessly, Cullen replied, ”Research.” He folded his arms across his chest and pinned the agent with a flat stare. ”This was a stranger abduction, wasn't it?”

Finally, the agent's polite, professional demeanor cracked just a little. He jerked at his tie to loosen it and then reached for his cooling cup of coffee. ”It's too early to say for certain, but it is starting to look that way.” He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together.

”Mr. Morgan, I'm going to be blunt here. I don't think you had anything to do with this.

At all. I think some stranger took your daughter. n.o.body other than the Paxtons knew she was going to be here, and although we're looking at them, I don't think they had anything to do with this, either. But, regardless, I need you to be honest with me. You can't hide anything.”

”Like what?” Cullen demanded, his aggravation coming through loud and clear.

”Like your daughter's . . . unusual abilities.”

Cullen froze. When he spoke, his voice was rusty and hoa.r.s.e. ”What are you talking about?”

Holding Cullen's gaze, the agent lifted up the file, revealing a thinner one, one that Cullen hadn't even seen. Without saying anything, the agent opened the file and revealed the contents. There was precious little. A few pieces of paper and a picture. Braden Fleming's picture. Cul en hadn't wanted anybody to know about Jillian, so when he'd made that phone call to the police's anonymous tip line, he'd done it from a pay phone on the other side of town.

He took the file and was gratified to see that his hands weren't shaking. d.a.m.n miracle because on the inside, he was shaking so hard, he thought he might fall apart from it. He didn't want people knowing this about Jilly. He managed to flip through the papers and then give the agent a quizzical glance. ”I'm not sure what this is about.”

”It's about some statements taken from some nurses at the county hospital where Jillian was treated after she collapsed at school. She spent two days catatonic, and then suddenly, she woke up and told you that she knew where Braden was, according to these nurses who were outside your daughter's room while she was crying about it. Tel me, Mr.

Morgan. How did Jillian know about Braden?”

Cullen closed the file and tossed it back on the table. The pages and pictures inside spilled out, but Cul en kept his gaze on the agent's face. ”I don't know what you're talking about, Agent . . . Sorry, I forgot your name.”

In response, he flipped his name badge around. He said something else, but Cullen couldn't hear it for the roaring in his ears. Taylor Jones.

Like he was watching a slide show that only he could see, Cullen suddenly saw all the pictures and articles over that past year that he had collected about Taige. Most of them made little mention of the feds she worked with, but here and there were a few times somebody within the Bureau had been mentioned. Taylor Jones's name had come up more than once, and there had even been a couple of pictures where both Taige and Jones's face had shown up in the paper together.

A hundred memories rose up to haunt him, to taunt him, and he was suddenly having a hard time breathing. Must have had something to do with the fact that his heart was pounding a mile a minute.

Taige. All that restless, useless energy pulsating through him suddenly sharpened, focused. Finally-son of a b.i.t.c.h, this was something he could control.

IT was eleven o'clock before the agents decided that he should go home, try to get some sleep, and wait for them to cal -and they'd call with an update just as soon as they could. If he hadn't been waiting for just this opportunity, Cul en was pretty d.a.m.n sure he would have been arrested for attempted murder when he tried to strangle one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds for handing him that line.

”Go home.”

”Get some rest.”

”We will call you. There's nothing else you can do here.”

The dumb s.h.i.+ts that came up with that BS ought to have the daylights knocked out of them. His daughter was missing-and they were suggesting he take a f.u.c.king nap.

The exit to his house was coming up, and he started to slow down, hitting the turn signal. But at the last second, he shot back onto the freeway, watching as his escort ended up blocked in by an eighteen-wheeler with a rebel flag emblazoned across the grill.

He watched from his rearview mirror to make sure he wasn't being followed, and then he shot off the next exit so he could get back on the interstate, heading north. He wasn't sure if he could make it to the airport and get on a flight to Alabama without the feds catching up with him, but there was no way he was going to drive the six hours to Gulf Sh.o.r.es.

Jillian might not have that kind of time.

SIX.

”I'M telling you, the dad hired somebody.”

Jones glanced up from his file with a frown. He had to admit, it was suspicious, Cullen Morgan disappearing the way he had.

But he didn't get that vibe off the man. Morgan wasn't just upset about his daughter's disappearance; he was nearly sick with it. Jones had spent more than enough time with guilty people recognize them a mile away. Morgan didn't have that guilt inside him.

All he was carrying around was grief.

But they had yet to discover why Morgan had disappeared. It hadn't taken long to find him, but by the time they found out he went to the airport, he was already en route to Birmingham.

”Doesn't fit, Murphy,” he said to the young agent he'd brought with him. Grace Murphy was the eager type, very ready to pin this on the most likely suspect. Jones could argue with her al day long, but Murphy was going to have to learn the hard way, the way most of them did. It was good for her, the way he looked at it. She'd learn that the easiest answer wasn't always the right answer; in fact, it rarely was. After she made enough mistakes, she'd start developing some instincts.

She would need them.

He tapped his pen on the file in front of him, and when the phone rang, he continued to study the lists of names and descriptions of people seen in the water park. Hot summer day, dead of summer, it had been so crowded, it didn't seem possible that a girl could just disappear like this. Didn't seem possible at all.

And that was why he'd been called in. While Jones had none of the unique skil s himself, he had a knack for knowing when to call in one of the special task forces. This was going to be one of them, he knew. He was already debating over who to call in. He skimmed the lists and, seeing nothing, started to flip through the grandfather's information.

Whatever had happened in the Morgan family, if it had ever been committed to paper or put out into cybers.p.a.ce, Jones now had the information. There were holdings al over the world. The grandfather was going to leave Cullen and Jillian a couple of very rich people. Not that Cullen didn't do well on his own. The man was a very popular fantasy author with a huge online following. Internet searches had revealed message boards, Mys.p.a.ce pages, and entire fan Web sites dedicated to the guy's books.

Money. It was always a possibility that somebody had grabbed the girl to use her in some money scheme, but that didn't feel right to Jones. He turned the page, continuing to skim over the Morgan family a.s.sets, and a familiar zip code caught his eye: 36547.

He knew that zip code. Taige Branch, a huge a.s.set to the Bureau and a huge pain in Jones's a.s.s, lived in Gulf Sh.o.r.es. ”Hmmmm . . .” Without looking away from the file, he punched the address listed into his computer, pulling up a map. Less than four miles from where Taige had grown up.

Jones knew very little about Taige's childhood. She was remarkably closemouthed about her life, and there had been precious little information he could gather on her that wasn't public knowledge.

That information was pretty much al he had about her formative years. After she'd started college, there had been a decent amount of information, but before, very little.

Only that she'd been orphaned at a young age, that she did wel in school, and that she had gone to work part-time at a small, locally owned seafood restaurant. She'd lived with her only known relative, an uncle who preached at a nearby church, and she had very much kept to herself.

Coincidence?

Jones didn't believe in coincidences.

”Sir?”

He looked up to find Murphy watching him with a wary gaze. ”It's Special Agent Hensley out of Birmingham.”

”Do they have Morgan?”

She shook her head. ”No, sir. n.o.body matching his description got off the plane, although surveillance clearly shows him getting on in Atlanta.” Her eyes were wide and glowing with self-satisfaction. Clearly, she thought this was more evidence to her theory that the dad had something to do with Jillian Morgan's disappearance.

Jones was far from convinced, though. He was no psychic. He employed more than a dozen specially trained, highly skil ed psychics. While he might not have their abilities, he had d.a.m.n good instincts. And right now, as he studied the financial data before him, his instincts were singing. He reached for his own phone to call the grandfather, a Robert Morgan. Robert had told his son he'd be waiting at Cullen's house, and Jones had given his men orders to make sure the grandfather remained there for the time being.

<script>