The Innocent: FBI Psychics, Book 2 (6 page)

Mays rocked back on his heels, his eyes narrowing. “Just why was Roberts in my town to begin with?”

“Hardly your concern. You’ll be apprised if need be.” Taige smiled. “This town is still part of the U.S., right?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I think it is. I’m just trying to understand why your officer decided it was okay to run roughshod over their civil rights. No phone call. They weren’t Mirandized. They don’t even know why they are in jail.” She gave him a wide, brilliant smile. “Not to mention the fact that Ms. Roberts was being hassled by three men—that’s what set this whole incident off. She defended herself and instead of your officer addressing
that
fact, he went after her. So, is Hell a part of the United States, or not?”

Chief Mays stared at her, his expression stony. Then he looked over at his officer, who had been sullen and silent throughout the entire exchange. “I’m quite certain my officer would have read the prisoner her rights, Agent Morgan.”

“Hmmm. And the phone call?” This time, her smile wasn’t so brilliant. It was hard-edged, like broken glass under the winter sun. “We can always check on that.”

He stared at her. After fifteen seconds, she pulled out her phone, hit a number.

“This is Agent Morgan. I need to speak to SAC Taylor Jones.” She paused for a beat of two. “Jones, it’s Morgan. Yes, it most definitely is about that situation in Hell, Georgia. I’ll be detained. It might even be worth one of us poking around down here and seeing just what in the hell is going on. When do I need him? Well, yesterday…yeah. Roberts didn’t get a phone call, there’s some question as to whether she was read her rights and it sounds like the situation is the same with the other prisoner…”

She paused and smiled at the chief while he started to sputter. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Chief.”

“Sorry, sir,” she said, turning her attention back to the phone call. “No, I’ll still be able to continue looking for that information. I’m not sure just what the problem is here, but I’ll stay in touch.”

She was quiet a second. Then she nodded. “Hold on…” She focused her eyes on the sheriff. “Yes, sir… His name? The chief? Chief Mays, I didn’t catch the first name.”

Inside the cell, Linc closed his eyes and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling as Steve Mays started to slowly steam. His eyes all but drilled holes in Taige and she blithely smiled back at him.

No matter how in the hell the rest of his life turned out, Linc was going to remember that moment. The moment fear bled into that cowardly, egotistical, evil son-of-a-bitch’s eyes.

A moment later Taige disconnected the call and gave Mays another one of those winning smiles. “My boss might be coming down for a quick visit,” she said. “Roberts. You can touch base with him then.”

“Just
what
is the fucking problem here?” Mays snarled.

“Oh, civil rights violations for one…that’s not the sort of thing
he
would take a look at. He handles other matters…normally.” She gave the sheriff a bright smile. “But you can imagine he’s going to be concerned with something that involves his people.”

She turned to Jay and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure how long it will take me to get you out. Are you going to be okay?”

It took Taige less than one hundred and twenty seconds to get Jay released from the cell after that point.

Not only did the oh-so-stupid Officer Biff Stahley release her from the cell, he also opened the door to Linc’s as well, after Mays jerked his chin toward it and snarled, “Him too.”

“But—”

“I am
not
dealing with a bunch of uppity, bleeding heart civil rights assholes all because you’re too fucking stupid to read them their rights,” Mays bit off as he turned on his heel and stormed to the front of the station.

Linc shoved off the wall and sauntered out, patted Biff on the shoulder. “One of these days, you might almost pass for a rent-a-cop, kid. It will be okay.”

Biff shoved him.

“Careful there,” Taige said, her voice mocking. “I’d hate to have to testify that you laid your hands on a prisoner… No, wait. I wouldn’t.”

“Fucking cunt,” Biff muttered under his breath. Then he jerked a thumb to the door. “Get the hell out of here so we can finish the paperwork up. I got shit to do.” He went to catch Jay’s arm but she sidled out of his reach, aligning herself with Taige.

Linc looked over at Jay, watched as Taige put herself between them. “I think we can trust her to behave herself,” Taige said levelly. “If you need to manhandle anybody, you can always escort the male prisoner.”

A muscle pulsed in Biff’s cheek but he spun on his heel and stormed out, leaving them to follow.

Taige’s brows arched over her eyes. “Wow.”

Linc thought about mentioning that this wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. But he didn’t see the point.

Mays wanted to gut that bitch.

The problem was it just wasn’t an option. If she had just been some stupid piece of colored trash driving through his town, he could have dealt with her and nobody would have been the wiser.

The problem was that
FBI
attached to her name.

As he led her, the pink- and blue-haired punk bitch and Dawson out into the bullpen, he had to realign his thoughts and accept the facts.

The last thing he needed was to have the FBI messing around with his town. This was
his
town. Once that no-good, piece-of-shit Dawson had resigned himself to that fact and stepped aside, Mays had taken over and that was how things were. His town. He was in charge, ran it his way.

Maybe the Dawson family had more money than the Mays family did, but that didn’t mean shit. They had it because the fuckers had some high and mighty bastards who invented some gadgets, held a few patents. They thought that made them special.

The Mays family had been the real power in this town for a long time, and now he was finally doing just what they were meant to do.

Running things.

His father had been the sheriff until he died of a heart attack. Things had been just fine until then. The man who’d stepped into his shoes had been some dumbass who had wanted to
modernize
things and, for fuck’s sake, there had been a female cop. The chief then had been too fucking soft and then Dawson had come home from college with his fancy-ass degree in law enforcement. People on the town council had liked him, his parents. Too many soft-ass idiots who didn’t know dick about running a town.

An accident had left the one full-time officer in a wheelchair and Dawson had applied. He’d eventually taken over when the sheriff retired and people talked out their asses about what a good job he’d done during his time here. Fuck. A good job? He’d arrested Steve’s boy over bullshit charges. Sexual assault—a girl goes out dressed like a whore, she’ll get treated like one. The charges went nowhere, Steve had seen to that.

And he’d waited. Waited for his chance, but it had been a long time coming.

Dawson didn’t seem to do shit wrong. Kept his business in order, paid his taxes on time. Probably even washed his hands after he jacked off. If he knew how to jack off, that is.

But he’d landed his ass in Steve’s jail a time or two.

Make that three.

Steve might have laughed about it, except somehow this last time had come with an FBI agent.

Or two.

The bitch with the pink-and-blue hair was staring at him.

Her eyes, green as grass, all but glowed as their gazes connected, and his head went a little light. Images flashed through his mind and he slammed a hand against the counter to catch his balance. A cool hand brushed against his.

The girl…what was her name?

DeeDee. Missing.

How long now?

His thoughts got muddled and the air around him felt hotter. Tighter. He struggled to breathe and reached up, jerking at the collar of his shirt.

A hand touched her shoulder.

Jay brushed it off and deepened the connection.

Abruptly, she found herself spun around, staring up at Taige.

“Enough
.”

The voice in her mind was clear as a bell and Jay fought the urge to scream at her.

“You don’t know. You didn’t see—”

“I did,”
Taige countered, her voice cool. “
I saw.”

Then she looked past Jay and stared at the cop.
“We’re in it now, Roberts. We’re not leaving. We’ll figure this out.”

Yeah. Jay looked shot a look over her shoulder, stared at the old, dirty cop. Dirty. Like a piece of shit that clung to her boot. He gazed vacantly off into space, rattled by her careless search of his emotions. Emotions tied to very, very ugly memories.

Then she looked at the source of those memories.

One Lincoln Dawson.

Father of a girl who had been missing.

For two months.

The exact time when he’d broken up with her.

Chapter Five

Back at the station, Jay had turned her head and looked at him, just once. But it had been a soul-deep look that had made him feel like she could see clear through him, all the secrets, all the wounds. Everything he’d struggled to keep hidden for the past eight weeks.

It was as though she’d seen clear down to his soul.

He hated it and, because it was easier to focus on anything except the naked vulnerability that look teased to the surface, he decided to focus on other things.

As they headed down the street, he jammed his hands in his pockets, aware of Morgan and the man with her, who had yet to speak. He had a good eight-mile walk ahead of him. He’d point that out eventually, but for now? If they wanted a view of his back, fine.

“The FBI, Jay? I know a couple of people who do security consults, darlin’,” he said after about five minutes. “Can’t say any of them know any FBI agents who’d come running at the drop of a hat.”

“I didn’t drop a hat.” She shrugged. In the piss-poor light, her skin still managed to gleam like ivory. “I made a phone call.”

“For the record,” Morgan said from behind them. “I’m technically
not
an agent.”

Linc stopped, closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sky. After about ten seconds, he turned and faced Morgan and the man who really, really didn’t like to talk. Bluntly, he asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

That got him a faint smile. “Cullen Morgan. I’m just along for the ride. That phone call Miz Roberts made interrupted a weekend with my wife.”

Morgan…Cullen
… “You’re that writer.”

The man inclined his head.

Linc drilled the heel of his hand against his right eyeball, hoping it might ease the headache that had started to pulse there quite some time ago. It didn’t do much. He hadn’t expected it to. After a few more seconds, he gave up trying and looked at Taige. “So you have an ID that reads
FBI
,” he said, pointedly staring at said badge for a second before shifting his attention back to her face, “but you’re not an agent.”

She dropped one lid in a quick wink. “Sugar, plenty of people work for the Bureau who aren’t agents. I freelance. Don’t worry. I’ve got all the authority I need to say everything I said back there in Dipshit, U.S.A.”

“Dipshit, U.S.A.” He looked around the night-dark town of Hell. “Dipshit doesn’t touch it. Hell suits this town. More than you can describe.”

“I can believe that.” As he slid his eyes over to look at Jay, Taige crossed her arms over her chest. “Why don’t you tell me about your daughter, Linc?”

He froze.

DeeDee
…

Then he turned away, started to walk. He needed to get started on that eight miles so he could get home, get behind the solid wooden doors of his home and bury himself in a bottle of whiskey.

Jay let him get thirty feet away before she looked back at Taige and Cullen. “Why don’t you all find a place to stay for the night, then I’ll call you?”

Taige glanced at her husband, then nodded. “That works.” She pulled a card out of her wallet. “My number.”

Jay accepted, glad she’d managed to get her gloves back. Tucking it into her pocket, she looked up at Linc’s broad back, rapidly disappearing into the night. “You all might sleep more soundly if you found a place out of town.”

“Don’t I know it,” Taige said, her voice more than a little disgusted.

As they headed back down the street toward the bright lights of the police station, Jay turned and headed into the darkness. The farther she got, the darker it became, but she had the disturbing sensation that the farther she got from town, the safer she was.

There was some fucked-up shit going on here. The police weren’t the source of it, but they sure as hell weren’t the solution.

Those long legs of his covered ground fast and she had to jog to catch up.

He didn’t look at her.

It took him almost ten minutes to say anything.

When he did, they weren’t words of welcome.