Chapter Two

Well.

That went smashingly.

Brooding, Jay shoved a hand through her hair and then glanced at the thugs all around her. One was still a strange red color as he struggled to catch his breath. The one who had a busted knee was yowling.

And the one she’d kicked in the chest was crawling to his feet, eyeing her with ugly hate brewing in his eyes. She pulled her phone out and gave him a winning smile. “You ready to dance again, honey?”

He kept his distance.

She thumbed her phone, ready to put in a call to her boss. She was going to need a lawyer. Granted, this was her mess and not related to her job, but she could still make use of one of the lawyers Oz knew.

But there was a message waiting.

From Oz.

You have trouble coming. I’ve reached out to a freelancer the Bureau knows. I can’t be there personally for a few days—personal matters—but the freelancer can be there in a few hours. Keep your head down.

Jay grimaced and responded. Too late, boss.

She read the next text from Oz as she headed out the door. I know. Just keep your mouth shut and don’t say what doesn’t need to be said. I’m on my way.

The beauty of working for one kick-ass psychic bitch. She knew everything, it seemed, even before it happened.

Linc stood by her car, a sexy little Mustang convertible she’d bought after a particularly well-paying job two years ago. She’d only received thirty percent of the fees paid to the Oswald Group, but this fee had been hefty. A rather infamous porn star’s daughter had been kidnapped. About ninety-seven percent of the world hadn’t even realized he had a daughter. That narrowed the suspect pool quite a bit. But Trevorr Starr hadn’t wanted to go to the cops because he already knew who had her, and why, and he didn’t want to go public about his daughter. She had a nice, normal life and hadn’t realized what her father did for a living. He wanted it to stay that way so he’d turned to the Oswald Group and told them he’d pay any price, offering them one million dollars, but they’d have to sign confidentiality agreements.

Oz had said they could do it for half that and confidentiality agreements were standard for all jobs.

The child had been with Starr’s ex-girlfriend on a beach down in Mexico. The ex was now doing time in a jail almost too posh to be considered a jail. Jay had used her cut of the money to pay off quite a bit of debt, plus put down a heavy chunk of change on this car. Her baby.

Sometimes, though, when she sat inside it, she remembered how that little girl had looked up at her when Jay found her.

Are you going to take me back to my dad? I miss him.

Not all the jobs ended so easily.

Although she didn’t make a sound, Linc heard her and turned to face her, his face resolute, his eyes cold and unyielding. His gaze flicked over her before returning to meet hers. “Why are you here?”

“Wow, Linc. Such a nice greeting. It’s so nice to finally meet you too.”

His lashes swept down. “We talked about this…it’s not working out.”

There was a wail of sirens. He turned his head, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. Then he looked back at her. “You need to leave. Now. Don’t ask questions, just go. If you don’t—”

The black-and-white came screaming around the curb and his shoulders tightened.

“Too late,” he muttered. He took a step toward her. “Get inside the store. Lock yourself in the bathroom. If you know anybody important, for God’s sake, call them now.”

Something knotted in her gut at the intent look on his face.

His eyes flashed as he continued to stare at her. “Did you hear me? Call a lawyer. Fuck, if you know a senator, call them. Anybody who would care if you disappeared off the face of the earth, call them.”

She arched a brow. And then, because she was curious, she shrugged and turned around, headed back into the store.

She didn’t need to make a call, but she did wonder why he was so intent on it.

As the police cruiser came to a stop in front of him, Linc pretended boredom and leaned back against Jay’s car.

He’d been the one to break Lloyd’s knee.

He’d been the one to bust Jimmy Hutchins in the throat.

Right now, Jay was out of sight and maybe, if she stayed that way, the pussies running the police department would be more interested in Linc than her. He could even push them hard enough to get them that way. They wouldn’t make him disappear, that much was certain. They’d already attempted to go that route and it hadn’t gone well for them. All they’d do was make his life a living hell, and what more could they do that they hadn’t already done—

He cut that thought off as he thought of Jay, back there in the gas station, completely unaware of the backass town she’d walked into.

How had this happened?

How had everything gotten even more fucked up?

Five minutes. It had taken five minutes for everything to go straight to shit. The black-and-white came to a stop in front of him and Linc stretched out his legs, arms crossed negligently over his chest as a man by the name of Biff Stahley climbed out.

Biff. His mom must have just wanted the boy to be an asshole. Hadn’t she watched Back to the Future? Good ol’ Biff adjusted his uniform, keeping his hand on the weapon at his side as he approached Linc, his chest puffed out and his eyes, narrow and cruel, locked on Linc’s face.

Yeah, you dickhead. I see the gun. I’m not impressed.

“Lincoln. What’s the problem here?”

“Problem?” Lincoln rubbed his jaw and shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Bryce came boiling out of the station like his ass was on fire. “He broke poor Lloyd’s knee! This slutty bitch was in the store and Lloyd was just talking to her and then Dawson shows up and he starts causing trouble, then he broke Lloyd’s knee.”

Linc shoved off the car, glaring at Bryce. “Watch your mouth, son,” he said quietly.

Bryce went white, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “She’s dressed like a whore. What do you want me to say?” he asked, jerking his chin up in the air.

“Your sister has on less clothing than Ms. Roberts does when she goes up for the Miss Georgia pageant. Is she dressed like a whore?” Linc asked.

Bryce gaped, opening and closing his mouth like a fish before finally finding his voice. “Now you see here. You can’t—” He stopped, started all over again. “You don’t go calling my sister a whore.”

“I didn’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head. “But you seem to think how a woman dresses decides how she gets to be treated. Your sister goes up and down a runway in a bikini that barely covers her. I figure you apply that method of reasoning to all females. For that matter, don’t you date Maribeth? She works over at Clive’s on the weekends and he makes the girls wear an outfit not too different from the ones the Hooters girls wear. Does that mean Maribeth is a whore?”

“You…” Bryce opened and closed his mouth, unable to find anything to say. He jabbed a finger at him. “I oughta tell Clive what you said. If he tells his girls what you think, ain’t none of them going to want to wait on you. And Maribeth’s daddy will hunt you down.”

“You’re the one applying that logic. I think it’s shit. A woman’s clothing doesn’t make her a whore—selling her body for sex does that.” He smiled thinly, watched as Bryce went red. Because they both knew Maribeth had actually been arrested for that out behind Clive’s. Twice. Then he shrugged and looked over at Biff. “Are we discussing this or would you like to call an ambulance for Lloyd? I think he could use one. His knee is probably busted.”

Biff jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t tell me how to do my job. You ain’t the law around here no more.”

Closing his eyes, Linc waited as Biff put out the call for an ambulance.

The bathroom smelled like a pigsty.

The rust stains on the toilet, the sink, were so thick she wondered when the place had last been cleaned.

She made herself tough it out for five minutes while she used her phone to do a quick search on a little place called Hell. And man, did Hell have its share of demons. That quick search didn’t yield much, but she did see a handful of suicides, several missing persons’ cases—a few of them recent. Her gut twisted and she muttered, “What is going on here?”

Rubbing her temple, a dark, ugly headache pressing down on her, she shut down the window and then went and cleared out the search so it wouldn’t show. Through the piss-poor excuse of a door, she heard the voices out in the store, heard somebody groaning and a guy swearing.

“He broke my knee, the fucker. I was just talking to that girl, and he broke it…”

She closed her eyes. Just talking. And she was just taking in the scenery here in Hell.

She tucked her phone away and shoved off the door. Even though she hadn’t touched anything in the bathroom, she washed her hands and used a paper towel to open the door. She really didn’t want to pick up any germs from that nasty room. They were probably mutated and feeding off each other at that point. Once out in the store, she found herself the focus of much attention.

The cop’s attention zoomed in on her.

As his gaze dropped to her tits, she suppressed a sigh.

Yeah, some classy material they had here in the fine town of Hell.

With a brittle smile, she said, “Wow. You frequently check out a girl’s rack like that, officer?”

Most guys would look away when they were called out like that. Many would blush.

This fucker just continued to stare another five seconds.

Behind him, Linc’s eyes shot daggers into his back.

She had a feeling if his hands hadn’t been cuffed behind his back, things might have gotten ugly fast.

She wished she could say she was surprised to see him cuffed.

But his little warning outside earlier had already told her that things weren’t the way they should be.

Then again, the town was called Hell.

Maybe everything was as it should be.

“I understand there’s been some trouble,” the officer said, once he finally dragged his eyes away from her tits.

Jay smiled. “Oh, you could say that.” She angled her chin toward the ambulance where the EMTs were loading up the guy who had started the whole mess. “That dickwad there didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. I was trying to leave, he was in my way. Decided he could put his hands on me. Things…escalated.”

“Escalated.” The officer nodded. She checked his name, made a mental note. Officer Stahley crossed his arms over his chest, still studying her. “Things escalated and a man’s knee is broken. Did it ever occur to you to call the cops?”

“Well…” She pursed her lips. “I’m sure that would have occurred, except it went from him putting his hands on me to one of his friends trying to grab me, all in about thirty seconds flat. I reacted. Thought came later.”

The boy who’d been behind the counter spoke up then. “I called the cops.”

Officer Stahley said, “As you should have, Bryce. It’s appreciated. And all of this could have been avoided. Miss…?”

“Roberts.” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets and smiled coolly. She already knew where this was going, but she wasn’t going to make it easy.

“Miss Roberts. You’ll have to come with me. You can make a phone call once we get down to the station.”

Flicking a look at Linc, she shrugged. “Oh, I already made a phone call…or three. It will take some time for my lawyer to get here, though. I guess I’ll be spending the night.”

His eyes went tight. “You called a lawyer.”

“Yeah. I just had a weird feeling, I guess.” She shot a look at the kid. “Considering how I was the one those dickheads were hassling, but that punk is the one who thinks I’m to blame, I had a feeling it might be in my best interest to make some friends aware of the situation.”

The cop in front of her stood ramrod straight, his spine stiff, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke coming from his ears.

Linc, though, if she wasn’t mistaken, had a faint smile on his face and looked like he’d relaxed. Just a little.

The cop rubbed his chin, eyeing her narrowly. “Where did you say you were from, Miss Roberts?”

“I didn’t.” She gave him a winning smile. “I’m from Texas. I’ve got friends here, though. In Atlanta.”

He tugged on his lower lip as he watched her. “Just what brings you to Hell? We’re not exactly prime tourist material.”

“Oh, I was just driving through to visit Linc.” She flicked at her sleeve and then leveled a direct stare at the cop. “I’m on my way to Washington, D.C.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw but he inclined his head. “That trip will be delayed a bit. Too bad you didn’t make that call to the cops.”

“Oh, that’s all right. My friends are aware of the delay. They’ll be in touch.”

In the cell next to hers, Linc leaned against the grimy gray wall and closed his eyes.

They’d been here for three hours and nobody had come in to speak with them.

Nobody had come to take their statements.

They hadn’t even been read their rights.

It was like this place was trapped in a bygone era, and not a good one.

Out in the main part of the station, Jay could hear the low murmur of voices, punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter, and the scent of pizza filled the air about two hours after they’d been locked back there.

She was thirsty.

She was also hungry.

She hadn’t eaten since about one that afternoon and it was pushing up on eleven.

Maybe these yahoos just didn’t see fit to offer food to the people in the cells.

She didn’t know. After all, they didn’t offer them phone calls.

She calculated the time and wondered how much longer it might be before that mysterious freelancer would arrive. Just who was it and where was he or she coming from?

Might have been nice to get that information.

Information…

There was more information she’d like to have.

Sighing, she sat with her back to the wall and slid down, eyeing the door, keeping Linc in her line of sight as well.

“You shouldn’t have come down here.”

Linc’s voice, pitched low, was barely loud enough for her to hear it. Turning her head, she studied him in the dim light. Skyping with him, the pictures, none of it had done him justice.

His skin was a deep, warm gold, the sort of tan that came from many, many hours spent under the sun, and his eyes were a rather amazing shade of blue. They practically glowed against his skin and when he looked at her, her heart all but stopped.

She’d known he was bald, but the word bald brought to mind something a little less appealing that what he was. His naked scalp had her wanting to press her lips to his skin, skim her hands along the lines of his finely molded skull and learn him by touch.

A neatly cropped goatee and mustache set off a mouth that just begged for kisses.

Well, she’d be happy to give him those kisses, except for her little problem with physical contact.

Right now, she really, really hated that problem.

He was massive. Jay hadn’t ever really liked big men, but she definitely liked him. He stood six five, something she’d known beforehand, because he’d told her, but seeing him in person told her just how big he was. He wasn’t just tall, either. His chest was a solid wall, one she’d like to lean against just then. Lean against, while he wrapped his arms around her and she listened to the cadence of his heart.

That was something she longed for. Simple contact. She craved it. And now, with him this close, she craved it that much more.

Maybe…

As though he sensed what she was feeling, he pushed off the wall and came to her, sinking down and sliding his hand through the bars. The jail was old, the cells looking like they’d been done sometime back in the 1800s, complete with iron bars. They might be that old, although they’d been updated at some point.

She stared at his hand, longing pulsing through her.

They’d made her take her gloves off. No reason to, other than to be assholes, but they’d made her remove her gloves and that skin-to-skin contact…

Slowly, she reached out, touched her fingers lightly to his. She could do light contact for short periods of time as long as her shields were up. There would be a press against her shields, though. But it shouldn’t be too taxing. She’d learned to handle light touches a long time ago and she could handle this, surely.

Bracing herself, she tucked her hand inside his—

And felt nothing.

A slight shock hit her.

Nothing.

Well. Not nothing. His touch sent an electric shock zinging through her and her nipples went tight, pressing against the material of her bra. Her blood, hot and molten, pulsed through her veins and she wanted to feel his hand stroking over her, something much more than just an innocent touch. Sucking in a slow, careful breath, she lifted her eyes and met his.

He stared at her, his gaze hooded. He had no idea how much this shattered her. Being able to enjoy such an innocent touch. Being desperate for so much more.

Some people were psychic nulls—they weren’t easily read by psychics and they gave off little or no psychic vibes. And somehow, she’d managed to find one. Not just find one, but fall for one.

Except he had up and dumped her, for no reason.

My ass, she thought.

If he was going to walk before they’d really had a chance to even start, she’d damn well know why.

Licking her lips, she twined her fingers with his, taking a moment to just enjoy that simple pleasure. His palm, work-roughened and warm, almost hot, against hers. She could actually enjoy this touch. She’d never been able to do that before. Hesitant, she lowered the first layer of shields and was amazed that she could do that and still pick up nothing from him.

There was the background noise she’d expect from the others, but that was nothing. She dealt with that all the time and would take it happily if it meant she could touch somebody.

Touch Linc—

Not now, Jay. Shaking herself mentally, she snapped herself back to attention.

She had more to do than just enjoy the fact that she could hold a man’s hand for the first time in her entire life. Still, she gave herself another few seconds to enjoy before she focused her eyes on his.

He was watching her from under his lashes and although he had a mask of boredom set firmly in place, she made a living off reading people. Not just their emotions, but body language, nuances, little shifts most people didn’t even realize they made. He was better than most—probably ninety-seven percent of the people she’d come across.

But she could still pick up on enough.

He was…worried. Had been even more worried, maybe even terrified, back at the gas station.

She wanted to know why.

“Just what is going on here, Linc?” she asked, rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand. “And I’m not just talking about that idiot boy in the gas station or the rednecks, or even the cop. There’s something really messed up going on here.”

To his credit, he didn’t pretend not to understand what she was talking about. He looked past her, staring at the bars as though that alone would summon somebody to open the doors.

“It’s nothing you can help with, Jay. Did you really call your lawyer?”

She studied his eyes. They were almost too beautiful for him, she decided. A beautiful, rich shade of blue, so blue they almost appeared violet. Against the dark, swarthy tan of his skin, they were just that much more breathtaking, framed by thick, heavy lashes. His face was all angles and harsh lines and if it wasn’t for those extraordinary eyes, he might be just too much. The eyes softened him, just a little.

Now, though, his eyes were cold, like an icy pond, freezing over under a twilight sky.

She smiled at him, flashing the dimple that she’d been told could sucker almost anybody in. It didn’t seem to sway him, but Linc didn’t come across as an easily swayed man. “You told me if I knew anybody important,” she said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “I got word to the most important person I possibly could. I’ll have somebody here soon. Now…I want answers.”

She held her breath, waiting.

Linc studied her face, framed by hair that should have looked silly. All he wanted to do was strip her naked. He wanted to see that pink- and blue-striped hair on his pillow, watch those pretty green eyes get foggy as he kissed his way across that peaches and cream skin, press his mouth to her core and listen as he made her come.

One night in heaven, he thought, before he lost himself in his personal hell.

She wanted answers, though, and he had none to offer her.

If he told her what was going on, she’d want to stay.

Stay…that was the absolute last thing she could do. He had to get her out of here.

She’d want to help him get through this, and there was no way to get him through this.

There was no getting through this.

There was no easy answer, no solution. No end in sight. And he wasn’t going to drag her down with him.

He thought of night after sleepless night, day after endless day of searching for answers.

Thought of the empty bedroom.

Thought of the accusing eyes of his daughter, the only person who’d loved him unconditionally, counted on him, needed him. The way she’d stared at him that night. Why can’t you just let me grow up, Dad?

Now, she’d never have the chance.

Unconsciously, he tightened his hand, all but crushing Jay’s softer, smaller one in his grasp. He jerked away and swore, looking down in horror as her hand went red. She never made a sound, just continued to stare at him, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice ragged.

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked.

There’s nothing to say. He opened his mouth to give her that empty lie.

Before he had a chance, the door opened.