The Departed Read Free Page A

mattered. All that could matter.
    But his body didn’t want to listen to reason and he had to dredge up dark, ugly memories.
    All of it necessary to ground himself, something he had to do around her, more and more.
    He needed distance between them, a great deal of distance. But somehow, he didn’t think she’d like it if he suggested she quit. And as his unit was rather unique, if she didn’t, the only way he could get distance was if one of them requested a transfer.
    Dez would never do it. She’d joined the FBI specifically to come work for him—she needed it.
    Her dark brown eyes moved past him once again, lingering on the porch, and there was an expression in them that he had seen all too often. Haunted, angry, and determined. That haunted look appeared in her eyes for one reason and one reason only.
    She had a ghost riding her.
    Shit . He might have intel on the outside, but it looked like Dez had intel on the inside , and if she did, he couldn’t risk a child…
    “What do you see?” he asked, his voice flat and cold.
    * * *
     
    HER name was Richelle. In life, she had been a petite, pretty little angel, one who had probably driven her mom and dad insane, one they had probably loved dearly. Her death would have left a hole in their hearts and Dez wondered if they were the open sort…the kind of people she could sit down and talk to.
    Could she tell them what she was? What she did? That she’d seen Richelle, spoken with her? Would it help them? Hurt them?
    Could she tell them that Richelle had helped her save another child?
    That’s assuming you do save her, she thought grimly as she followed Richelle’s wavering form down the hallway. Taylor was at her back, shadowing her every move.
    It was just the two of them, and it had taken every persuasive argument she had in her arsenal to get him to do this. If there was a child in the house, they needed to get her out. Dez had eyes—the ghost would help her, she knew it, clear down to her bones, and she’d been right.
    Richelle was doing just that. A petite, avenging angel. She was hauntingly lovely, and death had made her ethereal.
    And angry.
    Right now, her killer was ensconced in the front of the house, staring entranced out the front window and mumbling to himself.
    Richelle insisted he had a girl with him, but Colby had spent the past twenty minutes saying otherwise. Hell, he was probably still out there trying to convince the rest of the team Dez was wrong.
    Colby sensed people. Living people.
    If there was somebody else in there besides their killer and Colby didn’t feel her, then chances were, the child was dead, and by letting Dez go in alone , with nobody but a ghost for a guide, they would likely be giving the bastard a potential hostage.
    Taylor, naturally, had agreed. So she wouldn’t go alone. She could live with that—after all, she wasn’t stupid.
    Nor was she helpless. She held her gun in a loose, ready grip.
    Hostage, my ass .
    She might not be the typical agent and she might not be the badass some of them were, but she’d made it through the same training they had, and she still kept herself in pretty decent shape. The day she couldn’t handle herself against a child-molesting, motherfucking pervert was the day she’d put down her gun and take up knitting—just let the ghosts drive her crazy, because she wouldn’t be much use to anybody anyway.
    “She’s in the closet.” Richelle’s ghostly voice, audible only to her, drifted back to her. “ Gave her something to make her sleep.”
    Dez hoped it was just drugs, but logically, she knew Colby was likely to sense a child, even one knocked out by drugs.
    Not many things would keep him from sensing the presence of a human.
    Dez wanted to ask Richelle if she knew what the guy had used but she knew it was a waste of time. Richelle was only ten—wicked smart and surprisingly clear minded, especially for one of the departed. But still, the child was only ten.
    And now, she’d never