THE DEPARTED - Shiloh Walker
FBI Psychics , Book 2
Berkley Sensation
ISBN: 978-0-425-24521-7
January 2012
Paranormal Romantic Suspense

French Lick, Indiana - Present Day

After a mission results in Agent Desiree Lincoln being shot, Special Agent Taylor Jones can no longer deny the attraction he feels for her.  The night he brings her home from the hospital, they both give in to their feelings, but in the morning, Taylor goes back to being her boss and tries to put her on leave.  For Dez, the work she does isn't just a job—it's her sanity.  The team consists of “gifted” individuals, and without the job to focus her, the lost souls—or departed—that Dez sees would be uncontrollable.  Unable to live with the leave, or the emotional distance Taylor insists on, Dez quits the team and strikes out on her own.

Fourteen months later, a spirit calls to Dez and she finds herself in French Lick, Indiana.  The ghost is a teenage boy named Tristan, who insists that he didn't commit suicide; he was murdered because he wouldn't go along with his friends' plan to kill a young woman.  With Tristan's help, she is able to find the girl, but just as Dez is about to rescue her, Taylor shows up.

Though almost obsessively dedicated to his job, this is the one time of year that Taylor Jones takes personal time.  Twenty-five years ago, his six-year-old sister, Anna, disappeared and has never been found.  On the anniversary of her disappearance, Taylor returns to his hometown where he's haunted by the ghosts of his past.  When the call comes that Dez needs help, he agrees to help her, even though he's spent the past year avoiding her.  The soul she's helping turns out to be just the beginning of the trouble Dez finds in French Lick, and instinct tells Taylor that it's time for him to face his problems, both with Dez and Anna, once and for all.

He may not be gifted himself, but Taylor Jones has a talent for finding the gifted and employing them within his special division of the FBI.  He's also aware of the toll those gifts can take on his people, but his own desire to distance himself from Dez causes him to ignore that, and he may just have lost her forever.  Taylor 's past drives him in his job, which focuses a bit on missing children, yet it also causes him to close himself off from people.  Dez's past hasn't been much better, but she's known almost from the beginning that Taylor is the one for her.  Their wonderful night together is ruined by his emotional withdrawal, and she decides that, for the sake of her heart, she'd be better off away from him.  When fate brings them back together, it's possible they can have a second chance, if he's willing to admit to the feelings she knows he has.

The case that reunites Dez and Taylor is a chilling one, as a few young men have decided to make their senior year of high school a memorable one.  Dez's gift has always been communicating with the departed, but now she'll have to use more than her gift if she wants to stop the evil in this small town.  An even blend of romance and suspense, THE DEPARTED is a captivating story that will be difficult to put down.

Jennifer Bishop