Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation: Forbidden Territory / Forbidden Temptation
Paula Graves
WALKING AWAY FROM DANGER IS NOT AN OPTION FOR THESE MEN! FORBIDDEN TERRITORY Lieutenant McBride has no time for psychics–he has a kidnapper to catch and a little girl to rescue. But the honey-haired Lily Browning with the golden eyes sees things no one else does–including his own tragic secret. With a child's life at stake, he must trust Lily…even as each step plunges them deeper into danger and the uncharted territory of irresistible desire.FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION On a manhunt for the killer named Orion, hotshot criminal profiler Daniel Hartman is trying to put his ghosts to rest. Orion's latest target is Rose Browning, a matchmaker with a gift for predicting true love. Tempted by secrets she can't reveal, Daniel insists on offering some very personal protection. But can he safeguard this raven-haired beauty before his desire for revenge becomes an obsession?
Walking away from danger is not an option for these men! Two reader-favorite stories from Paula Graves.
Forbidden Territory
Lieutenant McBride has no time for psychics—he has a kidnapper to catch and a little girl to rescue. But the honey-haired Lily Browning with the golden eyes sees things no one else does—including his own tragic secret. With a child's life at stake, he must trust Lily…even as each step plunges them deeper into danger and the uncharted territory of irresistible desire.
Forbidden Temptation
On a manhunt for the killer named Orion, hotshot criminal profiler Daniel Hartman is trying to put his ghosts to rest. Orion's latest target is Rose Browning, a matchmaker with a gift for predicting true love. Tempted by secrets she can't reveal, Daniel insists on offering some very personal protection. But can he safeguard this raven-haired beauty before his desire for revenge becomes an obsession?
Praise for Paula Graves
“From the opening scene to the amazingly realistic and surprise ending, your ride through the pages of Forbidden Territory will take you where nothing is as it seems.”
—CataRomance.com
“4 stars…(a) wonderfully twisted story of compelling people dealing with a terrifying situation.”
—RT Book Reviews on Forbidden Territory
“Paula Graves delivers a chilling, thrilling cocktail of suspense and romance.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“She yanks the reader into the story as the first bomb explodes, and she doesn’t let go until the final page.”
—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Major Nanny
“The tension and romance kept me reading.”
—Fresh Fiction on Murder in the Smokies
“4½ stars… Top Pick! A top-notch psychological roller coaster…”
—RT Book Reviews on Forbidden Temptation
PAULA GRAVES,
an Alabama native, wrote her first book at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. Paula invites readers to visit her website, paulagraves.com (http://www.paulagraves.com).
Books by Paula Graves
Harlequin Intrigue
The Gates
Dead Man’s Curve
Crybaby Falls
Boneyard Ridge
Deception Lake
Killshadow Road
Two Souls Hollow
Bitterwood PD
Murder in the Smokies
The Smoky Mountain Mist
Smoky Ridge Curse
Blood on Copperhead Trail
The Secret of Cherokee Cove
The Legend of Smuggler’s Cave
Visit the Author Profile page at
Harlequin.com (http://www.Harlequin.com) for more titles.
Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation
Paula Graves
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FORBIDDEN TERRITORY (#udf8d1f36-9ccf-5192-bb26-b80e59de49d1)
FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION (#litres_trial_promo)
Forbidden Territory
This book is dedicated to my mother, for not
laughing when I told her I wanted to be a writer;
to Jenn, for putting up with my doubts, my fears
and my dangling participles; and to Kris,
for believing in this story when I didn’t.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 (#u21d1b85c-736c-5b5c-8b32-f50084c3ffe8)
Chapter 2 (#u57d0eb4b-d558-558a-b611-090b133cb7c1)
Chapter 3 (#u6f91f6ca-13cd-5633-96b5-90ec5aef732d)
Chapter 4 (#u930a9ca3-4571-5651-8a3b-8cc907b64783)
Chapter 5 (#u58fdc3d9-f678-52c0-927c-581166a92b46)
Chapter 6 (#u24ecfb56-505e-5fd4-8744-8dea34ecd39f)
Chapter 7 (#u6d7baccb-db30-5b69-a45e-e0ea6bffe2f2)
Chapter 8 (#u8b6fcecb-3103-59da-9a6a-52874be00954)
Chapter 9 (#ue95ef00f-3f95-56b7-817c-f9bcb191e1b4)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE VISION CAME without warning, a door bursting open in her mind.
Frightened blue eyes, red-rimmed from crying.
Freckled cheeks, smudged with tears and dirt.
Red hair, tangled and sweat-darkened.
A terrified cry. “Daddy, help me!”
Lily Browning pressed her fingers against her temples and squeezed her eyes closed. Explosions of light and pain raced through her head like arcs of tracer fire. Around her, a thick gray mist swirled. Moisture beaded on her brow, grew heavy and slid down her cheek.
She opened her eyes, afraid of what she would see.
It was just an empty schoolroom, the remains of the morning’s classes scattered about the space—backpacks draped by their straps over the backs of chairs, books lying askew. The kids were still at recess.
“Lily?” A woman’s voice broke the silence. Lily jumped.
Carmen Herrera, the assistant principal, stood at the entrance of the classroom, but it was the man behind her who commanded Lily’s attention. His dark hair was crisp and close-cut, emphasizing his rough-hewn features and hard hazel eyes. His gaze swept over Lily in a quick but thorough appraisal.
The door in her mind crept open again. She stiffened, forcing it shut, her head pounding from the strain. Pain danced behind her eyes, the familiar opening salvo of a migraine.
“Headache again?” Carmen asked, concerned.
Lily pushed herself upright. “It’s not too bad.” But already the room began to spin. Swaying, she gripped the edge of the desk.
The man in the charcoal suit pushed past Carmen to cup Lily’s elbow, holding her steady. “Are you all right?”
Lily’s arm tingled where he touched her. Raw, barely leashed power rolled off him in waves, almost as tangible as the scent of his aftershave. It swamped her, stole her breath.
He said her name, his fingers tightening around her elbow. Something else besides power flooded through her. Something dark and bitter and raw.
She met his gaze—and immediately regretted it.
“Help me, Daddy!” The cry echoed in her head. Fog blurred the edges of her sight.
Swallowing hard, she fought the relentless under-tow and pulled her elbow from the man’s grasp, resisting the urge to rub away the lingering sensation of his touch. “I’m fine.”
“Lily gets migraines,” Carmen explained. “Not that often, but when they hit, they’re doozies.”
Lily heard a thread of anxiety woven in the woman’s usually upbeat, calm voice. A chill flowed through her, raising goose bumps on her arms. “Has something happened?”
Something passed between Carmen and the man beside her. “Lily, this is Lieutenant McBride with the police. Lieutenant, this is Lily Browning. She teaches third grade.” Carmen closed the classroom door behind her and lowered her voice. “One of our students is missing. Lieutenant McBride’s talking to all the teachers to find out whether they’ve seen her.”
Red-rimmed eyes.
Tearstained face.
Frightened cries.
Lily’s head spun.
Lieutenant McBride pulled a photo from his coat pocket and held it out to her. She shut her eyes, afraid to look.
“Ms. Browning?” He sounded concerned, even solicitous, but suspicion lurked behind the polite words.
Lily forced herself to look at the picture he held. A smiling face stared up at her from the photo framed by red curls scooped into a topknot and fastened with a green velvet ribbon.
Lily thought she was going to throw up.
“You haven’t seen her today, have you?” McBride asked. “Her name is Abby Walters. She’s a first-grader here.”
“I don’t have a lot of contact with first-graders.” Lily shook her head, feeling helpless and guilty. The sandwich she’d eaten at lunch threatened to come back up, and she didn’t want it to end up on the lieutenant’s scuffed Rockports.
“You’ve never seen her?” A dark expression passed across McBride’s face. Pain, maybe, or anger. It surged over Lily, rattling her spine and cracking open the door of her mind.
Unwanted sounds and images flooded inside. The lost girl, now smiling, cuddled in a man’s arms, listening to his warm voice tell the story of The Velveteen Rabbit. Red curls tucked under a bright blue knit cap, cheeks pink with—
Cold. So cold.
Scared.
Screaming.
Crying.
Grimy tears streamed down a face twisted with terror, hot and wet on her cold, cold cheeks. Panic built in Lily’s chest. She pushed against the vision, forcing it away.
“We have reason to believe that Abby Walters may have been taken from her mother this morning,” he said.
“Where’s her mother?”
“She’s dead.”
The words sent ice racing through Lily’s veins. She swallowed hard and lied. “I haven’t seen this little girl.”
McBride gave her an odd, considering look before he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you think of anything that might help us find her, call me.”
She took the card from him, his palpable suspicion like a weight bending her spine.
Carmen had kept her distance while McBride talked to Lily, but once he turned back toward the door, she moved past him and took Lily’s hand. “Go home and sleep off this headache. I’ll send Linda from the office to cover for you.” She glanced at the detective, who watched them from the doorway. “I can’t believe something like this has happened to one of our kids. I’m working on a migraine myself.” She returned to McBride’s side to escort him from the room.
Lily thrust the business card into her skirt pocket and slumped against the edge of her desk. Sparks of colored light danced behind her eyes, promising more pain to come. She debated trying to stick out the rest of the afternoon, but her stomach rebelled. She barely made it to the bathroom before her lunch came up.
As soon as Linda arrived to cover her class, Lily headed for the exit, weaving her way through the groups of laughing children returning to their classrooms, until she reached her Buick, parked beneath one of the ancient oak trees that sheltered the schoolyard. She slid behind the wheel and closed the door, gratefully shutting out the shrieks and shouts from the playground.
In the quiet, doubts besieged her. She should have told the detective about her visions. She couldn’t make much sense of the things she’d seen, but Lieutenant McBride might. What if her silence cost that little girl her life?
Lily pulled the business card from her pocket and squinted at the small, narrow type made wavy by her throbbing head. The scent of his crisp aftershave lingered on the card. Lily closed her eyes, remembering his square jaw and lean, hard face. And those eyes—clear, intense, hard as flint.
She knew the type well. Give him the facts, give him evidence, but don’t give him any psychic crap.
Lieutenant McBride would never believe what she’d seen.
* * *
BY MIDAFTERNOON, WHEN Andrew Walters called from a southbound jet to demand answers about his missing daughter, McBride realized he faced a worst-case scenario. Less than one percent of children abducted were taken by people outside of their own families. Most child abductions were custody matters, mothers or fathers unhappy with court arrangements taking matters into their own hands.
But there was no custody battle in the Walters case. From all accounts, Andrew Walters had no complaints about the custody arrangement with his ex-wife. Over the phone, at least, he’d seemed genuinely shocked to hear his ex-wife had been murdered.
When he learned Abby was missing, shock turned to panic.
“Did you check her school?” he asked McBride, his voice tight with alarm.
“Yes.” The memory of Lily Browning’s pale face and wild, honey-colored eyes filled McBride’s mind, piquing his curiosity—and suspicion—all over again.
“Is there any reason to think Abby might…” Andrew Walters couldn’t finish the question.
“It’s too early to think that way.”
“Are you sure Abby was with Debra?”
“As sure as we can be.” When they’d found Debra Walters dead on the side of Old Cumberland Road, a clear plastic backpack with Abby’s classwork folder and a couple of primary readers had been lying next to her. Furthermore, neighbors remembered seeing Abby in the car with Debra that morning when she’d left the house.
Her car, a blue Lexus, was missing.
They’d held out hope that Debra had delivered her daughter to school before the carjacking, but McBride’s trip to the school had turned up no sign of Abby.
McBride looked down at his desk blotter, where Abby’s photo lay, challenging him. He reached for the bottle of antacid tablets by his pencil holder and popped a couple in his mouth, grimacing at the chalky, fake-orange taste. “We’ve set up a task force to find your daughter. An Amber Alert has been issued. Her photo will be on every newscast in Alabama this evening. We’ve set up a phone monitoring system at the hotel where you usually stay when you’re in Borland, and a policeman will be within easy reach any time of the day or night. If you get a call from anyone about your daughter, we’ll be ready.”
“You don’t have a suspect yet?” Walters sounded appalled.
“Not yet. There’s an APB out on the car, and we’ve got technicians scouring the crime scene—”
“That could take days! Abby doesn’t have days.”
McBride passed his hand over his face, wishing he could assure Walters that his daughter would be found, safe and unharmed. But she’d been taken by carjackers who’d left her mother dead. McBride didn’t want to think why they’d taken her with them instead of killing her when they’d killed her mother.
In the burning pit of McBride’s gut, he knew he’d find Abby Walters dead. Today or tomorrow or months down the road, her little body would turn up in a Dumpster or an abandoned building or at the bottom of a ditch along the highway.
But he couldn’t say that to Andrew Walters.
Walters’s voice was tinny through the air phone. “Nobody’s called in with sightings?”
“Not yet.” A few calls had come in as soon as the Amber Alert went out. The usual loons. McBride had sent men to check on them, but, of course, nothing had panned out.
“Come on—when something like this happens, you get calls out your ass.” Anger and anxiety battled in Walters’s voice. “Don’t you dare dismiss them all as crackpots.”
“We’re following every lead.”
“I want my daughter found. Understood?”
“Understood.” McBride ignored the imperious tone in Walters’s voice. The man was a politician, used to making things happen just because he said so. And God knew, McBride couldn’t blame him for wanting his daughter brought home at any cost.
But he knew how these things went. He’d seen it up close and personal. The parent of a lost child was desperate and vulnerable. A nut job with a snappy sales pitch could convince a grieving parent of just about anything.
“We’re about to land,” Walters said. “I have to hang up.”
“One of my men, Theo Baker, will meet you at the airport and drive you to your hotel,” McBride said. “I’ll be by this evening unless something comes up in the case. Please, try not to worry until we know what it is we have to worry about.”
Andrew Walters’s bitter laugh was the last thing McBride heard before the man hung up.
McBride slumped in his chair, anger churning in his gut. The world was mostly a terrible place, full of monsters. Killers, rapists, pedophiles, users, abusers—McBride had seen them all, their evil masked by such ordinary faces.
A monster had taken Abby Walters, and the longer he kept her, the less hope they had of ever getting her back alive.
McBride picked up Abby’s photo, his expression softening at the sight of her gap-toothed grin. “Where are you, baby?”
She wasn’t really a pretty child, all knees, elbows and freckles, but in the picture, the sheer joy of life danced in her bright blue eyes. People would notice a kid like Abby Walters. Even in the photo, she had a way about her.
Her picture had certainly affected Lily Browning, though not how McBride had expected. When he’d shown Abby’s picture to others at the school, the grinning child immediately brought smiles to their faces. But Lily had looked ill from the start.
She was keeping secrets.
About Abby Walters? McBride couldn’t say for sure, but sixteen years as a cop had honed his suspicious nature to a fine edge. He knew she couldn’t have been in on the kidnapping; witness testimony had narrowed down Debra Walters’s time of death to sometime between seven-twenty and eight-thirty in the morning. According to Carmen Herrera, Lily Browning had been in a meeting at six-thirty and hadn’t left it until seven-forty, when students started trickling in. She’d been in class after that.
But he couldn’t forget her odd reaction to Abby’s photo.
On a hunch, McBride pulled up the DMV database on his computer and punched in Lily Browning’s name. While he waited for the response, he mentally replayed his meeting with her.
He’d noticed her eyes first. Large, more gold than brown, framed by long, dark lashes. Behind those eyes lay mysteries. Of that much, McBride was certain.
She was in her twenties—mid to late, he guessed. With clear, unblemished skin as pale as milk, maybe due to the headache. Or was she naturally that fair? In stark contrast, her hair was almost black, worn shoulder-length and loose, with a natural wave that danced when she moved.
She was beautiful in the way that wild things were beautiful. He got the impression of a woman apart, alone, always on the fringes. Never quite fitting in.
A loner with secrets. Never a good combination.
The file came up finally, and McBride took a look. Lily Browning, no middle initial given. Twenty-nine years old, brown hair, brown eyes—gold eyes, he amended mentally. An address on Okmulgee Road, not far from the school. McBride knew the area. Older bungalow-style homes, quiet neighborhood, modest property values. Which told him exactly nothing.
Lily Browning wasn’t a suspect. She was just a strange woman with honey-colored eyes whose skin had felt like warm velvet beneath his fingers.
Irritated, he checked the clock. Almost four. Walters’s plane would have touched down by now and Baker would be with him, calming his fears. Baker was good at that.
McBride wasn’t.
He was a bit of a loner with secrets himself.
As he started to close the computer file, his phone rang again. He stared at it for a moment, dread creeping up on him.
Abby Walters’s photo stared up at him from the desk.
He grabbed the receiver. “McBride,” he growled.
Silence.
He sensed someone on the other end. “Hello?” he said.
“Detective McBride?” A hesitant voice came over the line, resonating with apprehension. Lily Browning’s voice.
“Ms. Browning.”
He heard a soft intake of breath, but she didn’t speak.
“This is Lily Browning, right?” He knew he sounded impatient. He didn’t care.
“Yes.”
Subconsciously, he’d been waiting for her call. Tamping down growing apprehension, he schooled his voice, kept it low and soothing. “Do you know something about Abby?”
“Not exactly.” She sounded reluctant and afraid.
He tightened his grip on the phone. “Then why’d you call?”
“You asked if I’d seen Abby this morning. I said no.” A soft sigh whispered over the phone. “That wasn’t exactly true.”
McBride’s muscles bunched as a burst of adrenaline flushed through his system. “You saw her this morning at school?”
“No, not at the school.” Her voice faded.
“Then where? Away from school?” Had Ms. Herrera been wrong? Had Lily slipped away from the meeting, after all?
The silence on Lily Browning’s end of the line dragged on for several seconds. McBride stifled the urge to throw the phone across the room. “Ms. Browning, where did you see Abby Walters?”
He heard a deep, quivery breath. “In my mind,” she said.
McBride slumped in his chair, caught flat-footed by her answer. It wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
A witness, sure. A suspect—even better. But a psychic?
Bloody hell.
CHAPTER TWO
HEAVY SILENCE GREETED Lily’s answer.
“Are you there?” She clutched the phone, her stomach cramping.
“I’m here.” His tight voice rumbled over the phone. “And you should know we don’t pay psychics for information.”
“Pay?”
“That’s why you’re calling, isn’t it?” His words were clipped and diamond hard. “What’s your usual fee, a hundred an hour? Two hundred?”
“I don’t have a fee,” she responded, horrified.
“So you’re in it for the publicity.”
“No!” She slammed down the phone, pain blooming like a poisonous flower behind her eyes.
The couch cushion shifted beside her and a furry head bumped against her elbow. Lily dropped one hand to stroke the cat’s brown head. “Oh, Delilah, that was a mistake.”
The Siamese cat made a soft prrrupp sound and butted her head against Lily’s chin. Jezebel joined them on the sofa, poking her nose into Lily’s ribs. Groaning, she nudged the cats off her lap and staggered to her feet. Half-blinded by the migraine, she made her way down the hall to her bedroom.
The headaches had never been as bad back home in Willow Grove, with her sister Iris always around to brew up a cup of buckbean tea and work her healing magic. But Willow Grove was one hour and a million light-years away.
The phone rang. Lily started to let the answering machine get it when she saw Iris’s face float across the blackness of her mind. She fumbled for the phone. “Iris?”
Her sister’s warm voice trembled with laughter. “I’m minding my own business, drying some lavender, and suddenly I get an urge to call you. So, Spooky, what do you need?”
The warm affection in her voice brought tears to Lily’s eyes. “Buckbean tea and a little TLC.”
“Did you have a vision?” Iris’s voice held no laughter now.
“A bad one.” Lily told her sister about Abby Walters. “The detective on the case thinks I’m a lunatic.” She didn’t want to examine why that fact bothered her. She was used to being considered crazy. Why should McBride’s opinion matter?
“What can I do to help?” Iris asked.
“Does your magic work over the phone?”
Iris laughed. “It’s not magic, you know. It’s just—”
“A gift. I know.” That’s what their mother had always called it. Iris’s gift. Or Rose’s or Lily’s.
Lily called hers a curse. Seeing terrified little girls crying for their daddies. Broken bodies at the bottom of a ditch, rain swirling away the last vestiges of their lifeblood. Her own father’s life snuffed out in a saw-mill across town—
“Stop it, Lily.” Her sister’s voice was low and strangled. “It’s too much all at once.”
Lily tried to close off her memories, knowing that her sister’s empathic gift came with its own pain. “I’m sorry.”
Iris took a deep breath. “Do you want me to come there?”
“No, I’m feeling better.” Not a complete lie, Lily thought. Her headache had eased a little. Just a little. “Sorry I called you away from your lavender.”
Iris laughed. “Sometimes I listen to us talk and understand why people think the Browning sisters are crazy.”
Lily laughed through the pain. “I’ll visit soon, okay? Meanwhile, don’t you or Rose get yourselves run out of town.”
Iris’s wry laughter buzzed across the line. “Or burned at the stake.” She said goodbye and hung up.
Lily lay back against the pillow, her head pounding. Jezebel rubbed her face against Lily’s, whiskers tickling her nose. “Oh, Jezzy, today went so wrong.” She closed her eyes against the light trickling in through the narrow gap between her bedroom curtains, trying to empty her mind. Sleep would be the best cure for her headache. But sleep meant dreams.
And after a vision, Lily’s dreams were always nightmares.
* * *
BY FIVE O’CLOCK, the sun sat low in the western sky, casting a rosy glow over the small gray-and-white house across the street from McBride’s parked car. He peered through the car window, wishing he were anywhere but here.
When Lily Browning had hung up the phone, his first sensation had been relief. One more wacko off his back. Then he’d remembered Andrew Walters’s demand and his own grudging agreement. Call it following every lead, he thought with a grim smile. He exited the vehicle and headed across the street.
Lily Browning’s house was graveyard quiet as he walked up the stone pathway. A cool October night was falling, sending a chill up his spine as he peered through the narrow gap in the curtains hanging in the front window.
No movement. No sounds.
He pressed the doorbell and heard a muted buzz from inside.
What are you going to say to her—stay the hell away from Andrew Walters or I’ll throw you in jail?
Wouldn’t it be nice if he could?
He cocked his ear, listening for her approach. Nothing but silence. As he lifted his hand to the buzzer again, he heard the dead bolt turn. The door opened about six inches to reveal a shadowy interior and Lily Browning’s tawny eyes.
“Detective McBride.” She slurred the words a bit.
“May I come in? I have some questions.”
Her face turned to stone. “I have nothing to tell you.”
McBride nudged his way forward. “Humor me.”
She moved aside to let him in, late afternoon sun pouring through the open doorway, painting her with soft light. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she skittered back into the darkened living room, leaving him to close the door.
Inside, murky shadows draped the cozy living room with darkness. When McBride’s eyes finally adjusted to the low light, he saw Lily standing a few feet in front of him, as if to block him from advancing any farther.
“I told you everything I know on the phone,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not quite.”
Her chest rose and fell in a deep sigh. Finally, she gestured toward the sofa against the wall. “Have a seat.”
McBride sat where she indicated. As his eyes adjusted further to the darkened interior, he saw that Lily Browning looked even paler than she had at school earlier that day. She’d scrubbed off what little makeup she’d worn, and pulled her dark hair into a thick ponytail. Despite the cool October afternoon, she wore a sleeveless white T-shirt and soft cotton shorts. She took the chair across from him, knees tucked against her chest, her eyes wary.
Her bare skin shimmered in the fading light. He stifled the urge to see if she felt as soft as she looked.
What the hell was wrong with him? He was long past his twenties, when every nice pair of breasts and long legs had brought his hormones to attention. And Lily Browning, of all people, should be the last woman in the world to make his mouth go dry and his heart speed up.
He forced himself to speak. “How long have you been a teacher at Westview Elementary?”
She answered in a hushed voice. “Six years.”
He wondered why she was speaking so softly. The skin on the back of his neck tingled. “Is someone else here?”
Suspicion darkened her eyes. “My accomplices, you mean?”
He answered with one arched eyebrow.
“Just Delilah and Jezebel,” she said after a pause.
A quiver tickled the back of his neck again. “What are they, ghosts? Spirits trapped between here and the afterlife?”
A smile flirted with her pale lips. “No, they’re my cats. Every witch needs a cat, right?”
“You’re Wiccan?”
A frown swallowed her smile. “It was a joke, Lieutenant. I’m pretty ordinary, actually. No séances, no tea leaves, no dancing around the maypole. I don’t even throw salt over my left shoulder when I spill it.” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. The lines in her face deepened, and he realized her expression wasn’t a frown but a grimace of pain.
“Do you get headaches often?”
Her eyes swept down to her lap, then closed for a moment. “Why are you here? Am I a suspect?”
“You called me, Ms. Browning.” He relaxed on the couch, arms outstretched, and rested one ankle on his other knee. “You said you saw Abby Walters—how did you put it? In your mind?”
She clenched her hands, her knuckles turning white.
“Why call me?” he continued. “Do I look like I’d buy into the whole psychic thing?”
“No.” Her tortured eyes met his. “You don’t. But I don’t want to see her hurt anymore.”
He didn’t believe in visions. Not even a little. But Lily’s words made his heart drop. “Hurt?”
“She’s afraid. Crying.” Lily slumped deeper into the chair. “I don’t know if they’re physically hurting her, but she’s terrified. She wants her daddy.”
McBride steeled himself against the sincerity in her voice. “How do you know this?”
Her voice thickened with unshed tears. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I have a door in my mind that wants to open. I try to keep it closed because the things behind it always frighten me, but sometimes they’re just too strong. That’s what happened today. The door opened and there she was.”
Acid bubbled in McBride’s stomach, a painful reminder of too much coffee and too little lunch. “You actually saw her?”
Lily nodded slowly. “She was crying. Her face was dirty and she was afraid.”
“Can you see her now?”
Her quick, deep breath sounded like a gasp. “No.”
Tension buzzed down every nerve. “Why not?”
“It doesn’t work like that. Please…” She lurched from the chair and stumbled against the coffee table. A pair of cut-glass candlesticks rattled together and toppled as she grabbed the table to steady herself. Out of nowhere, two cats scattered in opposite directions, pale streaks in the darkness.
McBride’s heart jumped to hyperspeed as he hurried to Lily’s side. He caught her elbow. “Are you okay?”
Her head rose slowly. “Go away.”
“You can’t even stand up by yourself. Are you drunk?”
“I don’t drink.” Her head lolled forward, her forehead brushing against his shoulder.
“Drugs?”
He could barely hear her faint reply. “No.”
He wrapped one arm around her waist to hold her up. Her slim body melted against his, robbing him of thought for a long, pulsing moment. She was as soft as she looked, and furnace-hot, except for the icy fingers clutching his arm. Her head fell back and she gazed at him, her eyes molten.
Desire coursed through him, sharp and unwelcome.
Ruthlessly suppressing his body’s demands, he helped her to the sofa, trying to ignore the warm velvet of her skin beneath his fingers. “What did you take for the headache?”
“I ran out of my prescription.” She lay back and covered her eyes with her forearm, as if even the waning afternoon light filtering through the curtains added to her pain.
“I can call it in for you. Do you have any refills left?”
“Just leave me alone.”
He should go, and to hell with her. It was probably another con. But she wasn’t faking the pain lines etched across her delicate face. “I can call a doctor for you—”
“The prescription bottle’s in the drawer by the fridge.” Tears slid out from beneath her forearm.
Her weak capitulation gave McBride an uneasy feeling as he headed to the kitchen to find the prescription.
He was back in fifteen minutes, using the keys Lily had given him to let himself back into the house. It was a few minutes after six and night had fallen, cool and blue. He fumbled along the wall for a light switch, but couldn’t find one.
Pausing to let his eyes adjust to the dark, he saw the pale sheen of a lampshade a few feet away, outlined in the glow coming through the windows from the street-light outside. He felt his way to the lamp and turned it on. The muddy yellow circle of light from the low-watt bulb barely penetrated the darkness in the corner where it stood. But it was better than the unrelenting darkness.
Lily lay on the sofa, her arm still over her eyes.
“Ms. Browning?”
She didn’t answer.
McBride crossed to the sofa and crouched beside her, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest. She was asleep, without the benefit of the pills he’d just spent more than fifty dollars buying for her.
No matter. She’d probably need them when she woke up.
She shifted in her sleep but didn’t awaken. Waiting for her to settle back down, McBride gave in to the male hunger gnawing at his belly and let his gaze wander over her body, taking in the tempting curves and planes. At some point in her sleep, the hem of her T-shirt had slid up, baring a thin patch of smooth, flat belly and the indentation of her navel.
Heat sluiced through him, unexpected and unwanted. Dragging his gaze from that narrow strip of flesh, he pushed himself to his feet and stepped away from her.
He distracted himself with a quick, cop’s-eye survey of the living room. Clean. Spare. Simple furniture in neutral tones with just enough color to ward off boredom. He moved closer to the wall to study a framed watercolor, a delicate rendering of a tulip in colors that would be subtle even with full illumination. A neat signature in black appeared in the bottom right corner: Iris Browning. Mother or sister?
Movement to one side caught his eye. A Siamese cat crouched, frozen, near a small iron plant stand, staring at him from between the leaves of a philodendron. McBride barely made out glowing turquoise eyes in a chocolate face.
A shudder ran through him.
Suddenly, a scream split the quiet, snapping the tension in his spine like a band. Off balance, he stumbled backward into the lamp, knocking it over. The bulb shattered, plunging the room into darkness.
With his heart slamming against his rib cage, he turned to the sofa, peering through the blackness. In the glimmer of light flowing through the window, Lily’s face was a pale oval, twisted into a horror mask by her wide-stretched mouth, her scream rising and swelling like a tidal wave, chilling him to the bone.
* * *
LILY KNEW IT WAS NIGHT, black as pitch and deathly quiet except for whimpering sobs. She recognized Abby’s soft cries.
“Abby?” she whispered.
The child didn’t hear her, but stayed where she was, somewhere in the deep blackness, crying in soft little bleats.
Lily knew she was dreaming, that by waking she could spare herself whatever lay beyond the door separating Abby Walters from her abductors. But she couldn’t abandon the little girl.
She could almost hear Abby’s thoughts, the panicked jumble of memories and fears—Mommy lying on the roadside, blood streaming down her pale hair, tinting the golden strands red.
Mommy, wake up! Am I going to die? Daddy, help me!
Lily heard the rattle of a doorknob and the scraping sound of a dead bolt sliding open. Bright light sliced through the dark room, blinding them both.
Abby screamed.
A whistle shrieked.
Second shift at the lumber mill. Daddy would be home soon.
As she did every afternoon, Lily shut her eyes and watched her father wipe his brow with his worn white handkerchief, then reach for the switch to shut off the large circular saw.
Bam!
A log slipped loose from the hooks and slammed into Daddy’s back, pitching him into the spinning steel blade. A mist of red spun off the blade and spattered the sawdust on the table.
Daddy screamed.
Lily awoke in an explosive rush. Smothering blackness surrounded her, her father’s scream soaring, deafening her.
Then she realized the scream was her own.
Gentle hands emerged from the blackness, cradling her face. The couch shifted beneath her and a familiar scent surrounded her. Fingers threaded through her hair, drawing her against a solid wall of strength and warmth.
She felt a hammering pulse against her breasts, beating in rhythm with her own racing heart.
A low voice rumbled in her ear. “It’s okay.”
Her heart stuttered, then lurched back into a gallop as she realized the strong arms wrapped around her belonged to Detective McBride.
CHAPTER THREE
FEELING LILY’S warm body stiffen, McBride let her go. “I think you were having a nightmare.” He stood and stepped back from the couch. “Do you remember it?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“Think you can bear a little light?” McBride turned on the nearest of the two torchiere lamps flanking the couch. Golden light chased shadows to the other side of the room. “Okay?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze, her eyes huge and haunted.
He frowned. “You sure?”
“I’m fine. No need to babysit anymore.”
Though he had more questions to ask, he decided to let her stew awhile, wondering when he’d come back. “I put your pills on the kitchen counter. It cost fifty-six dollars, but since I broke your light, we’ll call it even.” He gestured at the lamp lying at a crooked angle, propped up by an armchair. “Sorry.”
Her glimmering eyes met his. A pull as powerful as the ocean tide engulfed him, catching him off balance. He forced himself to turn away, move toward the front door.
Sofa springs creaked behind him. He felt her approach, the hair on the back of his neck tingling. When he turned again, he found her closer than expected. Close enough to touch. He clenched his fists. “Stay away from this case, Ms. Browning. There’s nothing in it for you.”
“Goodbye, Lieutenant.” She opened the front door. Her skin glowed like porcelain in the blue moonlight.
Quelling the urge to touch her, he slipped out the door and hurried to his car. He slid behind the steering wheel and took several deep breaths. When he felt more in control, he dared a quick look at the dark facade of Lily Browning’s house.
His lips tightened to a grim line. What the hell was wrong with him? Of all people, he knew better than to let a woman like Lily Browning get under his skin.
He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
* * *
SUNLIGHT KNIFED ACROSS Lily’s bed, waking her. She squinted at the clock on her bedside table. Nine. All that sleep and she still felt as if she’d been run over by a truck.
She pulled her T-shirt over her head, breathing in a faint, tangy scent clinging to the cotton. It took her back to the darkness, to the feel of McBride’s strong arms around her. She’d felt safe. Comforted by his solid body against hers, the soothing timbre of his voice in her ear, telling her everything was okay. God, she’d wanted to believe him.
Jezebel jumped from the dresser to the bed and rubbed her furry face against Lily’s chin. Lily stroked the Siamese cat’s lean body, from silvery mask to long gray tail. “Hungry, Jez?”
After feeding the mewling cats, she retrieved the Saturday morning paper from the front porch. Settling at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, she opened the newspaper.
Abby Walters’s freckled face stared back at her. Former Wife of U.S. Senate Candidate Found Dead, Daughter Missing, the headline read in bold, black letters.
Abby Walters, age six, had gone missing after her mother was killed in a carjacking Friday morning. The article speculated the attack might be politically motivated. Abby’s father and Debra’s ex-husband, Andrew Walters, was a state senator running for the U.S. Senate.
The door in her mind opened a crack. Resolutely, she slammed it shut.
* * *
“IT WAS A one-time thing. She threatened to get a restraining order and I quit.” The slim, nervous man sitting across the interview table from McBride pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his long nose with a shaky finger. “My God, y’all don’t think I had anything to do with it….”
McBride tapped his pencil on his notepad and let Paul Leonardi stew a moment. The man’s dark eyes shifted back and forth as he waited for McBride to speak.
“I was out of town Friday. I left home at five in the morning. You can ask my neighbor—he saw me leave.”
McBride pretended to jot a note, but he already knew all about Leonardi’s trip to Lake Guntersville for a weekend of fishing and eagle watching. It had taken the task force most of Sunday to track him down after Andrew Walters had fingered Leonardi as the man most likely to leave his ex-wife dead by the side of the road.
“I loved Debra. I’d never hurt her or Abby.”
“Lots of men kill the women they love. That’s why it’s called a crime of passion.” McBride felt a glimmer of satisfaction when Leonardi’s face went pale at his words. “I did check your alibi. The cabin manager said you didn’t show up until noon. That’s seven hours to make a two-hour drive to Guntersville. What did you do with the other five hours?”
“God, I don’t know! I took the scenic route part of the time. I stopped for gas somewhere around Birmingham, I think. I stopped at an antique store in Blount County and picked up an old butter churn to add to Mom’s collection for her birthday coming up. I went by the home store outlet in Boaz to pick up a pedestal sink for the guest bathroom I’m renovating at home.” He raked his fingers through his thinning hair. “Damn, I knew I should have waited and done all that on the way back home, but I figured I’d be tired and just blow it off.”
McBride wrote down the stops he mentioned, asking for more details. Leonardi couldn’t remember the gas station in Birmingham, but he supplied the name of the antique store and the home center outlet. McBride would put a couple of the task force officers on the job of tracking down the man’s movements on Friday morning.
“Back to Mrs. Walters for a moment—I understand you showed up at Westview Elementary one afternoon about a month ago, when she was picking up Abby.” McBride watched Leonardi carefully as he spoke. The dark-haired man’s eyes widened, dilating with alarm. Good. “That’s what convinced her to threaten you with a restraining order, wasn’t it?”
Leonardi looked down at his hands. “I just wanted to talk to her. I wanted her to tell me why she’d decided to end it.”
“She said you were a transition, didn’t she? Just a post-divorce ego stroke.”
Leonardi blanched. “It was more than that to me.”
“But not her. And you couldn’t take no for an answer?”
“I didn’t think she’d really given us a chance. She has these friends telling her she should go out, have fun, not tie herself down. ‘Don’t just settle for the first guy who comes along, Debbie. Have some fun, Debbie.’”
“How do you know what her friends said, Mr. Leonardi?” McBride leaned forward. “Did you tap her phones? Did you put a bug in her house? What?”
He pressed his lips tightly together. “I want a lawyer.”
“You’re not under arrest. Why would you need a lawyer?”
Leonardi’s baleful gaze was his only answer.
“When you showed up at the school—how’d you know what time Debra would be picking up Abby? Had you followed her before?”
Leonardi didn’t answer.
“Maybe you know somebody who works there,” McBride suggested, tapping the folder on the interview table. He flipped it open, exposing an enlarged photocopy of Lily Browning’s driver’s license photo from the DMV database.
Leonardi’s gaze shifted down to the table as McBride intended. His brow furrowed slightly as his gaze skimmed over the photo, but beyond that, he had no reaction.
Not what McBride had been expecting, but he wasn’t ready to discount the idea that Lily Browning had a part in Abby Walters’s disappearance. “Know what I think, Mr. Leonardi? I think you have a friend who works at the school. She told you when the first grade would be letting out in the afternoon so you’d know exactly when to show up. Did she know about your plans for Friday, too?”
Leonardi’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t kill Debbie. Don’t you get it? I lost her, too, just like her friends and her family and her jerk of an ex-husband did. Why aren’t you talking to him? Don’t you always look at the husband first?”
McBride had already talked to Walters Friday evening, going over his alibi in detail. Over the weekend he’d been able to validate all the times and places Walters had supplied. Of course, it was possible Walters had hired someone to kill his ex-wife, but the autopsy report McBride had found sitting on his desk first thing that morning suggested that Debra Walters’s skull fracture might have been accidental, the result of a struggle with the carjackers.
They couldn’t even be sure it was anything but a random carjacking. Debra Walters’s Lexus hadn’t shown up anywhere yet.
Neither had Abby Walters.
McBride’s captain had left it up to him to put together a task force for the case. After contacting the FBI and the local sheriff’s department to supply their own officers for the team, McBride had picked six of the best cops on the Borland force to assist him.
Sergeant Theo Baker had the job of holding Andrew Walters’s hand and keeping him from calling every few minutes for an update. McBride understood the man’s anxiety all too well, but he didn’t need that distraction.
Some of the task force members were canvassing the area where Debra Walters had died, hoping for witnesses who might have seen something on Friday morning. Some were fielding calls from tipsters, most of them crackpots and attention seekers.
Others were monitoring Friday morning footage from the handful of traffic cams scattered throughout the city of Borland, hoping they could track Debra’s movements from the time she’d left her home to the time she’d stopped on the side of the road to meet her death. McBride didn’t hold out much hope for that angle; where she’d died was a lightly traveled back road without any camera surveillance.
“How long do you plan to hold me?” Apparently having a cry put the steel back in Paul Leonardi’s spine; he met McBride’s questioning look with a steady gaze. “I know my rights. You can only hold me for so long before you either have to charge me or let me go. Unless you think I’m a terrorist or something.”
McBride was tempted to toss him in the cages just to make a point, but he quelled the urge. “I’m going to be checking out your alibi, Mr. Leonardi. If everything pans out, no problem. But you shouldn’t leave town anytime soon.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Leonardi said. “At least, not until after Debbie’s funeral. Do you know when it’ll be?”
McBride’s eyes narrowed as he stood and motioned for Leonardi to follow him out of the interview room. Either the guy was really innocent or he had cojones of titanium. “Check with her ex-husband. He’s handling the arrangements.”
Back at his desk a few minutes later, McBride grabbed the bottle of antacids on his desk and downed a couple to ease the fire in his gut.
His captain, Alex Vann, chose that moment to pop his head into the office. He eyed the bottle as he sat down across the desk. “You eat too many of those things.”
Ignoring the remark, McBride gave him an update on his interview with Leonardi. “I don’t know if he’s good for it or not. He has all kinds of motive, but he just doesn’t feel right for this thing.”
“And the nutso schoolteacher angle?”
McBride arched his eyebrow at the description of Lily Browning. “He didn’t really react at the sight of her photo.” Nothing beyond the furrowed brow, which could simply mean he was wondering why McBride was flashing Lily Browning’s picture.
“Why don’t you take a break, McBride? Go get some lunch.”
“I’ll order something in.”
“Not good enough.” Vann’s jowly face creased with concern.
McBride didn’t pretend not to notice. He put down the papers and looked up at his captain. “I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should work another case. Take your pick.”
“I want this one.”
Vann’s gaze darkened, but he didn’t comment as he walked out of the office.
McBride didn’t expect the captain or anyone else to understand. Working the Walters case was like rubbing salt into an open wound, but McBride couldn’t let it go. He had to follow it to the bitter end. Find the child. Capture the kidnappers.
See justice done this time.
* * *
THE DOOR IN Lily’s mind flew open without warning, catching her in the middle of grading papers in her classroom while her students played outside at recess. Her pencil dropped from her shaking fingers, rolling to the floor and disappearing in the silvery fog that washed over her in the span of a heartbeat.
Instinct urged her to fight off the battering ram of images, but at the first glimpse of Abby Walters’s tearstained face, her resistance fled. She gave in to the vision’s relentless undertow and let it sweep her into the haze.
The mists parted to reveal Abby Walters on the other side, knees tucked to her chin, blue eyes wide and unblinking.
“Abby,” Lily breathed.
The misty void deepened. Abby huddled in the looming darkness, covered with something musty-smelling. A blanket? She was trembling. Her teeth chattered.
Lily shivered, goose bumps rising on her arms.
Cold.
She tried to touch the little girl. Her hand felt as if it moved through cold molasses. “Abby, where are you?”
Lily smelled the musty blanket they huddled beneath. She felt vibrations under her, the carpet-covered hump of a drive shaft hard against her left hip. They were in a car.
“They’re moving you, aren’t they?” Lily felt the tremble beneath her fingers and realized she was finally touching the girl. “Abby, can you feel me here?”
The little girl went still. “Mama?”
Lily felt a surge of excitement. “No, Abby, I’m a friend.”
“Help me!” she cried.
“Shut up!” A harsh male voice boomed in front of them.
Lily tried to get her bearings. She and Abby shared the floorboard behind the front passenger seat. The voice had come from there, so someone else was driving. There were at least two kidnappers. Did McBride know that?
Lily put her arms around Abby and concentrated on planting the sensation of touch in the child’s mind—skin to skin, warm and soft. Suddenly, the little girl jerked out of her grasp, all contact between them disintegrating into gray mist.
As Lily tumbled into the void, she saw a hand smack Abby’s face. The girl whimpered in terror. Lily cried out as the door in her mind slammed shut, cutting her off.
She came back to herself with a jerk. It took a second to reorient herself. She was in her empty classroom. A glance at her watch confirmed that only a few minutes had passed.
A rap on the closed classroom door jangled her nerves. “Lily?” It was Janet, the teacher whose class was next door. The door cracked open and she poked her head in. “Everything okay? I thought I heard a shout.”
“Broke a nail,” Lily fibbed, forcing a sheepish expression, though her whole body seemed to be vibrating with tension. “Sorry—it was my longest one.”
Janet laughed politely, although wariness darkened her eyes. “Just checking.” She closed the door again.
Lily buried her face in her hands, unnerved by the close call. She wasn’t used to her visions attacking without warning. What if one hit her while class was in session?
She waited for the tightening bands of a migraine, but they didn’t come. She should be in agony after such a powerful vision. Why not this time? Because she hadn’t had time to fight it off? Was the answer really that simple?
She replayed the vision in her mind, trying to pick up more clues. She’d made contact. Beyond everything else she’d learned, that fact stood out. Never before had she made actual contact with someone in a vision.
But Abby had heard her. Maybe even felt Lily’s arms around her. Though she’d been frightened this time, maybe it was possible to make Abby understand Lily wanted to help her. But that meant letting the visions come, whatever they might bring.
Panic bubbled in her gut, tempting her to retreat again, to lock the door in her mind and hide the key forever. Visions were bad things. She’d learned that lesson long ago. She wasn’t like Rose, with her happy gift of predicting love matches, which she’d channeled into a successful job as a matchmaker and wedding planner. Nor like Iris, whose gift of empathy helped her ease people’s pain and despair.
Lily’s gift was darkness, terror, blood and death. She didn’t want to explore her visions. She wanted to end them.
But the memory of Abby haunted her. Maybe she could make a difference in this case. If time didn’t run out.
She just had to make someone believe her.
* * *
AS MCBRIDE HAD SUSPECTED, Paul Leonardi had caused at least one incident at Westview Elementary, near the beginning of the school year. Unfortunately, if Lily Browning had any connection to Leonardi, neither the principal nor vice principal knew anything about it.
“I doubt it,” Carmen Herrera told McBride in her office a little before noon. “Lily’s something of a home-body—she doesn’t socialize that much, even with other teachers. I doubt she’d have any reason to know Mr. Leonardi.”
A loner with secrets, he thought, remembering his earlier assessment of her. Apparently he’d been spot on. “And there was only the one incident?” he asked.
“Yes, just the one. It wasn’t really that big a deal—he didn’t resist when security asked him to leave. I didn’t get the feeling he was really dangerous. Just heartbroken.” Carmen flashed a rueful smile. “We’ve all been there once or twice, haven’t we?”
He thanked her for her time and headed for the exit, slowing as he reached the half-open door to Lily Browning’s classroom. Today, it was full of children, who sat with rapt attention as they listened to Lily reading.
He wasn’t familiar with the book she’d chosen, but as she told the rollicking tale of a girl and her pet cat braving a violent thunderstorm to reach the girl’s injured father, he found himself seduced by her musical voice.
He paused outside the doorway to get a better look at her. She was perched on the edge of her desk, legs dangling. Today she wore her hair up in a coil, with wavy tendrils curling around her cheeks and neck.
It was soft, he remembered. Sweet-smelling, like green apples. He could still recall how she felt in his arms, trembling from her nightmare.
“That’s it for today, ladies and gentlemen,” Lily announced as she reached a shocking cliffhanger at the end of the chapter. She closed the book, came around the desk and slid it into her top drawer. Scattered groans erupted.
“Aw, Ms. Browning!”
“Can’t we read one more chapter?”
“If we finish the book today, what will we have to read tomorrow?” Laughter tinging her voice, she rose from her desk and started passing out sheets of paper. “Besides, Mrs. Marconi is waiting for you in the library. Let’s go, single file.”
McBride’s lips curved. Years passed, things changed, but teachers still lined their students up single file. He backed away, hoping to make a quick exit without being caught eavesdropping, but he hadn’t made it down the hall more than a couple of steps when Lily’s voice called out to him.
“Lieutenant McBride?”
Busted.
CHAPTER FOUR
ANXIETY RIPPLED THROUGH Lily’s belly. Why was Lieutenant McBride here? Had something happened? “Is there news?”
The single file line of students flowing out the door behind her began to devolve into chaos. Tamping down her fear, she quickly brought them back into order, glancing over her shoulder to make sure McBride hadn’t left while she was distracted. “Please wait here—I’ll be back in just a minute.”
She headed up the hallway with her brood, quelling small mutinies with a firm word or a quick touch of her hand on a troublemaker’s shoulder. Once they were out the door in the custody of the librarian, she hurried back to her classroom, afraid McBride would be gone. But she found him sitting on the edge of her desk, his expression unreadable.
“Is there news about Abby?” she asked.
“No. I was just following another lead.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Here?”
“Ever met a man named Paul Leonardi?” His gaze focused like a laser on her face.
She frowned, searching her memory. “Not that I remember.”
“He had to be escorted from the school grounds a couple of months ago, near the start of the school year.”
“Oh, that guy.” It had caused a big stink, generating a dozen new security policies. “Yeah, I heard about it, but I didn’t see it happen.”
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “You never saw this guy?”
She glanced at the paper. It looked like a driver’s license photo. The man in the picture was nice-looking in an ordinary sort of way. She shook her head. “Do you think he’s one of the kidnappers?”
“One of them? You think there’s more than one?” McBride’s eyes changed color, from smoky brown to mossy green. “Why do you think there’s more than one kidnapper?”
She licked her lips. “I had another vision. Abby in a car, huddled under some sort of blanket. One of the kidnappers hit her.” McBride’s hard gaze made Lily want to crawl into a hole, but she pushed ahead. “Whoever struck Abby was in the passenger seat, so someone else had to be driving.”
He rose from the edge of her desk. “If you remember anything about Mr. Leonardi, let me know.”
She caught his arm. “I can help you if you’d let me.”
He looked down at her hand, contempt in his eyes. “I’m up to my eyeballs in help, Ms. Browning. Every crackpot in the state seems to know what happened to Abby Walters.”
She dropped her hand quickly. “Including me?”
“Some of my people are handling the crackpot calls. I’ll tell them to expect yours.” He headed out to the hall.
Torn between irritation and humiliation, Lily watched him reach the exit and step outside. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
She’d have to deal with her visions of Abby her own way.
* * *
LILY HATED FUNERAL HOMES.
The newspaper had listed the time and place for the pre-funeral viewing. Her stomach churned at the thought of crashing the wake, but if she was going to find Abby, she needed to start with the people closest to her. Her father. Family and friends. Proximity to people who knew the subjects had always made her visions stronger in the past. It was one reason Lily had become something of a recluse in her personal life. Avoiding people was self-defense.
But this time, she needed the visions to come.
She spotted Carmen Herrera getting out of her car. Lily stepped out of her own car and met the assistant principal halfway to the door. “I was afraid I’d missed you.”
Carmen smiled sadly, putting her hand on Lily’s arm. “Thanks for volunteering to come with me. I hate wakes.”
“Me, too.” She followed Carmen up the steps to the funeral home entrance, distracted by a spattering of camera flashes.
“The press.” Carmen grimaced. “Ghouls.”
More flashes went off as they entered. The foyer’s faux marble floors and gilt furnishings gave the room a cold, austere feeling. Funereal, Lily thought with a bubble of dark humor. She tamped down a nervous giggle.
The small viewing chapel was packed with a combination of mourners and a few people Lily suspected were reporters who’d hidden their agendas along with their notepads to get inside.
Not that Lily could quibble about hidden agendas.
She signed the guest book and went with Carmen to the front, forcing herself to look at the body in the coffin.
Had Debra Walters been as lovely in life as the powdered, waxed and beautifully coiffed body in the casket? Seeing her now, Lily realized she did look a bit familiar. Maybe Mrs. Walters had been at a parent-teacher event earlier in the year. Or maybe it was just the resemblance between mother and daughter that struck a chord.
“There’s Mr. Walters.” Carmen moved toward a well-dressed man surrounded by a handful of fellow mourners. His newspaper photo didn’t do justice to his lean good looks, Lily thought.
She should join Carmen, take advantage of the opening to meet Abby’s father and see if he’d be receptive to her unusual method of finding his daughter. But a combination of guilt and fear held her back. There was something unseemly about using these particular circumstances to approach him with her offer of help.
“They did a good job, didn’t they?” a man’s voice asked.
Lily jerked her attention toward the questioner, a familiar-looking man of medium height with dark hair and mournful brown eyes. He met her gaze briefly before looking back at the body.
“But they didn’t capture who she really was.” Sadness tinged his voice. “She was the most alive person I ever knew.”
This was the man in the picture McBride had showed her, Lily realized. The one who’d come to the school looking for Debra. The hair on her arms prickled.
“Paul Leonardi. Debra and I dated a few months ago.” He held out his hand. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“No.” She made herself shake his hand. It was damp and hot, his handshake limp. She quelled the urge to wipe her palm on her skirt. “I’m Lily. I teach at Abby’s school.”
His expression darkened. “Horrible about the little girl.”
Interesting, she thought. He’d said “the little girl” as if Abby were an afterthought.
Paul’s eyes shifted away from her, his brow creasing. “Great. The cops are here.”
Lily followed his gaze and met the narrowed eyes of Lieutenant McBride. She looked away quickly, her heart clenching. Of course he was here. She should have anticipated it. He’d be hoping for the killer to show up.
Paul gritted his teeth. “Can’t I have one night to mourn her without the Gestapo breathing down my neck?”
“He has a job to do,” Lily responded, surprised to be defending McBride. “Don’t you want him to catch Debra’s killer?”
“Of course.” Paul directed his glare her way.
Unless you’re the killer, she thought, her heart leaping into her throat. Obviously, he’d had feelings for Debra, and from the way he’d phrased things earlier Lily gathered the relationship had ended, probably before he was ready.
Not a bad motive for murder.
To her relief, Carmen Herrera approached, Andrew Walters a step behind her. She put her hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Lily, this is Mr. Walters, Abby’s father. Mr. Walters, Lily Browning.”
To Lily’s left, Paul Leonardi stepped away before she was forced to make an introduction. He blended back into the rest of the crowd.
“It was kind of you and Mrs. Herrera to come. Abby’s teacher was here earlier to pay her respects, but it means a lot that you both came as well.” Andrew Walters took Lily’s hand, his expression eager. “Do you know my daughter well, Ms. Browning?”
Lily glanced at Carmen before she answered Walters’s question. “I don’t know her, really, but from all accounts she’s a delightful child.”
“She is.” Andrew Walters’s gaze softened.
Carmen put her hand on Lily’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a sec. I see someone I should say hello to.” She drifted away, leaving Lily alone with Andrew Walters.
“I hope you find Abby soon,” she told him.
His expression hardened with determination. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.”
She almost told him what she knew then and there. But the sight of McBride bearing down on them held her in check.
“Mr. Walters?” McBride’s voice rose over the soft murmurs of conversation surrounding them. He stepped forward, taking Andrew Walters by the elbow and drawing him away. “I need to speak to you.”
Carmen crossed to Lily’s side. “Ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“Is that Lieutenant McBride talking to Mr. Walters?” Carmen asked as they headed for the exit.
“Maybe,” Lily replied, keeping to herself the fact that Lieutenant McBride’s rough-hewn features and hard hazel eyes were indelibly imprinted in her memory.
* * *
“STILL NOTHING FROM the task force?” His voice laced with desperation, Andrew Walters shifted from one foot to the other.
McBride forced himself to look away from Lily Browning’s retreating figure. “We’re still following leads.”
“Is Ms. Browning one of those leads?” Walters asked. When McBride remained silent, he added, “You seemed eager to get me away from her just now.”
McBride took a deep breath through his nose. He should have known a politician would be perceptive. And since Lily Browning proved by coming to this wake that she wasn’t going to back off, it was a good idea to inoculate Walters with the truth before she made her next attempt to contact him. “I wanted you away from her because Ms. Browning believes she’s having visions of Abby.”
Walters cocked his head to one side. “Visions?”
“Obviously she’s a crank.”
“But what if—”
The hopeful gleam in Walters’s eyes made McBride cringe. “Don’t do this, Mr. Walters. You want to believe she can help you. I get that. I do. You need somebody to tell you Abby’s okay and she’s coming back to you any day now. Ms. Browning will tell you she can lead you to her.” Acid spewed into McBride’s stomach. “But she can’t. She doesn’t know anything.”
“And you do?” Walters’s cold voice seemed to grate on McBride’s spine. “You think Abby’s dead, don’t you?”
McBride couldn’t deny it, so he said nothing.
“I don’t believe that, Lieutenant.” Walters lifted his chin. “And if Lily Browning thinks she can help me find my daughter, I want to hear what she has to say.”
“There have to be better leads to follow. What about a political angle? Is that possible?”
Walters’s look of resolve faltered. “Maybe. I have a very powerful opponent with powerful backers. I don’t know what they’re capable of.”
“We’re looking at Blackledge, I assure you.” The savvy old senator was barely leading Walters in the latest polls. Probably because of his divorced status, Walters had made his relationship with his daughter the focal point of his campaign ads, stressing family values in an attempt to assure the conservative local voters he was a solid citizen they could trust in Washington.
Maybe Blackledge or one of his people had figured taking the daughter would ensure Walters dropped out of the race. After all, the doting father could hardly keep up the campaign while his kid was missing. A thin motive, but not out of the realm of possibility, especially where politics were involved.
Of course, the same could be said of Andrew Walters.
However, Walters had an alibi. And McBride couldn’t see a motive for killing his ex-wife and getting rid of his daughter. Everyone McBride had talked to agreed that Walters and his ex had remained friends after the divorce. Walters never missed a child support payment, supplying more than the court-agreed amount.
He might have means, but he lacked motive and opportunity. And Walters couldn’t possibly be faking the panic underlying every word he spoke.
“Mr. Walters, I know what you’re feeling—”
The state senator narrowed his eyes. “I doubt it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other people to talk to.”
Torn between sympathy and anger, McBride watched Walters leave. He hadn’t been feeding him a line. He knew exactly what the man was going through.
Every excruciating moment of it.
McBride gravitated to the open casket and gazed down at Debra Walters. She was lovely in death, her pretty features composed and calm, as if she were merely asleep. Thick makeup designed to make the dead look better than the living covered the bruise on her temple.
McBride’s stomach roiled. Laura’s casket had been closed.
“How can you be working on a case like this?” Theo Baker joined McBride at the casket, his dark eyes full of concern.
McBride’s stomach burned. “Abby’s father has to know what happened to her.” Even if she was dead. It was not knowing that killed you.
An inch at a time.
* * *
DEBRA WALTERS’S FUNERAL was a brief, solemn affair, held at graveside. A smattering of people sat in metal folding chairs under a white tent that shielded the casket from the bright October sunlight. Several more filled out the circle of mourners around the site, including dozens of cameramen from local stations and national networks. Another clump of people gathered around a tall, silver-haired man Lily recognized as Senator Gerald Blackledge.
Strange, his being here. Or maybe not—the senator’s opponent had just lost his ex-wife to foul play. Maybe Blackledge thought if he didn’t appear for the funeral, he’d look as if he had something to hide.
And a public show of compassion couldn’t hurt, she supposed.
Andrew Walters gave a brief, eloquent eulogy, captured for posterity by the news cameras. Ever the politician, he managed to come across both sad and commanding, an achievement Lily couldn’t help but admire, though she found his self-control almost as discomfiting as Gerald Blackledge’s decision to attend the funeral and turn it into a media circus.
But maybe politicians had no choice but to be “on” all the time, with so many cameras around, waiting for them to stumble.
A cadre of reporters hovered about, talking into microphones in hushed tones that might have been unobtrusive if there weren’t a dozen other newspeople doing the same thing at the same time. Across from Lily, on the other side of the circle of mourners, stood Lieutenant McBride, his eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses.
But she felt the full weight of his disapproval.
Too bad. She’d given him a chance to help Abby. Now she was handling things her own way.
She didn’t have to approach Andrew Walters after the service; he sought her out almost as soon as the preacher finished his prayer and the casket was lowered into the ground.
“I spoke to Lieutenant McBride this morning.” He kept his voice low, taking her elbow and guiding her away from the crowd. “He says you claim you had a vision of Abby. Is that true?”
Unprepared for his straightforward question, she stumbled, grabbing Andrew’s arm to steady herself. A murmur went up among the reporters and they shifted toward them. Lily quickly let go of Andrew’s arm. “Yes, it’s true, but we can’t talk about it here.”
“Come by my hotel room tomorrow evening. We’ll discuss it then,” Andrew murmured, before carefully stepping away.
Turning, Lily came up against a wall of black-clad men with earpieces. Bodyguards, she realized as the men parted like the Red Sea and Senator Gerald Blackledge strode through the gap, hand outstretched.
“Andrew, I’m so sorry to hear about your ex-wife and daughter. If I can do anything to help, you mustn’t hesitate to use me. Understand? Politics has no place in this situation.”
The irony of the senator’s words, juxtaposed against the flash of camera bulbs and the sea of camcorders and microphones, forced a bubble of nervous laughter up Lily’s throat. She swallowed it, looking for her chance to slip away. But before she moved a step, Blackledge caught her elbow.
“Please, don’t go on my account, Miss…?”
Andrew’s mouth tightened. “Lily Browning, this is Senator Gerald Blackledge. Senator, this is Lily Browning. She teaches at the school my daughter attends.”
The senator enveloped her hand in a firm handshake. “A delight to meet you, Ms. Browning. My mother taught English for thirty years.” He looked sincerely interested, but Lily imagined a man who’d been a senator for twenty years had probably honed his acting ability to perfection.
“Really?” Lily responded politely, catching a glimpse of McBride a few feet away. Unnerved by his scrutiny, she murmured an excuse and moved aside, trying to avoid the cameras ringing them. She’d almost made it to the parking area when someone grabbed her arm. Whirling, she came face-to-face with McBride.
He’d removed his sunglasses, exposing her to the full brunt of his fury. “Don’t do this, Ms. Browning.”
She jerked her arm from his grasp. “Did I break a law?”
He didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think so.” She headed toward her car.
McBride fell into step, his long strides easily matching hers. “He’s vulnerable and desperate. The last thing he needs is someone promising she can bring his baby back home to him when we both know damn well you can’t.”
She unlocked her car and opened the driver’s door, putting its solid bulk between her and McBride. “I know you don’t think she’s still alive.”
His only visible reaction was a tightening of his lips.
“But I know she is, and I’m not going to wait around for you to get over your knee-jerk skepticism before I do something about it.”
She started to get into the vehicle, but he grabbed the door before she could pull it shut behind her. Looking down at her over the top, he narrowed his eyes. “If you really know Abby’s alive, answer me this—why have four days passed without anyone calling with a ransom demand?”
Lily’s stomach knotted. She had no explanation for that.
“Think about it.” He let go of the door and stepped away.
* * *
HE WATCHED FROM the gravesite, his heart pounding. Who was this woman with the knowing eyes? What could she know about what had happened to Abby?
He’d planned so carefully. Worked out all the details, figured the odds. He’d visualized just what would happen, down to the lightly traveled shortcut Debra took every weekday morning on her way to Abby’s school. He knew where to stage the surprise attack, and how quickly Debbie would be scared into compliance.
It was supposed to be fast. Grab the girl and go, leaving Debra to sound the alarm and put the rest of the plan in motion.
But she had fought back.
He hadn’t thought she’d fight back. She’d always been such a marshmallow.
Everything had gone terribly wrong. And now there was Lily Browning, with her strange gold eyes and her knowing look, claiming she’d seen a vision of Abby.
His heart twisted with growing panic.
What if she really had?
* * *
A PHOTO OF LILY, Andrew Walters and Gerald Blackledge made the front page of Wednesday’s Borland Courier. The teacher’s lounge was abuzz when she arrived at school that morning.
“At least it’s a good picture. And they spelled your name correctly,” Carmen Herrera pointed out when Lily groaned at the sight of her face above the fold.
“I didn’t give anyone my name.” There was no mention of her in the body text, at least. “I guess Mr. Walters told them.”
“Or the senator,” Carmen suggested.
That was also possible—a jab at Mr. Family Values, consorting with a new woman right there at his ex-wife’s funeral. What would voters think?
Worse, what would Lieutenant McBride think when he got a look at her name and face plastered across the front page?
She half expected to find him waiting on her doorstep when she arrived home that afternoon, storm clouds gathering in his eyes, so she was almost disappointed to find no one waiting. But when she entered her house to find her phone ringing, she wasn’t surprised. She was listed in the directory; any reporter with a taste for a trumped-up scandal could look her up.
Lily grabbed the phone and took a deep breath, steeling herself for unpleasantness. “Hello?”
“Lily Browning?”
She knew that voice. The kidnapper’s harsh drawl was unmistakable. Lily’s heart slammed into her ribs. “You have Abby Walters.”
There was a long pause over the phone. When the man spoke, he sounded wary. “How’d you know that?”
“Is she okay?” Lily’s mind raced, wondering what to do next. Nobody was expecting the kidnappers to call here; all the recording equipment was no doubt set up at Andrew Walters’s hotel, waiting for a ransom demand. As she scrabbled for something to write with, her gaze fell on the answering machine attached to her phone.
The kind that allowed her to record incoming conversations.
She jabbed the record button with a shaking finger.
“She’s fine, for now,” the kidnapper said.
“You hit her, you son of a bitch!”
There was a brief silence on the other end before the man spoke in a hushed tone. “What the hell are you?”
Lily ignored the question. “Let me talk to her.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Shivers raced up her spine, followed by the first hint of gray mist clouding the edges of her vision. Gripping the phone harder, she fought off the sensation. “Why are you calling me instead of Mr. Walters?”
“You think we don’t know the cops have his phone tapped? We’ve been looking for a way to contact him away from his hotel.” The caller laughed. “Then we seen your picture in the paper. Lucky break, ain’t it?”
Lily sank down on the floor, tucking her knees close to her body. “You want me to pass along your demands to Mr. Walters?”
“Tell him it’s time to pay up. We’ll be in touch.”
She heard a soft clicking noise. “Wait!”
But the man had already disconnected.
She slammed down the phone and covered her face with shaking hands. The door in her mind bulged, trying to force its way open, but she continued to fight the vision.
She had to call McBride.
With pain lancing behind her eyes, she checked the tape in the answering machine, terrified she’d pushed a wrong button and failed to record the kidnapper’s message. But the harsh drawl was there. “Tell him it’s time to pay up.”
She shut off the recorder and dialed McBride’s cell phone number. He answered on the second ring. “McBride.”
She released a pent-up breath. “It’s Lily Browning. The kidnappers just phoned me.”
“What?” He sounded wary.
She told him about the call. “I managed to record most of it on my answering machine. Do you want me to play it for you?”
“No, I’m on my way.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
By the time he arrived ten minutes later, her head was pounding with pain, the vision clawing at her brain. She didn’t bother with a greeting, just flung the door open and groped her way back to the sofa, concentrating on surviving the onslaught of pain in her head. She wished she could escape to her room and let the vision come, but she had to stay focused.
McBride went straight to the answering machine. “What time did the call come in?”
She altered her expression, trying to hide the pain. “The phone was ringing when I got home—maybe three-forty?”
He listened to the tape twice before he pulled it from the machine. “I’ll get this to the feds on the task force, see if they can clean it up a little, pick up some background noises. Maybe we can pinpoint where he was calling from. And I’ll take a copy to Mr. Walters, see if he recognizes the voice.”
“I recognized it,” she said, keeping her voice low out of self-defense as the pounding in her skull grew excruciating. She tried to say something more, but the merciless grip of the impending vision tightened. Helpless against it, she sank into a whirlwind of dark, cold mist.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MIST PARTED to reveal a small, blue-clad figure. Lily’s heart quickened at the sight of dirty red curls. “Abby?”
The child didn’t respond.
The mist dissipated, revealing a tiny room with mottled faux oak paneling and faded yellow curtains splotched with sunflowers. A tiny bed occupied the entire wall under the metal-frame window. A prefab house, or maybe a mobile home.
“Abby?” she whispered again.
The child sat on the cot, huddling in a ball against the wall, tears sparkling on her grimy cheeks. With horror, Lily realized one of the smudges there was a bruise.
Abby stirred, her blue eyes darting around the room.
“Abby, it’s me. Lily. I talked to you the other day. Remember? In the car?”
The little girl’s eyes widened. Her pink rosebud mouth opened, making words without sound. But Lily heard her thoughts, as clearly as if the child had spoken. “Are you a ghost?”
“No, I’m not. I’m not scary at all.” Lily touched her. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes,” Abby whispered back in her mind.
“Good. See, I’m not hurting you, am I?”
Abby shook her head.
“My name is Lily. I teach at your school. Maybe you remember me from there?”
“I can’t see you,” Abby replied.
Lily wondered if she could make herself visible to Abby. Was it even possible? She concentrated on seeing herself in the vision. She looked down at Abby’s arm and visualized her own hand gently squeezing the soft flesh. But nothing happened.
Abby’s eyes welled up. “I can’t see you!” she whimpered.
Aloud.
“Shh, baby, don’t say it out loud.” Lily held her breath, fearing the arrival of Abby’s captors. After a few seconds passed and no one came, she exhaled. “Remember, Abby, you have to think everything. We don’t want the mean men to hear you.”
“Why can’t I see you?” Abby’s thoughts were a frantic whisper. “Where are you?”
“I’m at my house, but I’m thinking real hard about you, and my mind is touching your mind.” Lily didn’t know how to make Abby understand. She didn’t really understand it herself.
“Like a psychic?” Abby asked. “Like on TV?”
Close enough, Lily thought. “Yes.”
“Can you tell my future?”
“I know you’re going to be okay. I’m going to help you.”
“I want to go home.” Abby started to cry. Lily put her arms around her, surprised by the strength of the mental connection. She felt the child’s body shaking against hers, heard the soft snuffling sound. Warm, wet tears trickled down Lily’s neck where the little girl’s face lay.
“Soon, baby—” Lily stopped short.
Something began to form at the edge of her vision.
Her eyes shifted to the emerging image, her grip on Abby loosening. She drew her attention back to Abby, but not before she saw a shape begin to take form in the mists.
Another little girl.
“Lily? Where are you?” Abby jerked away, her body going rigid. “They’re coming!”
Suddenly she was gone, and Lily was alone in the fog.
But not completely alone.
In the distance, she still saw the hazy shape of the unknown little girl. But as she approached the child, the image shimmered and faded into gray.
The mists began to clear, and Lily found herself in her living room, slumped on the sofa. The afternoon sunlight had begun to wane, shadows swallowing most of the room. Maybe ten minutes had passed since the vision started.
Real time. I was really there.
But who was the other little girl?
“Ms. Browning?” The sound of Lieutenant McBride’s voice made her jump.
He sat on her coffee table, his expression shuttered. He’d shed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt to his forearms. “Back among the living?” he asked dryly.
Her head pounded from the fight she’d put up to hold off the vision until she could tell McBride about the call. Staggering to her feet, she headed to the kitchen for her pills.
The detective followed. “Another headache?”
She swallowed a pill and washed it down with water from the tap. “If you’re just going to mock me for the rest of the afternoon, go away. Don’t you have a tape to analyze?”
“The feds are on the way to pick it up. They’ll give Sergeant Baker in my office a copy to take over to Mr. Walters.”
At least Mr. Walters would know why she didn’t make their meeting tonight, she thought.
McBride sat down at her kitchen table and waved toward the chair next to him. “I’m all yours for the evening. So why don’t you tell me what the hell just happened in there?”
“I need to lie down.”
His eyes narrowed. “Fine. I’m not going anywhere.”
She ignored the threat and staggered to her room, wincing as sunlight sliced through the parted curtains, shooting agony through her skull. Too ill to draw the blinds, she groped her way to her bed and lay down, covering her eyes with her forearm.
She heard quiet footsteps approaching on the hard-wood floor. She could feel McBride’s gaze on her. “You okay?”
“I just need to sleep.”
“Do the headaches usually come when you have visions?”
“Only when I fight them,” she murmured through gritted teeth.
“Why would you fight them?”
Couldn’t he just leave her alone? “They scare me. I don’t usually like what I see.”
His footsteps sounded again, this time accompanied by the sound of drawing drapes. The thoughtfulness of the action surprised her.
His expression was hard to read in the darkness, but she thought she detected a hint of gentleness in his craggy features. “Thank you,” she murmured.
His expression hardened. “Don’t thank me yet.”
He turned and left her alone in the dark.
* * *
“THE FEDS WILL BE bringing you a copy of the tape,” McBride told Theo Baker over the phone. “Get it to Andrew Walters ASAP.” Maybe Walters would recognize the voice.
And maybe pigs would fly.
McBride hung up and slumped on the sofa, tension banding across his shoulders. His gut churned like a whirlpool, but his antacids were at the office.
How convenient that a day after he’d mentioned the fact that the kidnappers hadn’t yet called, Lily Browning should be the one contacted. Surely she saw how guilty it made her look. Yet she’d phoned him instead of Andrew Walters, who’d be far less skeptical about her motives.
What kind of game was she playing? And why had the caller sounded so spooked when she’d accused him of hitting Abby? “What the hell are you?” he’d asked. Either the guy was a heck of an actor or he didn’t know Lily or what she claimed to be.
There could be an explanation for that, of course. Maybe the kidnappers were hired thugs, and Lily’s connection was to whoever had hired them to grab the girl. Paul Leonardi? McBride had watched Leonardi closely at the funeral home. When he’d approached Lily, it had seemed like a first-time meeting.
Gerald Blackledge? He’d made a point to talk to Lily at the funeral. And what kind of man would commandeer a solemn occasion to score political points? A man who thought abducting a little girl would drive her father out of the senatorial race?
McBride’s belly burned like fire.
* * *
WHEN LILY WOKE, the clock on her dresser read 7:45 p.m. Around her, all was so quiet she wondered if McBride had given up and gone for the night. But when she padded barefoot to the kitchen, she found him sitting in one of the chairs facing the counter, where Jezebel perched like a stone statue, her blue eyes crossed in a baleful glare.
“I don’t think she’d want you on the counter,” McBride was telling the cat. “In fact, why don’t you come over here and see me?”
Jezebel’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t budge.
“Come on, kitty. Come see McBride. Come on,” he crooned.
Lily bit back a chuckle of sympathy as Jezebel turned and started grooming herself.
McBride’s voice dropped to a sexy rumble. “Got a big ol’ lap here, puss. And I’ve been told I have talented hands. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
A quiver rippled down Lily’s spine.
“Oh, I see, you like playin’ hard to get. You must be a female.” McBride sat back and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. “That’s okay. I’m a patient man. I can wear you down.”
Lily decided to end the standoff before his sexy drawl melted her into a puddle in the kitchen doorway. “You’re trying to seduce the wrong woman.”
The detective’s head whipped around in surprise.
“Jezzy hates everyone but me. It drives my sister Rose crazy.” Lily picked up the cat and cuddled her a moment, smiling at his flummoxed expression when Jezebel melted in her arms, butting her face against Lily’s chin.
She set her on the floor. “Delilah’s the pushover.”
As if Lily had spoken a command, Delilah entered the kitchen, tail twitching, and wound herself around McBride’s ankle. He reached down and scratched the cat’s ears. Delilah rewarded him with a rumbling purr of pleasure.
“Better?” Lily sat across from him, glancing at the loose sheets of notepaper littering her kitchen table.
He gave her a considering look, gathering up the papers. His short hair was mussed and spiky, softening the hard lines of his face. His presence filled her kitchen, branding every inch of space he occupied as his own.
And a traitorous part of her liked the idea that he belonged here. With her.
The corded muscles of his forearms rippled as he stacked the sheets in a neat pile in front of him. When he spoke, his voice was gruff. “Headache better?”
“Yeah.” Awareness shuddered through her, a magnet drawing her toward him. She’d already leaned his way when she caught herself. She rose from the table, wishing she hadn’t closed the distance between them. “Have you eaten dinner?”
“No. Didn’t realize what time it was.”
She pulled sliced turkey, cheese and a jar of mayonnaise from the refrigerator. “I can make you a sandwich.”
The legs of his chair scraped against the tile floor. She felt his body heat flow over her a second before he put his hand on her shoulder. “Sit down. I’ll fix it.”
She turned toward him, caught off guard when he didn’t step back. Her gaze settled on the full lower lip that kept his mouth from looking unapproachably stern. His square jaw was dark with a day’s growth of beard. If he bent his head now and touched his cheek to hers, how would it feel?
Her legs shook as if she’d run for miles, and her skin felt itchy and tight. She wished she could blame her shivers on the events of the afternoon, but she knew better.
Unlike Jezebel, she was beginning to find McBride nearly irresistible. Much to her alarm.
His grip on her shoulder loosened, though he didn’t drop his hand away. His thumb brushed across her clavicle, sending tremors pulsing along her nerves. The moment stretched taut, the tension between them exquisite. Her breath caught in her throat, her lips trembling in anticipation of the moment when he’d finally bend his head and end the torture.
McBride’s expression shifted and he stepped back from her, looking away. “Where’s the bread?”
She waved her hand toward the bread box and retreated to the kitchen table. “Has Mr. Walters had a chance to hear the tape?” she asked.
“He didn’t recognize the voice.”
“Why’d the kidnapper call me? I just met Andrew Walters a couple of days ago. Abby isn’t even in my class at school.” She allowed herself a quick peek at McBride.
He put bread out on the counter and quickly started making a sandwich. “Good question. Any ideas?”
The hard tone of his voice made her wince inwardly. “No.”
He set the sandwich on a napkin in front of her and took the chair opposite.
“Not eating?” she asked.
“Not hungry.” He cocked his head, pinning her to her chair with the force of his gaze. She stared back at him, her breath trapped in her chest.
His features were too rough-hewn to be considered handsome. But he had amazing eyes, intense, clear and commanding. Their color shifted with his moods, almost brown when he was lost in thought, nearly green when he was working up a rage.
She wondered what color they turned in the heat of passion.
Trying to shake off the effect he’d begun to have on her, Lily leaned toward him across the table. “You obviously have questions for me. Let’s have ’em.”
“You had another vision?” His voice had a rumbling quality that made the skin on the back of her neck quiver. “Of Abby?”
She struggled to concentrate. “Yes. I think she was in a mobile home. The windows had metal frames and sills. And the room was tiny, with that boxy, prefab look some trailers have.”
His gaze was dark and intense, impossible to read. “Anything that would help us identify it?”
“No. I only saw one room, and it was…ordinary.” Though she tried to drop her gaze, she found herself unable to look away from him. He had a commanding quality about him, an air of strength and capability that elicited a primal response deep inside her.
It had been a long time since a man had made her feel this much like a woman. Why did it have to be McBride?
When he didn’t respond right away, she felt herself begin to squirm, like a suspect under interrogation. She was pretty sure that was the point of his continuing silence.
“There was one thing—” She clamped her mouth shut before she revealed the odd appearance of the second girl. McBride obviously didn’t believe she was having visions of Abby. Lily wasn’t going to make things worse by mentioning a second child.
“One thing?” he prodded when she didn’t continue.
“She talked to me this time.”
He pulled back, his eyebrows twitching upward.
“I know it sounds crazy, but she heard me. She talked back. That’s never happened before.” Maybe because Lily had spent most of her life running from the visions, she’d never really explored the limits of her ability. She still couldn’t think of it as a gift, not like her sisters’.
“You get migraines when you have visions?”
“Except when I don’t fight them.”
He picked up a pencil and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. He jotted something on the page in his tight, illegible scrawl. “That’s right. You mentioned something like that before you zoned out.”
“Before I had a vision.”
“Uh, yeah.” He twirled the pencil between his fingers. “You said you fight them because they scare you.”
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“How long have you been having visions?”
“Of Abby?”
He shook his head. “In general.”
“Since I was little.” The visions had been part of her life for as long as she could remember.
“And you’ve always had headaches?”
“Not always.” Before her father died, she’d never had the headaches. But before then, she’d never had to fear her visions, either. “When I was younger, I didn’t have headaches. But I didn’t know to fight the visions.”
For the first time he looked genuinely surprised. “They didn’t scare you then? Why not?”
A flash of blood on jagged steel flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes, pushing it down into the dark place inside her. “I hadn’t seen the bad things yet.”
“Like what?” His voice lowered to a murmur. “Monsters?”
Was he making fun of her? He looked serious, so she answered. “I see people hurt. Killed. People in pain.”
People like her father, bleeding to death on a bed of bloodstained sawdust…
“How do you know you don’t have headaches when you don’t fight the visions?”
“I had one the other day and didn’t fight it. I didn’t have any pain at all.”
He cocked his head. “How can you know that’s why?”
She sighed. “I suppose I can’t. Does it matter? I’m going to keep trying to have them even if they hurt.”
“Why would you put yourself through that?”
“Because Abby’s still alive. I can still help her.”
McBride looked at Lily for a tense moment. “Why are you having visions of Abby Walters? Why you in particular?”
“I don’t know.” The suspicion in his voice made her stomach cramp.
“When did they start?”
“Friday, at the school.” The memory of those first brief glimpses of Abby remained vivid. Frightened blue eyes. Tearstained cheeks. Tangled red hair. A terrified cry.
“Did you have the vision before or after you talked to me?” McBride touched the back of her hand, trailing his fingers over her skin, painting her with fire.
She swallowed with difficulty, resisting the urge to beg him to touch her again. “Before.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “How soon before?”
“Just before, I guess.”
He met her gaze for a long, electric moment, his eyes now a deep forest-green. “What did you see that first time?”
She related the brief snatches of that vision, then told him about later seeing Abby in the car. “I think they were moving her to wherever they are now.”
He tapped his fingers on the table mere inches from her hand. She watched them move, wishing they would touch her again. Her fingers itched to close the distance between them, but she resisted, forcing herself to look up at him, away from that tempting hand. But the smoldering emerald of his eyes did little to cool the heat starting to build inside her.
She licked her lips and tried to focus. “Is it against the rules for you to tell me how Abby’s mother died?”
He didn’t answer.
“I don’t need details, I just…” She sighed, trying to explain the sensations she’d felt when talking to the kidnapper. “The man who called was desperate. I know he made a ransom demand, and maybe that’s what they wanted all along. But I don’t think they originally planned on a ransom call.”
McBride cut his eyes toward her.
“He sounded scared. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Mrs. Walters wasn’t supposed to die.”
He caught her wrist. “Why do you say that?” His voice was tinged with suspicion, his eyes turning mossy brown.
“She fought, right?” Lily couldn’t say how she knew that, but she did. “They didn’t think she’d fight them. Maybe they don’t have children of their own and don’t know what a mother will do when her child’s in danger.”
He let go of her, but the heat of his touch lingered. She rubbed her wrist, trying to wipe away the tingling sensation his grip had imprinted in the tender flesh, as if every nerve ending had suddenly come alive. “That’s how it happened, isn’t it?” she asked.
He leaned toward her across the small table, close enough for her to breathe in his warm, spicy scent. “Why are you really interested in this case?”
She lifted her chin. “I keep seeing that scared little girl in my mind. I have to try to help her.”
“You can’t,” he said bluntly.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because she’s already dead.”
Sharp-edged and stone-cold, his words slammed into Lily like a physical blow. She shook her head. “That’s not true. The kidnappers just called—”
“What makes you think it wasn’t a crank call?”
“I recognized the voice.”
“So you say.”
Lily shut her eyes, wishing she could shut out his words as easily. “I know it was him.”
“I’ve been a cop for sixteen years. I’ve investigated five nonparental child abductions over that time.” Weariness crept into his matter-of-fact tone. “Kidnappers don’t take five days to make a ransom call. They know it gives the cops too much time to get involved.”
Lily opened her eyes but saw nothing but blackness. A soft, pain-wracked voice filled the darkness.
She’s gone!
The darkness dissipated, the familiar decor of her kitchen coming back into focus, the echo of those two heartbroken words fading into the hum of the refrigerator behind her. Lily found McBride staring at her, his forehead creased with a frown.
He rose, his chair scraping against the tile floor. “I’ve put a patrol car outside to keep an eye on this place tonight. Tomorrow, with your permission, we’ll tap your phone in case the man calls again.” He didn’t wait for her answer, making it halfway to the living room by the time Lily got her legs to work.
She followed him to the door, still shaking from the brief vision. Where had that woman’s voice come from, pitched low with misery? Coming as it had in the wake of McBride’s bitter words, was it connected to his own demons?
He had demons, without a doubt. Beneath his stony calm, Lily had sensed a misery so deep, so dark she could hardly bear to look at it.
She grabbed his arm as he opened the front door. “What if I don’t want a tap on my phone?”
“Don’t you want us to find out who’s calling?” He stood close enough for her to see beard stubble shadowing his jaw. She could almost feel it, prickly against her skin, as if he’d rubbed his face against hers. His pupils were black pools rimmed by moss. Pure female response snaked through her belly, settling low and hot at her center.
“I’d also like to tap your cell phone,” he added softly.
Right. Tapping the phone. “It’s not listed anywhere by my cellular company. But you can tap my home phone.”
He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t press the issue. He stepped away from her and onto her front stoop, robbing her of his warmth. Her strength seeped away, leaving her enervated and bone-weary.
He turned back to her, danger glittering in his murky eyes. “You’re playing a reckless game, Ms. Browning. Take care.”
She watched him stride down the walk, his jacket flapping in the cool night breeze, every heavy thud of her heart echoing his solemn warning. The intent of his words may have been different than her own interpretation, but the truth remained: the people who had Abby knew who Lily was and where she lived.
She wasn’t safe in her own home.
CHAPTER SIX
ANDREW WALTERS WAS on his cell phone when Lily arrived at his hotel suite Thursday afternoon for their rescheduled meeting. He took her raincoat and waved her in, slanting her a rueful look as he spoke into the receiver. “We’ll have to blow that one off. The county party chairman will understand.” He gestured at the sofa, moving into one of the rooms off the main living area to complete his call.
Lily bypassed the sofa and walked to the picture window spanning one wall of the living area. During the day, the McMillan Place penthouse suite would boast a panoramic view of the lush woodlands west of town, but rain and falling darkness turned the window into a mirror reflecting Lily’s own bedraggled image back at her. She patted her rain-curled hair and straightened her skirt, wishing she looked more presentable.
It was important that Andrew Walters believe what she had to tell him.
He returned to the room, flashing an apologetic smile. “That was my campaign manager, Joe. We have to figure out how to manage the campaign while all of this is going on.”
Lily tried to hide her surprise. She’d have thought the election would be the last thing on Andrew’s mind.
“You think that’s cold of me.” He sounded resigned.
“No,” she replied.
“People have invested a lot of time and money in my campaign. For their sakes, I have to go through the motions.” He beckoned for her to join him in the sitting area. “It’s good to have something constructive to focus on, to keep my mind away from the worst possibilities.”
She sat where he indicated. “Understandable.”
He sank into an armchair and slanted a considering look at her. “The FBI told me about the call from the kidnapper. Why do you think he called you?”
If Andrew Walters harbored the same suspicions as Lieutenant McBride, he hid it well. He looked desperate and anxious, but he didn’t seem distrustful.
Lily wished she had a better answer for both of them. “I guess they saw my picture in the paper. From the funeral. My name was in the caption, and I don’t imagine there are that many Lily Brownings listed in the Borland phone book.” It was the only explanation that made sense.
“I wonder how the press got your name in the first place.”
She cocked her head. “I assumed you gave it to them.”
“No.” His eyes narrowed. “Probably Blackledge. He knew people would see us together and make assumptions. ‘Andrew Walters didn’t even let his first wife’s body get cold before he found someone else.’”
She grimaced. “People won’t think that.”
He gave her a look that made her feel very naive.
She shook her head, appalled. “If my being there—”
“This is politics. Dirt gets flung. I’m becoming a little better at ducking these days.” His face tightened with anxiety. “McBride says you’ve had visions of my daughter. What did you see?”
She told him what she’d seen in her visions, holding back only the appearance of the second little girl. Andrew Walters listened, his hands clenched in his lap, his sharp-eyed gaze moving over her face as if gauging her veracity. “What was she wearing?” he asked when she finished.
For a second, Lily’s mind went blank. She remembered so much about Abby—the way she smelled, the tear tracks down her dirty, freckled face, the way one red curl hung just off center over her forehead. But what she was wearing?
Lily closed her eyes, recreating the most vivid scene, the one where Abby had been huddled in the back of the moving car. She heard the hum of the motor, smelled the musty odor of the blanket under which the child had crouched, cold and afraid. She saw the messy red curls, the chattering teeth.
The light blue overalls with a yellow rabbit on the front.
“Overalls.” Her voice shook. “Pale blue with a yellow bunny on the bib. And she had a long-sleeved white turtleneck underneath.”
When Lily looked up, Andrew’s face had gone pale. His voice shook when he spoke. “My God, you did see her.”
She released a shaky breath. She’d been afraid she was wrong, that her visions really were delusions, as McBride apparently thought. “That’s what she was wearing?”
The man nodded, color slowly seeping back into his face. “A neighbor who saw her Friday morning remembered the outfit. She’d bought it for Abby on her last birthday.”
“So you believe me?”
Andrew reached across the space between them and took her hand. His expression solemn, he nodded. “I believe you.”
Relief swamped her. “Mr. Walters, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
He managed a smile. “Thank you. And please, call me Andrew.”
She nodded. “Andrew—”
The shrill ring of the telephone interrupted her, the sound jarring her spine.
“The dedicated line.” Andrew’s voice sounded strangled.
“Answer it,” she urged, breathless. Her nerves were so taut that she didn’t recognize the signs until gray mist invaded the edge of her vision.
As the fog thickened, she glimpsed a man hunched over a phone in a dim room. She barely made out dark green walls and a computer nearby. The man’s blond hair was thin and patchy, and his skin was milky pale. The glow of the computer screen made twin blue squares on the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses.
It was the caller, she realized when he spoke.
“Mr. Walters, listen quick.” Lily was certain she’d never heard the voice before. It definitely wasn’t the harsh-voiced man who’d hit Abby, the one who’d called her home on Wednesday.
“Who is this?” Andrew demanded.
“We have your daughter.”
“Is Abby there?” Andrew’s voice was like a fly buzzing in her ear, oddly unreal, even though he was in the same room with her. “Let me speak to her!”
“You have until tomorrow afternoon to get five hundred grand together. When you do that, you’ll talk to your kid. Got it? And if you call the cops, you’ll never see your kid again.” The caller shifted, his desk chair creaking.
Beyond him, Lily saw a bed with rumpled green sheets. A newspaper lay near the pillows. Abby Walters’s freckled face stared up from its front page. But there was no sign of Abby. And the room didn’t remotely resemble the one where she’d seen the little girl in her visions.
“I’ll call back tomorrow to tell you where to drop the money.” The caller’s hand shook as he clutched the phone.
He’s not one of the kidnappers, Lily thought. They know not to call Andrew Walters directly.
She struggled against the swallowing mists, trying to slam shut the door of her mind. She’d seen all she needed to see. She had to tell Mr. Walters what she knew.
She emerged with a jolt when he banged the telephone receiver into its cradle and bent over the table, sucking in several deep, steadying breaths.
Lily stumbled to the couch and sat, pressing her hand to her head. Fighting to end the vision before it was finished had a price; colorful lights crowded her vision, and the first twinge of pain shot up from the base of her skull. She fumbled in her purse for her pills and swallowed one dry, laying her head back against the sofa cushions.
Andrew turned to face her. “He wouldn’t let me talk to her.” Anxiety creased his handsome face.
“He doesn’t have her.” Lily lifted her eyes to meet his, hating to burst his tiny bubble of hope. She told him what she could remember about the vision. “It was a hoax. I’m sorry.”
Andrew sank to the sofa next to her and buried his face in his hands. She touched his shoulder, unsure how to comfort him.
Someone rapped on the door. Andrew went to let two detectives into the room. “He wasn’t on long enough for a trace, and his caller ID’s blocked,” one of them said.
Lily was no longer listening. She drifted on a river of pain, barely aware of the voices of the detectives talking or the trill of Andrew’s cell phone when his campaign manager called back. Andrew’s voice faded as he took the call in another room.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed before a new voice roused her from her pain-washed daze. She struggled up from the depths of the soft couch and opened her eyes.
Detective McBride’s stormy eyes stared back.
* * *
MCBRIDE CROUCHED IN front of Lily, trying to be angry. But she looked ready to collapse. Purple smudges bruised her eyes—headache, he guessed. “Walters says you think it’s a hoax.”
She hugged herself. The room was warm, but chill bumps dotted her bare arms. “I wish he’d kept that to himself.”
“Why?” McBride lowered his voice to a gentle murmur.
Her eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you angry I’m here?”
Tiny lines etched the skin around her eyes and mouth. Pain lines. He couldn’t stop himself from touching a tiny crease in her forehead, gently smoothing it. “You have a headache?”
Her eyes drifted closed and she nodded, turning her head to give his fingers better access. Her body arched toward him, like a kitten responding to a gentle caress.
He dropped his hand with difficulty. “What did you do, fight your vision?”
Her eyes fluttered open. “I wanted to tell Andrew Walters about the hoax as quickly as possible.” She stumbled over some of the words, as if she couldn’t quite make them all fit together. “I fought to leave the vision before it was through.”
And paid the price, he thought, then chided himself for letting himself get sucked into her delusion. Whatever had caused her headache, it damn well wasn’t a psychic vision.
But she was right about the call being a hoax. Though smart enough to block his caller ID and keep his call too short for a trace, the man had blown it by not getting his business done in one shot.
Tomorrow he’d phone back and they’d get him.
“Can I go home now?” Lily leaned forward, bracing her hands on the sofa cushion. McBride stood to give her room to rise, but she moved faster than he did. Their bodies touched for a long, electric moment before he backed out of her way.
Maybe she was a witch, he thought, his body responding to her presence like fire to oxygen. He seemed entirely at her mercy, no matter how he tried to fight it. “Are you okay to drive?”
“I’m fine. The medicine’s already working. And don’t worry, officer. It’s the non-drowsy formula.” She gazed up at him, her eyes wide and glowing in the lamplight. Her body swayed toward him before she pulled herself up and slid past him, moving toward the door. McBride remained where he was, watching with clenched jaw as Andrew Walters closed his hand around Lily’s arm and bent toward her, their faces intimately close as they spoke. Walters’s grasp on Lily’s arm became a gentle stroking, almost like a lover’s caress.
McBride’s chest tightened with anger.
“Lieutenant?”
McBride tore his attention away from Lily and Walters to look at the detective who’d contacted him after the call.
“Do you want to take the tape with you or do you want me to bag it and send it by courier?” the detective repeated.
“Courier,” McBride answered.
As the two technicians headed out, McBride’s eyes swung back to the door.
But Lily was gone.
He crossed to Walters. “You okay?”
Walters blinked as if startled. “Yeah. It’s all just so crazy. Some creep playing with our minds.” He shook his head. “How could someone do that?”
It’s a big, bad world out there, McBride thought. Bigger and badder all the time. “We can’t be sure it’s a hoax.”
“Lily’s sure of it. That’s good enough for me.”
McBride’s stomach sank as he dropped his hand from the other man’s shoulder. “You know, Mr. Walters, we can’t know for certain without a thorough investigation. I know Ms. Browning seems confident of everything she says, but—”
“She doesn’t seem confident. I’d worry more if she did. But she’s been right about everything so far.”
“Like what?”
“She knew what Abby was wearing the day she disappeared.”
McBride shook his head. “That was reported in the paper.”
“Not the yellow rabbit.”
“She knew about the rabbit?” Acid gushed into McBride’s gut. The police had released a description of Abby’s clothing—the blue overalls and white shirt—but held back the yellow rabbit decal to divide the crank calls from the genuine tips.
If Lily Browning had really described what Abby had been wearing, there was only one way she could have known.
She’d seen Abby Walters the morning she disappeared.
And he’d just let a person of interest walk out the door.
Chest tight with growing anger, McBride moved toward the exit. “I’m going to head out now and let our technicians handle things. Are you going to be okay?”
Walters looked exhausted. “I just want my daughter back.”
“We’ll find her.” McBride heard the words, recognized his own voice, but couldn’t believe what he’d said. He’d been raging at Lily Browning for giving Walters false hope, and here he was, adding his own lies to the mix.
He didn’t believe the real kidnappers would call again, because Abby Walters was dead. Too much time had passed, with no sightings, and no clues but a harsh voice on Lily Browning’s answering machine. Who knew whether that phone call was the real thing or just another of Lily’s lies?
But he couldn’t say that to Walters. Not yet. The man had to go through this part of the journey, the hopeful part. Next would come uncertainty, then despair, then the black anger that churned in the gut like a feeding frenzy of piranhas.
McBride didn’t know what came after that.
* * *
AVOIDING THE CONGESTED perimeter highway, Lily took Black Creek Road home. It was a longer drive, but the winding road was lightly traveled, especially on a rainy night, and Lily was in no state of mind to deal with heavy traffic.
At least the migraine was almost gone.
But McBride’s touch lingered like a fiery brand on her skin. She could still conjure up the tang of his aftershave, the intensity of his gaze sweeping over her as if he wanted to strip her bare of her defenses and find out what lay underneath.
Idiot. Trying to guess McBride’s thoughts was a fool’s game. If he thought of her at all, it was as a calculating con artist taking advantage of a wealthy but vulnerable man.
Whimsy wasn’t Lily’s style. She wasn’t the fanciful sister; that was Rose, the hopeless romantic. She wasn’t impulsive and daring like Iris, either. Lily was the eldest, the one with her head screwed on firmly. The one who’d taken care of her younger sisters when their mother died six years ago.
Lily didn’t form ridiculous crushes on men who’d never return her feelings.
Mentally she dusted her hands of him. Done.
Her cell phone trilled, making her jump. She dug in her purse with her right hand and pulled out the phone. “Hello?”
“You never call, you never write.” Her sister Rose’s husky voice always reminded Lily of their mother. Iris, with her ebony hair and black-coffee eyes, looked the most like their mother, but Rose had her voice, low and just a little raspy, with a slow, sweet drawl that stretched her words like taffy.
“I talked to Iris just the other day.”
“I always knew you liked her better,” Rose said lightly. “I had a dream about you last night, Lil.”
“Yeah?” Lily slowed her car as she approached Dead Man’s Curve, where Black Creek Road formed a deep S as it followed the winding creek for a couple of miles.
“Yeah. Have you met a new man recently?”
McBride’s rugged face flashed through mind. “Why?”
“Because you’re going to fall in love with him.”
A shiver ran down Lily’s back. She ignored it, pressing her lips into a tight line. “Am not.”
“Well, you also help him find his daughter. I’m not clear on whether you do that before you fall in love or after.”
“Now I know you didn’t dream that. Iris told you about my visions.” Tucking her phone between chin and shoulder, Lily put both hands on the steering wheel as she navigated a sharp curve.
“Yes, she did, but I really did have the dream.”
“Well, you’re wrong on this occasion,” Lily said firmly. “I’ve spent time with the little girl’s father, and I assure you the last thing he’s thinking about is falling in love.”
Rose sighed. “It was a great dream. You were in the woods. There was a building with rickety wood steps. There he was—this incredible man, his arm around a little girl. He turned to look at you, and wow.” Rose’s voice dwindled to a contented sigh. “You were so in love with each other. It gave me chills.”
Hair rose on the back of Lily’s neck. If anybody but Rose were telling her these things, she’d laugh it off. But Rose’s gift, predicting a successful love match, was as strong as Lily’s, and much better developed. Still, Lily couldn’t see herself with Andrew Walters. “What did this guy look like?”
“All I remember is dark hair.”
“What about the girl?” Lily asked, thinking about Abby.
“I don’t remember anything except she had big dark eyes that lit up when she saw you.”
An image popped into Lily’s head—of the dark-haired child at the edge of her vision of Abby. Lily shivered. Too creepy.
“So tell me about these visions you’ve been having.”
Lily told her everything, including her newfound ability to make contact with Abby.
“She heard you? Cool! Any closer to finding her?”
Lily sighed. “I hope so. I’m worried, Rose. She’s so scared. I feel helpless.” She took a deep breath. “And during my last vision of Abby, I saw another little girl.”
“The kidnappers have another little girl?” Rose asked.
“I don’t think so. I think the little girl is somewhere else. Maybe nearby, though.” Having spent so much of her life running from her visions, Lily had never figured out how they worked. Did the appearance of the new little girl have anything to do with Abby’s kidnapping? Did the other child even exist, or was she a figment of Lily’s imagination?
Maybe it was just a one-time thing. A fluke. Crossed wires or whatever you called mixed-up psychic signals.
“I’ve gotta run, Lil—Iris is in the cellar boiling her eye of newt and I think I just heard something explode.” The humor in Rose’s voice assured Lily that her baby sister was exaggerating. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
Lily laughed. The sound startled her. How long had it been since she’d heard herself laugh? “If there’s still a house left by the time you and Iris get through with it, I’ll definitely be home for Thanksgiving.”
As she ended the call with her sister, she noticed headlights flickering in her rearview mirror.
* * *
HE GRIPPED THE steering wheel, his palms sweating inside his leather driving gloves. In the darkness ahead, all he could see of Lily Browning’s car was a pair of taillights glowing like red eyes. He pressed the accelerator to the floor, eating up the road between them.
She knew too much. Saw too much.
She would ruin everything.
He was close enough to make out the shiny chrome bumper of her Buick and the rectangular sticker with Westview Elementary School printed in white block letters on a field of red.
A schoolteacher, he thought. Panicked laughter rose in his throat. The most dangerous woman in his world was a bloody schoolteacher. How had this happened? How had everything gone so wrong so quickly?
No matter. It was going to end here.
Now.
* * *
WITH THE ON-RAMP to the perimeter highway backed up for more than a block, McBride went with a hunch and took Black Creek Road to avoid the snarl of traffic. If he was lucky, Lily Browning had taken the highway and he’d be sitting at her house waiting for her when she arrived. If not, he had a good chance of catching up with her on the winding back road.
Grabbing his cell phone, he called Theo Baker’s direct line. “Call a meeting of the task force for first thing in the morning. I’ve had a copy of the phone call couriered over—”
“Right here in my hot little hands.”
“Great. Get tech services to make a copy for everyone on the task force. Let’s see if anybody recognizes the voice.”
“Still think it’s a hoaxer?”
“Ninety-nine percent sure.” But it’s that one percent that could bite you in the ass, McBride thought as he ended the call.
The weather was worsening; fog rising to meet the pouring rain that was already cutting visibility to a few yards. McBride peered into the darkness, easing off the accelerator as he approached Dead Man’s Curve. Rain sheeted across the blacktop and pounded his windshield, keeping pace with the wipers.
Ahead, two glowing red dots pierced the gloom. Tail-lights, he realized. Lily’s car? Accelerating, he kept his eyes on the lights. As the road straightened for a long stretch, the taillights doubled. He squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Now two sets of lights traveled side by side on the two-lane road. One car passing a slower one?
Suddenly, both cars jerked violently to the right. His heart sped up. Was that a collision?
His cell phone trilled, sending his taut nerves jangling. He grabbed it and thumbed the talk button. “McBride.”
“Lieutenant, this is Alli with Dispatch. You asked us to flag any call that came in from cell phone number 555-3252.”
Lily’s number.
“We’ve got a Lily Browning on with a 911 operator. She says another car is trying to run her off the road.”
“What’s her twenty?” On the road ahead, the pairs of taillights took another jarring lurch to the right.
“Black Creek Road, a mile before Five Mile Crossing.”
McBride’s heart jolted into high gear. He jammed his foot on the accelerator, ignoring the shimmy of the Chevy’s tires on the slick blacktop.
Suddenly, the taillights ahead disappeared from view. McBride’s breath caught. It took a second to realize the dispatcher was calling his name. “Yeah?”
“Sir, we just lost contact.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
LILY THREW HER dead cell phone into the passenger seat, wishing she’d plugged the adapter into the cigarette lighter before she’d left McMillan Place. At least she’d managed to give her location to the operator before her phone went dead.
Gripping the steering wheel, she braced as the car beside her slammed into her again, sending her sliding toward the shoulder. She steered with the skid, managing to right the car before it went over the drop off into the thick woods.
With no streetlamps on the lonely stretch of road, she could make out little about the other car or its driver. It was a dark sedan, an older model judging by its shape, with tinted windows that hid the occupant from view. Not being able to see who was driving her off the road only amplified her terror.
What if her assailant rammed her down the steep embankment into the trees? Would another passing driver be able to see her vehicle from the road? And what would her attacker do if she was trapped and vulnerable at the bottom of the embankment?
She couldn’t help but think of Debra Walters and Abby, alone on a stretch of desolate road, with nothing to protect them from the carjackers but Debra’s willingness to defend her daughter to the death.
Was the person behind those tinted windows the harsh-voiced man from her vision? He knew where she lived; could he have followed her to McMillan Place, waiting to make his move?
Around another curve, her headlights outlined the concrete rails of a bridge spanning a narrow gorge. Lily didn’t have to be psychic to know the other driver would double his efforts to send her off the road once they reached the bridge. And if she went over the side into the creek, she’d never survive the fall.
She sped up as she hit the bridge, praying her tires would grip the slick pavement long enough to get her safely to the other side. Her acceleration caught her tormenter by surprise, forcing him to gun his engine to keep from falling behind.
Lily’s tactic gave her enough of an edge to cross the bridge unmolested, but as she reached solid ground again, the dark sedan bumped against the back panel of her Buick and veered hard to the right. She had no chance to recover as her assailant’s maneuver sent her car spinning across the slippery road.
She held on, trying to keep from sliding over the opposite shoulder, but the momentum was uncontrollable. The world became a blur of dark and light as the Buick hit the shoulder and lurched backward down the fifteen-foot embankment, crashing into a tree with a bone-jarring crunch.
Lily’s head whipped forward and slammed back into the headrest, setting off a brief fireworks display behind her eyes. When the lights and colors faded, she forced herself to shake off the shock and take stock of her condition.
The trunk of the Buick had taken most of the impact of the collision with the tree, leaving the front part of her car in pretty good shape. Her airbag hadn’t deployed, though her seat belt had done its job, holding her in place while her car plunged off the road. She’d be feeling the bruises from the shoulder strap for days, and her headache was back with a vengeance. Beyond that, all her moving parts worked and she hadn’t really lost consciousness.
Shaking wildly, she cut the engine. Her windshield wipers stopped at half-mast, their rhythmic swish-swish abruptly silenced. The void was filled by the heavy drumbeat of rain on the roof and the low moan of wind in the trees behind her, a lonesome sound that amplified her sense of vulnerability tenfold.
She peered through the water sheeting on her wind-shield, trying to see the road. The maneuver that sent her spinning had been a risky move for the other car. Had it met its own fate on the opposite side of the road?
She leaned over and opened the glove compartment, scrabbling through the contents until she found the cell phone adapter. She’d feel safer once she got the 911 operator back on the phone.
But when she finally located her cell phone on the floorboard on the passenger side, its plastic skin lay cracked and askew, wires spilling out through the opening.
Thank God she’d already called for help before the phone went dead. But it would take time for anyone to find her on the long stretch of winding road. And if her attacker hadn’t spun out the way she had—
Light suddenly slanted across her windshield, splintered into glittering facets by the driving rain. She peered through the downpour, her heart in her throat.
Two powerful beams sliced through the gloom at the top of the embankment. They were steady and stationary.
Whoever it was had parked on the shoulder.
Panic zigzagged through her belly. What should she do? Stay put? Try to get out and hide in the woods?
She couldn’t risk the former; she might as well be a rat in a cage, waiting to be fed to a snake. Her shoes weren’t made for trekking through the forest, but she didn’t have to survive out there for long. She just had to hope help arrived before her assailant found her.
Opening her door was harder than she’d expected; the car had sunk into the mud, leaving precious little room to maneuver.
She squeezed through the opening, grabbing her raincoat as she stumbled through the sucking mud. She lost a shoe right off and had to waste time retrieving it, crouching low in hopes that the occupant of the car above hadn’t spotted her yet in the foggy darkness.
She took off the other shoe and squished across the soggy ground until she was well hidden in the trees. Flattening herself against the rough bark of a towering pine, she peeked back up at the roadway.
A dark figure stood at the edge, his large body back-lit by the high beams. He seemed to be gazing down toward her car, his hands curled into fists. Then he began loping down the embankment, taking little care as he slipped and slid on the slick grass.
She could make out only his shadow now, large and looming, so close that she could hear the ragged hiss of his breathing. Terror coiled like a viper in the pit of her belly, spreading poison until her body froze with fear.
When he jerked the driver’s door open, the glow of her dome light rimmed his profile, revealing the familiar set of a square jaw and tension lines carved on either side of his mouth.
Her knees buckling with relief, Lily dug her fingers into the pine bark to keep from sliding to the ground. A soft whimper escaped her throat as a splinter dug into her palm. “McBride.”
He whirled around, peering into the woods. “Lily?”
She willed her legs to hold her upright for the few uneven steps it took to reach the clearing where McBride stood. She couldn’t see his expression, now that the light was at his back again, but she heard his soft exhalation, saw his shoulders sag for a second before he closed the distance between them in two long strides and gathered her into his arms.
She wrapped hers around his neck as he lifted her out of the wet grass and into his tight embrace. His pulse hammered against her breast, keeping pace with her own racing heart.
“Are you hurt?” He started to release her, but she tightened her grip around his neck, shaking her head. He lifted one hand to tangle in her hair, brushing the rain-drenched mass away from her face.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m going to be a little sore, I think. But nothing permanent.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her battered car, then back at her. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, she could see the angry set of his jaw and the glitter of leashed violence in his eyes. “Who did this? Did you get a look at him?”
She tried to gather her wits, though the combination of delayed reaction and McBride’s hard body pressed against hers made coherent thought difficult. “It was a dark four-door sedan with tinted windows. I couldn’t see the driver at all.”
He uttered a terse profanity. “I saw it happening—I was about a quarter mile back when he started ramming you. But I couldn’t catch up in time.”
“That was you?” The lights in her rearview mirror. The ones that had given her hope for a brief moment. She pressed her forehead against his throat, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders as she realized just how easily her fate could have gone the other way.
“Did you see what happened to the other car?”
“All I saw was his taillights ahead. He must have spotted me coming, and gunned it. When I saw the skid marks on the grassy shoulder here, I stopped to see if you were hurt.” He ran his thumb down her cheek, letting it settle at the edge of her lower lip. His voice softened. “You’re trembling.”
She was. And as much as she’d like to attribute it to shock, the main thing sending shivers down her spine was McBride’s body pressed hard and hot against hers.
His gaze dipped to her parted lips, his breath quickening. She could see the struggle on his face, the need to resist. The sharp edges of her own doubts nicked her conscience even as she lifted her chin and met his mouth halfway.
Fire raced through her veins, surprising her with its wild intensity. McBride’s arm tightened around her back, pulling her closer. His other hand tangled in her wet hair, curling into a fist until she was ensnared in his grasp.
He took his time with the kiss, giving and demanding in equal parts, stoking the flames in her belly. His tongue brushed over her lower lip, tasting her. Teasing her.
A low moan of pleasure rumbled up her throat. He tightened his arms around her in response, lifting her off her feet. One hand slid down her back, settling low, pressing her hips firmly against the hard ridge of his erection. Heat flooded her, settling at her center, warming her from the inside out.
He lifted his mouth away only long enough to blaze a trail across her jawline and down the side of her throat, nipping and kissing a path across her collarbone. She melted against him, a shimmering onslaught of need flooding her veins.
At the first faint sound of sirens in the distance, she tightened her hold on his shoulders, not ready to let him go. But he broke the contact, gently setting her back on her feet and taking a step away, breathing hard and fast. His gaze locked with hers, wary and oddly vulnerable, as the sound of sirens grew, piercing the drum-beat of rain.
After an endless moment, he held out his hand. “Think you can make it back to the road if I help you?”
Nodding, she grasped it, wondering if he could feel the tremors still fluttering through her from the kiss.
His big palm enclosed hers. “Need anything from the car?”
“My purse.”
He let go long enough to retrieve the bag, and handed it to her. Then he took her hand again and helped her up the steep incline.
As they reached the road, a police car and an EMT unit were pulling up behind McBride’s idling car. The two medics immediately took charge, separating her from McBride and helping her onto a stretcher in the back of the truck while they looked her over for any possible injuries. She leaned forward to peer around them, not ready to let McBride out of her sight.
He stood a few feet away, bathed in a wide shaft of golden light pouring from the EMT vehicle. He met her gaze with a reassuring smile before moving away to talk to the uniformed officers waiting by his car.
She sank back on the stretcher and closed her eyes, her mouth still tingling from McBride’s kiss.
* * *
MCBRIDE’S WATCH READ four-fifteen when he woke in the predawn gloom of Lily Browning’s living room. Her sofa was built for a woman, sturdy enough but small. Cozy. Definitely not the ideal bed for a man of his size.
The EMTs had reassured him that the purple marks from the seat belt were superficial. Lily had been a little shocky, but a hot shower, dry clothes and extra blankets on her bed had fixed that.
She’d fallen asleep in his car on the way home and had roused only long enough to shower and crawl into bed. When he’d checked on her a little after nine, she’d been fast asleep.
Rubbing the ache in his neck, McBride let his eyes adjust to the pale glow of light from a streetlamp seeping through the thin curtains on Lily’s front windows. He stretched his legs out in front of him, trying to find a more comfortable position.
He shouldn’t have stayed. A police car was parked outside, manned by two perfectly capable officers. Hanging around all night was overkill.
Not to mention dangerous.
He’d kissed her. Not a gentle, comforting peck on the cheek to reassure her that she was safe, either. No, he’d gone for long, wet and greedy.
Worse still, she’d tasted just as he’d expected—sweet with a tangy edge, like wild honey. The curves and planes of her body had fit perfectly against his, soft and hot despite the cold rain drenching them both.
How had he let this happen? Even now he felt the tug of her calling to him, just beyond the closed door at the end of the hall. If he went to her bed, would she turn him away?
He rubbed the heels of his palms against his bleary eyes. He was insane. She was a suspect, for God’s sake! The attack on her tonight didn’t change the fact that she had information only the kidnappers and cops should have. How did she know what Abby had been wearing the day she disappeared?
Maybe she really did see Abby in her mind, a treacherous voice inside him whispered.
No. He knew better than that. He’d learned that lesson the hard way. But could the trembling woman who’d returned his kiss with a sweet passion that made his head spin really be involved with murder and kidnapping?
He sat forward, burying his head in his hands. The idea seemed almost as insane as the alternative.
But those didn’t have to be the only choices, did they?
Maybe the truth lay somewhere in between.
* * *
LILY CURLED UP in bed with her cats, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Though sleep had done wonders for her, she felt sore all over from her nerve-wracking ordeal. And below the twinges and aches lay a relentless hum of awareness, a disturbing reminder of how her world had tilted upside down again with one shattering kiss.
Why in the world had she let herself lose control that way? She couldn’t trust McBride; he still thought she was involved in Abby Walters’s kidnapping. Lily had seen it in his eyes the day before in Andrew’s hotel suite. And even if his doubts hadn’t built an impenetrable wall between them, the man himself posed a grave danger to her heart.
The more she learned about the detective, the less she knew. He was a man steeped in secrets. Terrible ones, if the darkness she’d felt from him that night in her kitchen meant anything. What if being around him opened her mind to whatever horrors lurked within him? Could she bear it?
She shivered, cold despite the blankets piled atop her. Delilah nestled closer, a hot little knot against her side, but the shivers grew stronger. The darkness of the bedroom had already begun changing color and texture before Lily realized that she was having another vision.
She opened the door in her mind, both eager and afraid to see what lay beyond. As she pushed forward through the thick fog, she felt a warning pain behind her eyes and forced herself to let the vision flow around her, carrying her at its own pace.
Eventually the mists cleared to reveal Abby Walters lying on the lumpy bed where Lily had found her in her last vision. The child slept fitfully, her pale eyelids twitching with a dream. She looked cleaner than before. Lily took a deep breath through her nose and smelled soap.
Somebody had given Abby a bath, she thought with faint relief. Maybe that meant they were trying to take care of her.
Unless…
A darker thought forced her mind to a horrible place. Abby, naked and vulnerable in the hands of the man—men?—who had brutally killed her mother. Nausea rose in Lily’s throat, making her eyes sting with acrid tears.
“What did they do to you, baby?” She stroked Abby’s cheek, her fingers tracing damp tear tracks.
“It’s okay,” a child’s voice whispered, very close.
Lily whirled around.
The dark-haired girl from her earlier vision stood behind her, clad in yellow-striped pajamas a size too small for her. She clutched a ragged stuffed toy against her chest, something round and tattered, its furry green body worn and thin.
She smiled tentatively at Lily. “I watched her for you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LILY FELT AS if she’d gone mad. “You watched her?”
The little girl nodded. “I know you can’t always be here, so I check on her sometimes to make sure she’s okay.”
Lily’s mind reeled, threatening to suck her back to reality. She forced herself to stay calm, let the vision hold her in its gossamer web. “Who are you?”
“Mama calls me Gina, but I don’t think that’s my name. She’s not really my mama, you know. My real mama’s dead.”
Lily noticed the little girl was almost transparent, unlike Abby. She wasn’t actually in the same room, Lily realized. She was somewhere else.
But where?
“I can’t stay much longer.” The girl began to fade.
Lily reached out, wondering if she could touch her. “Wait, Gina! Are you sure Abby’s okay?”
The girl’s image rippled. “Yes.”
Before Lily could move, the dark-haired girl was gone.
Lily slowly turned back to Abby. The child’s eyelids had stopped fluttering and her soft, snuffling breath was even and deep. Relief trickled through Lily as she watched the child’s peaceful slumber, until the fog began to swirl around her, drawing her back to the doorway.
She reached out to stroke Abby’s cheek again before the door in her mind closed, hiding the child from her sight.
Emerging from the fog, Lily sat upright in the bed, hugging herself with trembling arms. The face of the dark-haired child remained etched in her mind, pale, heart-shaped, and so, so sad.
She shivered. Who was this solemn little girl?
* * *
BLUE MOONLIGHT BATHED the bedroom. The little girl blinked as she emerged from the haze to find herself huddled in bed.
She looked around quickly, just to reassure herself that she was back in her own room. She clutched Mr. Green more tightly to her, rubbing her cheek against his threadbare fur. Straining her ears, she listened for Mama. But the house was silent.
She pulled the covers more tightly around herself and stared at the cracked ceiling. She knew something was wrong with her mother. In her little-girl wisdom, she also knew Mama’s trouble had something to do with her.
Mama called her Gina, but that wasn’t her name. She was Casey. She had vague memories of someone calling her name. “Casey, baby, come here.” The voice was deep. A man’s voice. She liked the way it sounded, a little gruff but tender.
She knew the voice belonged to her daddy, but she barely remembered him. Only Mama, for just about as long as she recalled. The fuzzy memories that came at night, memories of being held in Daddy’s strong arms, were little more than dreams.
Sweet dreams.
Nestled under the covers, Casey felt sleep creeping up on her. She closed her eyes, picturing Lily, the nice lady who was taking care of Abby. Casey smiled in the dark.
That smile carried her softly into sleep.
* * *
LILY OVERSLEPT, WAKING with bright morning sunlight slanting through her bedroom window. The digital alarm clock read seven twenty-five. She was going to be late for work.
She sat up quickly, gasping as pain rocketed through her entire body before settling in a hot ache in the back of her neck. Okay, work was out.
She reached for her phone and called Carmen Herrera’s office number. “Carmen, it’s Lily. I’m so sorry, I overslept and I haven’t even had a chance—”
“Lily, thank God you’re okay!” Carmen interrupted. “Lieutenant McBride called me this morning to let me know about the accident so I could arrange for a substitute for your classes. He said you were a little banged up.”
Lily glanced at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Shadows circled her eyes, almost as dark as the vivid bruises slanting across her shoulder and chest where the shoulder belt had left its mark. “I’m a little bruised and sore, but I should be fine by Monday. Thanks for getting someone to fill in.”
She hung up the phone and eased her sore legs over the edge of the bed. Jezebel glided in from the hall and wrapped herself around Lily’s ankles, meowing.
“I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you, Jezzy?” She put on a bathrobe and hobbled down the hall to the kitchen, wondering if McBride had already left for the office.
But he was waiting in her kitchen, the morning paper spread out in front of him, a mug of steaming coffee sitting to one side. He looked up when she entered. “The nice cat has been fed. The psycho one refused to eat anything I gave her.”
Lily glanced at the four open cans of cat food on the counter, her lips curving with amusement.
She picked up the tuna, Jezebel’s favorite, and emptied it in one of the cat bowls. Jezebel went straight to it and started eating.
“Spoiled brat,” McBride murmured.
“Thank you for calling in for me.” Lily poured herself a cup of coffee and joined McBride at the table before taking a sip. Strong and hot, the coffee burned going down, making her eyes water.
“I figured you’d be too sore from the accident to deal with a bunch of eight-year-olds.” His gaze dropped to her throat. “Do those bruises hurt much?”
“Not too much.” She lifted a hand to her neck. He was being too nice to her. It made her feel self-conscious.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I found your sisters’ phone number in your address book and called to let them know you’d been in an accident. I talked to the one named Rose.”
Lily bit back a smile at the look on his face. Two minutes on the phone with Rose had probably confused the hell out of him. Her ebullient sister was Lily’s polar opposite.
Her smile faded. It hadn’t always been that way.
“She said she would be here before noon.”
Lily frowned. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
His expression became shuttered. “She insisted. Besides, I’ve got to get out of here soon—I have a meeting at nine. I’ve called for a patrol to come by your house every thirty minutes, just in case there’s any trouble.”
She set her coffee cup down, her stomach clenching. “Are you expecting trouble?”
He gave her a considering look. “You tell me.”
Ah, there was the McBride she knew. Suspicious by nature. “I didn’t imagine the phone call from the kidnapper. You heard him. You also saw that car run me off the road. Unless you think I arranged that, too?”
His only answer was a slight narrowing of his eyes.
“Because it makes so much sense to risk life and limb on the off chance that you left Andrew Walters’s hotel room right after I did, and took the same detour I took.”
“Well, you do claim to be a psychic,” he pointed out.
“I don’t claim to be anything.” She picked up her coffee cup and took it to the sink, emptying the dark liquid down the drain. She’d had about all she could take of McBride and his coffee for one day. “All I’ve ever said is that I see things other people don’t.”
“Potato, potah-to,” he murmured in her ear.
She turned and found him inches away. “What do you want from me?” Her own voice came out soft as a whisper.
His half smile faded. “I want you to stay away from Andrew Walters. His life is turned upside down, and he’s clinging to anything that’ll make his world stop shaking. Including you.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Walters thinks you can find his daughter. That makes you the most important person in his life right now.”
Lily frowned, not liking what he was implying. “Look, I know you didn’t like finding me at Mr. Walters’s hotel, but I assure you—”
“What do you think will happen to Walters if you don’t deliver Abby in the end?” McBride asked.
A flicker of uncertainty ran through her. What if she couldn’t? Was she giving the man false hope?
“You’re telling Andrew Walters that his little girl is all right, that there’s still a chance he’ll find her again. Do you really know that?” McBride edged closer. “What happens if tomorrow we find Abby’s body in a ditch somewhere? How much harder is that going to be for the man?”
Her throat tightened, his soft words painting vivid pictures in her mind. “Stop it.”
McBride suddenly looked tired. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Lily. But there are too damn many odds against her.” His voice was so flat and faraway, she hardly recognized it. “So please, don’t give Walters any false encouragement. Okay?”
“Am I supposed to pretend I never heard of Abby Walters?” Tears blurred Lily’s vision. “She’s a scared little girl who saw her mommy die, and now she’s all alone with two very bad men. I won’t abandon her in that dark place.”
McBride took a deep breath. “Then come to me instead of Walters. Tell me about your visions.”
Wariness flitted through her. “Tell you?”
“I promise I’ll look into everything you tell me.” He looked queasy, but his gaze remained steady.
“Mr. Walters expects me to stay in touch.”
“I’ll tell him you’re part of my investigation and you’ll be reporting to me now.” McBride took a step back. “Deal?”
She licked her lips, realizing that he’d just played her—and that it had worked. She would do what he asked. “You won’t ignore what I tell you?”
“I’ll follow every lead you give me.”
She put her hand over her mouth, wondering if she was making a mistake. But when she dropped her hand, it was to say, “Okay, it’s a deal.”
The look of satisfaction in his eyes made her immediately regret giving in so easily. But she quelled her doubts; she could always break her end of the deal if he broke his.
She released a pent-up breath. “So what do I do, call you if I have a vision? And I guess you’ll want me to write down everything I see, right?”
He seemed flummoxed by the question, as if he hadn’t quite thought past manipulating her into staying away from Andrew Walters. Beneath the confusion, a darker emotion burned in his narrowed eyes.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Yes, write everything down.”
Lily pushed her hair back from her face. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers, his expression shuttered. “No. No problem.”
She studied his face, trying to figure out what he was thinking. He could hide his emotions as well as almost anyone Lily knew, although he couldn’t quite cover up the dark place inside him. It roiled, black and deep, just under the surface.
He took a step toward the doorway. “I should go. I need to head home and change.”
She walked him to the door, leaning against the jamb as he took his jacket from the coat rack. He paused next to her, turning to meet her uplifted gaze.
“Call if you need me.”
Heat bloomed deep in her belly. “I will.”
He leaned in, and she rose on her toes to meet him halfway, as if drawn by a microscopic thread, the pull of his body intense and powerful. She curled her hand around his neck and brushed her lips against his. She’d expected combustion, but instead, the sweetness of the kiss washed over her in a river of warmth. She relaxed, giving in to the velvety caress of his mouth on hers.
When he gently broke away, coldness seeped into the marrow of her bones.
McBride stepped back onto the concrete stoop, gathering his coat around him to ward off the chill. Lily closed the door, needing the distance, the barrier between them.
But she remained there, her cheek against the door, long after she heard his car drive away.
* * *
ROSE ARRIVED AROUND TEN, laden with an overnight case, bran muffins and a thermos. “Iris sent buckbean tea.” Rose hugged Lily. “You okay? McBride said you got a little banged up.”
“I’m fine.” Lily took the basket of muffins from her sister and led her inside. “My car’s totaled, though.”
Rose dropped her bag on the floor by the sofa and followed Lily to the kitchen. She glanced at the two coffee cups in the sink. “So, this McBride—is he cute?”
Lily put the muffins on the counter and gave her sister a warning look.
Rose bent and picked up Delilah, who had wound herself in a knot around her legs. “Hello, gorgeous.” She rubbed the cat’s ears until Delilah purred like a motor-boat. “Iris would’ve come, but she’s almost figured out some mix of bat’s wings and eye of newt that’ll relieve menstrual cramps in half the usual time, and far be it from me to stand in the way of such a miracle.”
Lily pulled the plastic wrap off the basket and picked out a couple of muffins for herself and Rose. “Put my cat down and pour us some tea.”
Rose poured two cups and joined Lily at the kitchen table, moving aside the newspaper McBride had left folded on the table. “So really—who is this McBride and why did he spend the night with you?”
Heat rushed up Lily’s neck and spilled into her cheeks. She touched the edge of the newspaper at her elbow, trying to hide her reaction. But the paper only reminded her that McBride had sat here reading this paper only a few hours earlier, looking sleepy and disheveled and utterly irresistible.
“Ooh, Lil, you’re blushing!” Rose leaned forward, her expression eager. “Spill it!”
Lily gave her sister a stern look. “McBride’s the head of the task force investigating Abby Walters’s abduction.”
“Ooh, and you’re working with him? Because of your visions?”
“Kind of.” Lily caught her up with all that had happened since they’d spoken on the phone the night before.
Rose’s eyes widened with horror. “Someone ran you off the road? McBride just said it was an accident.”
“I don’t know who it was or why he wanted to hurt me,” Lily admitted. “It doesn’t make any sense—the kidnapper who called me the other day seemed to want me to give Andrew a message. But maybe I spooked him when he realized I’d seen him hit Abby.”
“Have you had more visions since then?”
“Yeah. A really strange one.” Glad for a sympathetic ear, Lily told Rose about the second little girl who’d appeared in her visions of Abby. “It was so strange. It was like she’d been watching Abby and me.”
Rose’s eyes glittered. “Creepy!”
“It didn’t feel creepy, though,” Lily said. “At first, maybe, but after that it seemed sort of sweet. How she’d been watching over Abby.”
“You think she knows Abby?”
“I think she’s connected somehow. Maybe a cousin or something. Something about her looks familiar.”
“Why would Abby’s cousin come to you in a vision?”
Lily shrugged. “I’d love to ask Andrew Walters about the little girl, but I promised McBride I’d stay away from him.”
Before Rose could respond, Jezebel jumped from the counter onto the kitchen table, knocking over Lily’s tea.
“Jezzy!” Rose jumped up to avoid the liquid spreading toward her.
Lily shooed the cat away and crossed to the counter to retrieve a roll of paper towels to mop up the mess, while Rose grabbed the newspaper off the table to keep it from getting wet.
When Lily dumped the soaked towels and returned to the table, she found Rose gazing at the paper, a strange light in her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
Rose turned the paper around, showing Lily a front-page photo of McBride and a couple of detectives Lily didn’t recognize, manning phones at police headquarters.
Rose pointed to McBride. “This is McBride, isn’t it?
Lily nodded, chill bumps rising on her arms. The picture caption didn’t identify him by name. “How’d you know?”
Rose’s grin split her face from ear to ear. “Sugar, he’s the man you’re going to marry.”
CHAPTER NINE
MCBRIDE WATCHED THE cable news interview through narrowed eyes, a little unnerved by how well Andrew Walters was holding together under the camera lights. The man was smooth, well-spoken and engaging. The camera loved him.
No wonder he was in politics.
“I’m grateful for everyone’s support. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.” Walters looked straight at the camera, his chin up, his eyes soft with emotion. “Please remember to keep your eyes open. Be aware of who’s around you. That little redhead you see in the grocery store could be my daughter.”
“He’s good,” FBI Special Agent Cal Brody murmured.
McBride glanced at the agent. Brody was a lean, rangy man with the sharp eyes of a hunter. He said little and missed nothing. And he looked just as bemused as McBride felt.
“He has an alibi,” McBride responded, aware what the agent’s dry words were implying. “And no discernible motive.”
“What about his opponent?”
“If Blackledge was behind it, he screwed up. Walters’s poll numbers are way up since his daughter disappeared.” A niggle of unease crept under McBride’s collar as he spoke.
“Motive.” Brody echoed the path of McBride’s thoughts.
McBride pressed his lips together, considering the idea of Walters as the mastermind behind his daughter’s kidnapping. Was it possible? His alibi was airtight, so he’d have had to hire someone else to make the snatch…
No. Until this morning, when he’d arrived to find Walters up to his elbows in campaign discussions with his campaign manager, Joe Britt, McBride had never seen the man as anything other than a desperate, heart-sick father.
But Walters had a job to do, just like McBride.
When Brody joined McBride and Walters that morning, he’d gone over the FBI’s game plan. “We think we’ve figured out this guy’s trace-blocking system, so we should be able to pinpoint him when he calls today. We get his location, we strike, we grab him.” Brody had looked at Walters. “I understand you don’t believe he’s legitimate.”
“Lily is sure he’s a fraud,” Walters had said.
“Lily?” Brody had asked.
“She’s a psychic who’s helping us find Abby,” Walters had said before McBride could stop him. McBride had braced himself for the agent’s reaction.
Brody’s only response had been a quick glance at McBride.
Walters had managed to stay away from the topic of Lily for most of the day, distracted by a Birmingham television news crew who’d arrived to interview him about his missing daughter.
McBride wished he were as easily distracted. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Lily Browning.
The crew wrapped up the interview, broke down their equipment and left. Walters went to change clothes, leaving McBride alone with Brody.
“How closely did you look at him?”
“Verified his alibi. Checked his bank account to see if there were any odd outputs of money, but he is in the middle of a senate run. There’ve been outlays. But they seem legit.”
Brody shrugged. “From what I know about Blackledge, if Walters had any skeletons, they’d be out of the closet already.”
Brody was right. Walters knew what it was like to live under scrutiny. It was only reasonable he’d hold up under pressure better than the average guy with a missing daughter.
Walters returned to the sitting room, minus his jacket and tie. “I hope that earns us a few more eyeballs.”
Odd phrasing, McBride thought. But the trill of a phone diverted his attention.
It was the dedicated line.
McBride glanced at Brody. The fed nodded. Andrew Walters sank onto the sofa and took a deep breath.
As they’d agreed, McBride answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Walters. Remember me?”
McBride recognized the voice from the surveillance tape. He squeezed the receiver tightly. “I remember.” He smoothed his gravelly voice to sound more like Walters.
“We want five hundred grand in tens and twenties, dropped in the waste bin at the corner of 10th and Maple. Tomorrow night at eleven-thirty. We’ll be watching, so don’t be stupid.”
“That’s a lot of money to get together by then.”
“Don’t jerk me around, Walters. You’re worth fifty times that. Eleven-thirty tomorrow night.” The man’s voice quavered despite his attempt to sound tough. “And no cops, got it? I smell so much as a whiff of bacon, the kid is dead.”
McBride gritted his teeth. “You’ll have Abby there?” He wondered if the FBI techs had been able to get a trace yet.
“Just be there.” There was a click, then a dial tone.
A second later, an FBI surveillance tech burst through the door. “We’ve got him!”
* * *
LILY STARED AT her sister. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you’re going to marry McBride.” Rose was matter-of-fact, as if she’d just said Lily was having waffles for breakfast. “I just now saw a true-love veil, your face over his. You know what that means.”
Lily shook her head. No matter how attractive she found McBride, she couldn’t believe he was her “one true love.” They’d never find common ground enough to be together forever.
“He’s the man in the dream I had, the man you’re going to be madly in love with, remember? You find his daughter….” Rose stopped, frowning. “Does McBride have a daughter?”
“I don’t think so.” None she knew of, anyway. McBride wasn’t the most forthcoming man she’d ever met. “I think you’re off the mark this time.” A queasy feeling settled in her stomach. “For all I know, he’s happily married.”
Which would shine a new, unwelcome light on their recent kisses, she realized with a sinking heart.
Rose frowned. “I’m never wrong about these things.”
“Trust me, whoever the mystery man is, it’s not McBride.” She changed the subject. “How’s business?”
“Pretty good. Right now I’m working on a wedding in Willow Grove and one over in Talladega. I think—”
The jangling phone interrupted her. Lily shrugged apologetically and answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Lily? It’s Andrew Walters. They traced the call!”
Lily’s stomach flipped. “Really?”
“I’m heading to the station to wait for them to arrive with the suspect.” Andrew paused, tension buzzing over the phone line. “Are you sure he doesn’t have Abby?”
About to reassure him, Lily remembered McBride’s warning. What if she was wrong? What if she built up Andrew’s hopes, only to have all her visions turn out to be nothing but delusions?
It didn’t matter, she realized. “McBride won’t let anything happen to Abby.” He’d die before he’d let her get hurt. It was the one thing Lily was sure about.
“Will you come to the police station? I need you there.”
Lily hesitated, remembering her promise to McBride. But she needed to be there. Already she was pumped with adrenaline; sitting here in ignorance for hours, waiting for news, would be too excruciating to contemplate. “On my way.”
“Where’re you going?” Rose asked when she hung up.
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