Читать книгу Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation: Forbidden Territory / Forbidden Temptation - Paula Graves - Страница 15

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.