Читать книгу Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation - Пола Грейвс - Страница 15

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.