Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation: Forbidden Territory / Forbidden Temptation

“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.”