Forbidden Territory

Lily nodded slowly. “She was crying. And she was afraid.”

“Can you see her now?”

Her quick, deep breath sounded like a gasp. “No.” She lurched from the chair and stumbled against the coffee table.

McBride’s heart jumped to hyperspeed as he hurried to Lily’s side. He caught her elbow. “Are you okay?”

Her head lolled forward, her forehead brushing against his shoulder.

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.

Forbidden Territory

Paula Graves

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, 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. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

Paula invites readers to visit her Web site, www.paulagraves.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lily Browning—The reluctant psychic’s visions of Abby put her in a killer’s crosshairs.

J. McBride—The jaded cop with a tragic past—he doesn’t buy Lily’s vision but can’t deny she’s in danger.

Debra Walters—The ex-wife of Senate candidate Adam Walters is the victim of a deadly carjacking gone wrong.

Abby Walters—Debra’s six-year-old daughter goes missing after her mother’s murder.

Adam Walters—Abby’s father is in a close race for the U.S. Senate—could his opponent be behind his daughter’s kidnapping?

Joe Britt—Adam’s campaign manager must keep his distracted candidate focused on the prize.

Gerald Blackledge—The incumbent senator is facing a tougher race than anticipated—how far will he go to win?

Paul Leonardi—Debra Walters’s former lover wasn’t happy about their breakup—could he be behind the murder-abduction?

Skeet and Gordy—Abby’s kidnappers are deadly, but why don’t they seem to know what to do with their little victim?

Cal Brody—The FBI agent thinks Lily knows too much not to be involved in Abby’s kidnapping.

Rose and Iris Browning—Lily’s sisters have special gifts of their own.

Casey—Why is this little girl showing up in Lily’s visions of Abby?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

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 undertow 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 life-blood. Her own father’s life snuffed out in a sawmill 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.