by Paula Graves
Quietly, carefully, Casey tried to turn the doorknob. It rattled uselessly in her hand. Locked. She tapped cautiously on the door. “Mama, can you hear me?”
Nothing but silence.
She rapped more loudly. “Mama, I’m scared. Please let me out.” She pressed her ear to the door and waited for her reply. Still there was nothing.
She hugged Mr. Green closer and looked around the room, wondering what to do. There was no other door, no way out. She couldn’t get out the window because it was painted tightly shut.
A shiver wracked her body. Daddy would know how to get her out. He’d say, “Sit tight, Casey, and I’ll have you out in a jiffy.” Yes sir, that’s what he’d say if he was here.
But he wasn’t here. Nobody was here but her and Mama.
“Mama, please come open the door. I’m hungry and I’m scared and I’ve got to pee.”
Still nothing. No answer, no noise.
Little Abby found a way out, Casey reminded herself. She’d just climbed out her window and run for help, big as you please.
But she had had Casey’s help. And Lily’s.
Lily would know what to do, if only Casey could figure out a way to reach her. Clutching the stuffed frog against her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated hard.
Lily!
“THEY IDENTIFIED THE bodies in the trailer as Rick ‘Skeet’ Scotero and Gordon ‘Gordy’ Stevens. Two-bit career criminals with records going back twenty years.” McBride hunted through the cabinets for something to eat.
“Any idea why they took her?” Lily asked.
“Brody thinks someone hired the men to threaten Debra Walters and her daughter. They’re rounding up Senator Blackledge and his campaign staff as we speak.” He turned to look at her. “I called the sketch artist. He’ll meet us at your house at ten this morning. But don’t tell anyone else you saw the man in the woods. We don’t know who he’s connected to. No point putting yourself in more danger. Agreed?”
“That makes sense.” Lily started to push aside the blue binder on the table when she realized it was a photo album. Curiosity battled dread. But she was incapable of leaving it closed. She shot a glance at McBride. He was crouched by the cabinets next to the sink, sorting through some cans.
Hands trembling, she opened the album to the first photo.
It was an eight-by-ten family portrait. McBride, Laura and a small baby. Clare, Lily thought, her tears blurring the chubby little face. She wiped them away.
All three were smiling, McBride’s face carefree and unlined. She hardly recognized him like that, so happy and lighthearted, as if he were king of the whole, wide world.
Pain clutching her heart, she turned the page. More family pictures. Laura and Clare. McBride and Clare. All three of them at the beach, in the kitchen, in front of a Christmas tree. Clare alone, grinning at the camera, her face smeared with what looked like strained carrots. Lily laughed and cried at the sweet, funny little face.
With each successive photo, Lily watched Clare grow. First a crawling baby, then a wobbly toddler, then a sassy two-year-old. The very last picture in the album was another eight-by-ten portrait. It was Clare at age three. Probably the last photograph McBride had of his daughter, Lily realized.
She studied the picture, looked at every inch of the little girl’s face, trying to commit her to memory. Clare had her mother’s fair skin and quaint heart-shaped face. Her daddy’s dark hazel eyes.
Lily’s heart flip-flopped. Her fingers tightened on the album and she drew a sharp breath.
That face.
She’d seen it, leaner and sadder, without the little-girl chubbiness. She’d seen those hazel eyes, no longer sparkling with childlike wonder, but serious and worried. Lily plucked at the peel-away covering holding the photo in place and pulled it free from the sticky backing, managing not to damage the picture. Her hands shook as she flipped the photo over to see if anything was written on the back.
“Katherine Clare McBride, age three.”
Katherine Clare.
Not Casey, Lily realized.
K.C.
She released a shuddering breath, afraid to move. She remembered the little girl’s words. “Daddy calls me Casey.”
Daddy calls me K.C.
Casey was Clare McBride.
Chapter Sixteen
McBride turned to look at her. His gaze dropped to the album in her hands. A dozen different expressions flitted over his face before he finally settled on a sort of sad acceptance. “That’s Clare.”
Lily’s chest tightened, afraid that what she was about to tell him would be more than he could take. “She’s beautiful.”
“Is it horrible that when I saw Andrew Walters run to his little girl, all I could think was, I wish that was me?” McBride sat down at the table beside her, taking the photo from her hands. He ran his fingers over it and looked up at her. “I wish you could have found Clare for me.”
When Lily reached out to touch his face, her hand was shaking. “What if I told you I could?”
“Find Clare?”
“Yes.”
He looked puzzled. “Why are you asking this?”
Her stomach clenched. “Would you believe me?”
“Is this some kind of test?”
Lily shook her head. “I just need to know.”
Silence stretched between them for a long moment. Lily’s tension rose to the snapping point before he finally spoke. “If you looked me in the face and told me you knew where Clare was, yes, I’d believe you.” In his murky eyes she saw a depth of desperation she’d never seen before. “I’d give my soul to believe Clare was still alive.”
She lowered her trembling hand and asked the question she dreaded most. But it had to be asked, because there was always a chance she was wrong about who Casey really was. “What if I told you I could find Clare, but it turned out I couldn’t?”
McBride’s face shut down as if somebody had turned off the lights. Lily had her answer before he said the words. “I think I’d hate you the rest of my life.”
The coldness of McBride’s reply gave her chills. Her trembling increased, vibrations rolling along her spine.
Gray mist began to swirl.
The door in her mind banged open and she heard her name as clearly as if someone had called to her across the room.
“Help me, Lily!” Casey’s pale face appeared in the mist. She held out her arms.
Without a second thought, Lily went to her. The mist dissipated, revealing Casey’s bedroom. Lily gently lifted the little girl’s face. “Are you hurt?”
“Mama locked me in here and she won’t let me out and I can’t hear anything. I’m hungry and I’m scared and I need to pee. Please, Lily, help me, please!” Tears streamed down Casey’s face. “Please, Lily, I’m scared!”
“Shh, sweetie, it’s okay. I’m here and I’ll help you, okay? But I need you to calm down and help me, too.”
Casey made a visible effort to calm herself, rubbing her tear-reddened eyes. “Okay.”
“Your mother locked the door and you can’t get it open?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Show me.”
Casey went over and tried to turn the doorknob. Lily heard the rattle as it refused to move. For some reason Lily didn’t want to think about too closely, the door locked from the outside. “Casey, how was your mother acting?”
“She kept yelling at me to stop screaming, but I wasn’t, Lily. Honest, I wasn’t screaming at all.”
The woman must have been having a psychotic episode, Lily thought with trepidation. Casey might be safer locked in her room for now. But how long until the woman came back?
Lily scanned her surroundings for anything that could help the child escape. “What about the window?”
“I can’t open it.”
“Try it for me again.” Maybe it was just stuck.
Casey moved toward the window. The sill was only a couple of feet off the floor, so Casey had no trouble gripping the
handles and giving the window a jerk. But it wouldn’t budge.
Out the window, Lily saw a short stretch of unkempt grass before the surrounding woods took over. The window was low enough to the ground that Casey could climb out, if they could ever get it open. “Casey, I need to come to where you are. Do you know the name of your town?”
She shook her head. “Mama never lets me leave here. I can only go to the edge of the woods.”
Lily frowned. “You don’t go to school?”
Casey shook her head. “But I know how to read. Mama taught me, before she got so sick.”
Lily sensed the child wasn’t far away; the woods and general terrain looked familiar. “Are you in Alabama?”
“Yes!” Excitement shone in Casey’s eyes. “Mama taught me a song. ‘My home’s in Alabama, no matter where—’”
A sharp crack interrupted Casey’s slightly off-key rendition. Her eyes widened. “What was that?”
Lily stared back, her heart racing. She feared she knew exactly what that sound had been.
A gunshot.
MCBRIDE SAID LILY’S NAME. She didn’t respond.
A chill ran down his spine as he sat back from her, unsure what to do. A few moments ago, she’d just…left. Her eyes had gone glassy, her face flushed, and then she was gone to wherever it was she went when one of her visions hit.
Was it what he’d told her? He hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but she’d said she wanted the truth. He didn’t know if he could ever forgive her if she convinced him once more that Clare might still be alive, only to fail to deliver on her promise.
But it was a moot point, wasn’t it? He’d accepted a long time ago that his little girl was dead.
McBride touched Lily’s face, wondering if it was bad for her to have her visions interrupted. Would it give her one of those horrible migraines? He didn’t know how it worked.
“No!” An anguished wail poured forth from deep inside Lily, setting McBride’s teeth on edge.
Suddenly, her eyes blinked rapidly and focused, then widened in alarm. She gripped his arms. “McBride, we’ve got to find her!”
She was still having visions of Abby? “We’ve already found her, Lily. Abby’s safe with her daddy.”
“Not Abby!” Lily clutched his shoulders and pulled herself to her feet. “Clare’s in trouble. We have to help her!”
Blood roared in McBride’s ears. “Clare?”
Lily’s gaze pierced his heart. Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment, as if she were searching desperately for words. Then her voice broke through, raspy and quivering. “She’s alive, McBride. Clare’s alive.”
He felt the blood drain from his head. “No.”
“She’s alive and she needs our help.” Lily touched his face, her fingers hot and dry. “I know you’re afraid to believe, but we don’t have time.”
He pushed her hand away. “Lily, don’t do this.”
“You said you’d believe me if I told you I knew where she was. I know the risk I’m taking.” She grabbed his chin and forced him to look into her eyes. “I know it can destroy us.”
He swallowed hard. “You saw her just now?”
“She’s the little girl I told you about.” Lily pointed to Clare’s photo. “This is her. Only she’s older—nine or ten.”
His body went numb. “But she said her name was Casey.”
“K.C., McBride. Katherine Clare. You called her K.C., didn’t you?”
He gazed at Lily, his heart in his throat. “We called her Clare, after her aunt Clare. But sometimes I called her K.C.”
“It’s your daughter, McBride. She’s not dead.”
Tears filled his eyes. He slowly lifted his hands to his face. “Not dead.”
“She’s in trouble. We have to find her.”
He looked up, a fresh agony of despair rolling over him. “How? You don’t know where she is.”
Lily told him everything she’d seen of Casey in her visions—the old-fashioned parlor, the small bedroom, the distant and disturbed woman Casey called Mama. “Does it ring any bells with you at all?”
“Maybe she just looks like Clare.” He wobbled on the edge of belief, afraid to take the final plunge.
Lily released a sigh of pure frustration. “There has to be something…” Her eyes suddenly lit up. “You gave her a stuffed frog. Mr. Green. You said he’d watch out for her.”
McBride’s heart skipped a beat, then hurtled into hyperspeed. He could see the green frog as clearly as if he’d bought it just the day before.
Doubt left him, washed away in a bittersweet flood of hope.
Casey was his daughter, Clare. And Lily was going to help him find her.
PARFAIT-PINK WALLS, cracked in places and peeling…
It took Lily a few moments to realize she was seeing the morning sun reflected off the dingy walls of Casey’s tiny bedroom instead of McBride’s kitchen. Panic clawed her insides. Where was the girl? Had the madwoman done something to her?
“I’m here.” Casey crouched in the corner, clutching her toy frog.
“Why are you on the floor?” Lily asked.
Casey waved at the bed. Lily saw that the sheets were wadded into a ball in the middle of the lumpy mattress. She smelled something sour.
“I couldn’t hold it.” Casey sniffled. “I tried to find something to use, but I couldn’t hold it anymore.”
Lily crossed to her quickly, stroking Casey’s face. “It’s okay. Your daddy and I are going to get you out of here.”
“Daddy?”
Lily smiled at the sudden rush of hope she saw in Casey’s face. “Your daddy’s with me right now, honey. He never wanted to let you go. Nobody gave him a choice. But I told him about you. We’re going to help you, but you have to help us do it.”
Casey nodded eagerly. “How?”
“I want you to put on warm clothes. Do you have warm clothes in this room?”
“Yes.” Casey rose quickly and started rummaging through the battered chest of drawers near the window. She donned fresh underclothes, a pair of jeans and a too-snug sweater.
“Put on another sweater, and at least two pairs of socks,” Lily directed, at the same time trying to listen for any noises from outside the room.
Casey did as she said.
“Now, wrap that other pair of blue jeans around your arm and hit the window as hard as you can.”
Casey’s eyes widened. “What if Mama hears?”
Lily didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure if the woman was even alive anymore. Or if she was, maybe she was too far gone to hear anything, lost in the depths of another catatonic episode. Lily almost hoped so. If the woman were to come into this room and do something to Casey while Lily was there watching…
She shuddered, feeling the door in her mind trying to open and pull her back to reality. She clenched her teeth and fought it like a mother tiger. Concentrating on Casey, she was able to stay in the vision, but already her head was beginning to ache.
“Hit it, Casey.”
Casey planted her feet in front of the window and took a deep breath. Lily could see her nibbling her bottom lip in preparation. At that moment, she looked just like McBride.
Then she struck the window with her padded hand. The glass rattled but didn’t give.
They both waited a few seconds, breaths bated, listening for any noise from outside the room.
Nothing.
“Hit it again,” Lily said.
Casey slammed her hand into the window. This time, one pane broke, sending shards flying.
“Again, Casey!”
The girl banged the windowpane next to the broken one. It shattered as well. She hit each pane with increasing force, smashing them until the bottom six panes were broken.
“Now, Casey, here’s the hard part. Strike the wooden part as hard as you can. Strike it until it breaks.”
The little girl made a soft growling noise deep in her throat, then started hammering away at the wood. Pieces splintered outward bit by bit u
ntil she’d made a space large enough to crawl through. Lily felt the biting cold October air pouring through the opening.
She told Casey to drape more clothing over the ragged places to protect herself. Then the girl crawled through the opening and tumbled to the ground.
Lily envisioned herself following through the window, and she was suddenly outside, where Casey was picking herself up and dusting off her jeans. Sunlight pierced the wall of trees in the east, washing everything in gold. The child started running toward the sunlight and Lily tried to follow, but her throbbing head slowed her. “Wait, Casey! Where are you going?”
Lily felt the door in her mind opening, drawing her back. Desperately, she looked around, trying to memorize every detail. The one-story house, white paint with green shutters. Sagging gutters. Unkempt yard. Trees all around.
Then she saw the spire. It rose against the eastern sky, little more than a dark silhouette just above the treetops, but she thought it might be a church steeple.
She kept her eyes on the spire until the mists surrounded her, dragging her back to her own time and place.
Lily jerked in her chair, nearly toppling over. “McBride!”
He was right beside her. “What is it?”
She grabbed his arm. “I saw her! She’s out of the house, and I think I know how we can find her!”
He caught her shoulders. “What did you see?”
He made her go over everything she’d experienced, sifting the facts carefully, looking for hidden clues. She gritted her teeth against the pain in her head and told him everything she could remember. He latched on to the spire, of course. It was probably the best clue they had.
“It was like a church steeple,” she said. “I couldn’t see it all that well, but what else could it be?”
“Okay, let’s look at what we’ve got.” He pulled a notebook from the kitchen counter and wrote as he spoke. “The house is in a small clearing. It’s one-story, white with green shutters. The gutters are sagging and it looks to be isolated. The back of the house faces what direction?”
She closed her eyes, fighting pain as she tried to picture the scene that had played out before her eyes. “South.”