by Paula Graves
MCBRIDE HEARD FROM the patrolmen he’d sent to check on Lily just before eleven. “Andrew Walters arrived a few minutes ago, and Ms. Browning let him in,” the officer related. “Want us to stand by?”
“Stay a little up the street,” McBride ordered. He didn’t want Lily to feel like a suspect.
He hung up the phone and tried to finish some paperwork. But minutes later, he pushed aside his keyboard and admitted what he’d been avoiding since Lily walked out his door.
He loved her.
He didn’t want to love her. His life would be less painful and less scary if he didn’t feel anything for her. He had pushed her away, let himself blame her for his pain, but she refused to leave his heart.
Now he knew she never would.
Loving her made him question his own skepticism, the hard, cold anger he’d carried inside him after Clare disappeared, even his treatment of Delaine Howard, a woman who’d only been trying to help him. Maybe she’d given them false hope about Clare when caution would’ve been kinder, but she’d tried to help, just as Lily had. That counted for something.
In Lily’s case, it counted for everything.
She had been right about Abby Walters. No way to deny that; the little girl was living proof. Yet Lily had been so wrong about Clare.
McBride rubbed his burning eyes. Okay. She had made a mistake in identifying the little girl. But he didn’t think she’d invented the story of Casey.
So if she wasn’t Clare, who was she?
The door to his office opened and Theo Baker entered, his eyebrows nearly meeting his hairline. In his wake strode Senator Gerald Blackledge and his security detail. “The senator would like a word with us,” Baker said.
Blackledge didn’t wait for an invitation to sit. He laid a manila folder on McBride’s desk and dropped into the chair across from him. “I realize your case just got a whole lot harder for you, so I’m here to simplify things a little bit.”
McBride opened the folder and found page after page of polling data. “This simplifies things?”
“Look at the dates and the polls. Those are my campaign’s internals, notarized by the independent polling firm we hired to gather the information. They will be willing to testify to the time and date stamps and the veracity of the information.”
McBride scanned the pages, checking the notary marks as well as the dates, before he went back to look at what the polls revealed. He had to go over them twice to be sure he understood what he was seeing. “You were pulling way ahead.”
“Exactly,” Blackledge said with a nod. “We knew that three weeks ago. Why on God’s green earth would I try to put Andrew Walters’s name back on the front page of the newspaper, especially in such a sympathetic light?”
He wouldn’t, McBride realized. The notarized polling data erased what nebulous motive he might have. “I’ll be following up with your polling company.”
“I’d expect no less.” Blackledge stood and motioned for his entourage to follow him out.
“Wait a second, Senator.” McBride crossed to the doorway. “Do you think the Walters’s campaign had the same polling information?”
Blackledge’s brown eyes glittered. “I would think so.”
McBride watched the senator leave, his own eyes narrowed.
“If Walters knew about those polls…” Baker began.
Before he could finish, Jim Phillips stuck his head through the open doorway. “Got a minute for me, McBride?”
McBride cocked his head. He’d forgotten about sending the sketch artist. “Did you see Ms. Browning this morning?”
“I did.” Jim handed McBride his sketch pad. “She’s got a good eye for detail.”
McBride gazed down at the sketch, taking in the sandy hair, fleshy features and prominent forehead of the man in the sketch. Recognition dawned, followed quickly by a flood of cold dread.
Son of a bitch.
IGNORING THE GRAY MIST curling closer, beckoning her back to reality, Lily started looking around her, seeking some clue to Casey’s whereabouts. The room was dark and dusty, pierced in places by slivers of light peeking through cracks in the walls and clean patches in the filthy windows. She couldn’t make out many details, but the setup was unmistakable. Casey was in an old, abandoned schoolhouse.
“Casey, tell me everything you can remember about how you got here. Did you notice any landmarks, anything unusual?”
Casey shook her head. “It was just woods, lots of pines and dead trees. I saw squirrels and birds—wait!” Her eyes brightened. “I had to cross a stream! I was so proud ’cause I got across on the rocks without getting my feet wet.”
That might be a help if Lily could narrow down the possibilities. But there had to be dozens of old, abandoned schoolhouses in Alabama. She glanced about, seeking something that could tell her for certain where the child was. “Casey, help me look around. See if you can find anything that has a name written on it. Look in the desks.”
Casey crossed to the nearest desk and opened the top. She jumped and squealed when a spider darted across her hand, but quickly shook it off and started searching through the yellowed papers. Lily peered through the gloom but could make out none of the faded words. “Try the next one.”
In the fifth desk they hit pay dirt. There was an old primer with a faded blue stamp in front. “Willow Wood School,” Casey read aloud.
Not ten miles away, Lily realized with wonder.
She grabbed the girl and hugged her tightly. The fog thickened around her. “I know where you are, baby,” she told Casey as the mist began to separate them. “I’ll be there soon, I promise.”
She came back to herself in a rush.
“My God, Lily, are you okay?”
She blinked, surprised to find herself in her living room, sitting across from Andrew Walters.
“What just happened? Did you have a vision?”
She pushed herself to her feet, her knees wobbly. “Andrew, I’m sorry—I have to go. I’ll be in touch, I promise.”
He followed her to her car. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive? I can take you wherever—”
“I’m fine.” She slid behind the wheel and started the engine with shaking hands, backing down the drive and out onto the street with reckless speed, racing time and her pounding heart to get to McBride’s daughter.
HE KEPT HIS EYES ON Lily Browning’s rental car, forcing down the panic rising like a gusher in his throat. She’d seen him. And so had some kid named Casey.
Who the hell was she? How had she seen him?
He kept pace with Lily as she raced down the street, but didn’t get too close. He couldn’t risk spooking her before she led him to wherever the little girl was hiding. Please, let her take me there!
Then he could finally tie up the last loose end.
“I’m not going down for this. This was your idea.”
He ignored the pale-faced man next to him. They’d come up with the plan together and they would finish it together.
“What if she’s not going after the kid?”
“She is,” he growled.
She had to be.
She’d seen him in the woods, while she was helping Abby get to safety. She and the kid named Casey. They were the only ones who could bring the whole mess crashing down on his head.
They had to be stopped.
MCBRIDE GRITTED HIS TEETH with frustration at the sea of red taillights forming about two miles down the interstate. Flashing blue and cherry lights in the distance marked the site of the accident that appeared to be snarling traffic.
He didn’t want to wait. He had to get to Lily now.
Between McBride and the sea of taillights ahead was an exit onto Boudreau Road. It was probably fifteen minutes out of his way, but the interstate traffic would take at least that long to clear. Yanking the wheel to the right, he headed for the exit.
Boudreau Road stretched for six miles through beautiful, wild terrain thick with towering green pines and hardwoods already changing colo
rs and losing their leaves.
His stomach ached. It looked like the road he’d traveled on his way to the church in Barclay Woods.
Just beyond the bridge over Tuttle Creek, the road began winding downhill, giving McBride a panoramic view of the valley beyond.
His breath caught.
Just a mile or two ahead, glistening in the midday sunlight, a white spire rose above the pines.
He heard Lily’s voice in his mind. It was like a church steeple. I couldn’t see it well, but what else could it be?
A schoolhouse, he thought, gazing at the bell tower. It could be a schoolhouse.
The car shimmied as he pulled off the road. His heart pounded wildly in his chest. It couldn’t be. Could it?
He took a second to get his bearings. It was after noon now, so the sun was inching toward the western sky. Best he could tell, he was due west of the tower. If Lily had been right, there was probably a road to his left.
Of course, that was a big if. But he had to know.
He drove another half mile before he caught sight of a side road winding into the woods. He braked quickly, almost skidding, and turned down the dirt road. He had gone about twenty yards when his mind registered the mailbox that had been directly across from the turnoff.
McBride backed to the edge of the pavement, jerked the car into Park and got out. He walked back to the roadside and looked across the blacktop at the rusted mailbox. Corroded brass numbers climbed the wooden post, hanging askew. Stick-on letters on the box spelled out one name: Grainger.
McBride drew a swift breath, chill bumps breaking out on his arms and back.
This was the mailbox Delaine Howard had seen in her vision all those years ago. This Grainger.
This is it, he realized, his pulse thudding in his ears.
He raced back to the car.
The road became almost unnavigable the deeper he went into the woods. He clenched his teeth and wrestled with the steering wheel, holding the Chevy on the bumpy dirt drive. When he was almost ready to park the car and walk the rest of the way, the road smoothed out and he saw the edge of a clearing just ahead.
Stifling the urge to gun the engine, he drove on. Now he could see a white building peeking through the trees.
A white clapboard house with faded green shutters.
Clearing the edge of the woods, he pulled into the high grass behind the house. His whole body clenched as he cut the engine and got out. He hesitated, struck by how similar this house looked to the one he’d come across just this morning. The shape was different, the green paint on the shutters darker. But it matched the general description Lily had given.
He looked to his right. Above the trees, lit by the bright sun, loomed the top of the schoolhouse bell tower.
This is what Lily saw, he thought. He took a deep, bracing breath and walked slowly through the high grass, rounding the corner of the house. He was half prepared to find another burned-out shell. But the house was intact.
He pulled open the shabby, ripped screen door and knocked. There was no answer, so he knocked again. Still no answer. He tried the doorknob and was surprised when it turned easily in his hand. “Hello?”
Then the smell hit him. Sharp. Metallic.
Blood.
His heart hammered as he pulled his Smith & Wesson from his shoulder holster and rushed inside. He was being reckless as hell, but fear eclipsed reason as he remembered the gunshot Lily said she’d heard in her vision.
Had the woman done something to his baby girl?
He burst through the kitchen doorway into the hall and almost slipped as his feet hit a sticky wet patch. He grabbed the doorjamb and stared at the dark pool of blood at his feet.
Just in front of him lay the body of a woman.
The cop in him took over for a second, surveying the scene with clinical detachment. Head shot, probably instantly fatal. From the looks of the scene, self-inflicted.
Then his heart overcame the initial numbness and he darted past the body, heedless of how he was compromising the crime scene. He tried each door down the hall. At the very end on the left, he found a locked one.
He hit the door with several sharp shoulder blows, ignoring the pain. The wood finally splintered and he burst inside.
It was a child’s bedroom. It fit Lily’s description, right down to the broken window.
Clare’s alive, he realized, his heart in his throat.
He raced back down the hall, past the body and out the door. He ran past the car and plunged into the woods, keeping his eyes on the schoolhouse bell tower.
LILY PULLED OFF THE ROAD onto a dirt track leading into the woods. The uneven terrain put the rental’s shocks to the test, jostling her around despite the seat belt holding her in place. She went as far as the road would take her and finally pulled over, heading the rest of the way on foot. The woods were thick with underbrush, making the path to the old schoolhouse hard to travel, but Lily crashed ahead, heedless of the twigs and vines that slapped against her legs as she ran.
She made enough noise that she almost didn’t hear the rustling underbrush behind her.
Almost.
A finger of fear sketched a cold path up her spine. She darted to her right, taking cover behind a thick-trunked pine. Heart pounding, she took a quick peek at the woods behind her.
A sandy-haired man pushed through the heavy underbrush, a large pistol in one hand. And next to him, brow furrowed with determination, walked Andrew Walters.
Chapter Eighteen
McBride raced through the woods, calling his daughter’s name until he was hoarse. It was taking longer than he’d expected to reach the schoolhouse, but he didn’t want to risk missing Clare hidden behind a bush or tangle in the thick underbrush. Within minutes, he was close enough to see the shabby white clapboard building peeking through the tree trunks as the woods thinned out. He started jogging toward the building, something unseen but powerful tugging at his heart.
He burst into the clearing and stared at the schoolhouse. It was dingy white, set about four feet off the ground on a natural stone foundation. Sagging pine steps led to a narrow porch in front of the double doors. McBride saw the door was open a crack. “Clare?”
He stood very still, listening. His heart lurched at a faint rustling sound coming from inside. He tried to temper the surge of adrenaline, reminding himself the noise could be a squirrel or a bird trapped in the building.
But deep inside, he knew.
“K.C.!” he called. “K.C., it’s Daddy!”
He heard the soft rustle again. His heart banged against his ribs as he stared into the gloom beyond the partially opened door. He wanted to dash up the stairs but feared they wouldn’t bear his weight. He stopped at the bottom and peered into the darkness. “K.C.?”
A small oval face seemed to materialize from the darkness inside. McBride took a swift, shuddering breath.
A dark-haired wraith emerged from the schoolhouse, her hazel eyes huge in her pale, heart-shaped face. McBride sank to his knees, his mind whirling.
“Daddy?” Her voice was faint.
He held out his arms. “Yes, baby, it’s me.”
She shook her head, suspicion written all over her. “You’re not the one who’s supposed to come get me.”
McBride pushed himself to his feet. Clare took a swift step backward. “No, honey. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never hurt you.”
“Mama said you didn’t want to take care of me anymore,” Clare said, accusation in her voice.
The memory of the dead woman lying in her own blood flashed through his mind. “She didn’t know what she was saying, Clare.”
“My name’s Casey,” she said firmly.
“I know. I used to call you that. Casey.” He said her nickname the way she said it. “I didn’t give you away, Casey. I love you. I’d never give you away. You were taken from me.”
“Mama said my real mommy was dead.”
“She is, sweetie.” He thought of Laura, and ach
ed with the knowledge that she’d gone to her grave without seeing her little girl again. “But I’m alive and I never gave you up.”
As he said the words, he felt guilt hit him like a freight train. He had given her up, hadn’t he? Five years ago, he’d let her die in his heart and mind. If it hadn’t been for Lily, she’d still be dead to him.
If for no other reason, he would love Lily forever for giving his daughter back to him.
She was so beautiful, he thought, looking at his child. She wasn’t the cute little three-year-old he’d lost, but a tall, thin girl fast approaching the edge of adolescence. He’d lost six years of her life.
He noticed the ragged stuffed toy she clutched against her chest. Mr. Green had changed, too, he thought with sadness. “I see you still have old Mr. Green. Has he been taking good care of you, marshmallow?”
Her eyes widened and she took a step forward. “Sing the song,” she demanded.
He blinked with surprise. The song?
Then he remembered. Laura had made up a lullaby and they had sung it to Clare every night. He closed his eyes and willed the long-buried words to come to mind. Suddenly, he could hear Laura’s sweet, clear voice in his ear, giving him the words.
“Sweet Baby Marshmallow, close your bright eyes,
Old Mr. Sunshine has left the night skies,
He’s gone to a picnic on the far side of Mars—”
Clare’s soft, little-girl voice finished it for him. “But he left Mrs. Moon to watch over the stars.”
She scampered down the steps and flung herself at him. He caught her, certain he would die from the feeling of her solid warmth snuggled against his chest.
In his pocket, his cell phone trilled. He felt Casey’s body twitch against him. For a second, he considered shutting it off, but the caller could be Lily. He grabbed it. “McBride.”
It was the patrolman he’d positioned outside Lily’s house. “Sir, we’ve been following Ms. Browning since she left her house about twenty minutes ago. She just drove into the woods and parked on a dirt road.”