by Paula Graves
Clare’s voice in his ear was soft and slurred. “I told her where to find me, Daddy.”
McBride’s heart caught.
“Sir, Mr. Walters and another man headed into the woods behind her about three minutes ago. Should we follow?”
As McBride’s blood ran cold, Clare suddenly went stiff in his arms. He held her away from him, searching her pale face. She was staring somewhere beyond him, her eyes fixed. Sightless. It reminded him of Lily during one of her visions. A shudder ran through him.
The patrolman’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Sir?”
“Follow,” he said tersely, disconnecting.
Casey went limp in his arms for a second, then reached out her little hands to clutch at his shirt. “Lily’s in trouble!” she cried, a ragged edge of panic to her voice.
“Lily’s in trouble?” he repeated, trying to understand.
Then he heard a gunshot.
He caught Clare’s chin in his hand, made her look at him. He kept his voice soft, trying not to scare her. “Baby, I need you to do something for me.”
LILY HEARD A CRACK behind her, and a whistling sound fly by her ear. Adrenaline exploded inside her, spurring her to greater speed. She had to draw them away from the schoolhouse.
Then she heard something else. “Lily!” It was Casey’s voice, as loud as if the child was right beside her. Lily stumbled, almost falling.
“Daddy’s here,” Casey whispered in her ear. “He says run to the schoolhouse. He’ll take care of us.”
Lily shook her head. “They want to hurt you.”
“He’s here! He said to tell you his name is Jubal and he’ll take care of us. Hurry!”
His name is Jubal. Lily’s heart skipped a beat as hope flooded her, nearly knocking her off her feet.
“Hurry!” Casey’s voice began to fade.
Another gunshot shattered the calm of the woods. The tree next to Lily exploded in a shower of wood splinters, peppering her face and arms.
Her heart pounding in her throat, Lily changed course, racing toward the schoolhouse spire barely visible through the pines.
McBride’s there with Casey, she chanted with each pounding step. He’ll take care of us.
MCBRIDE HELD HIS DAUGHTER close, peering out the schoolhouse window. He called in more backup, including Theo Baker. McBride had his gun and a second clip in his pocket—never leave home without ’em, he thought with a grim smile—but he couldn’t keep Lily safe if she didn’t show up.
Two long minutes later, he saw a flurry of movement in the woods. Lily burst through a gap in the trees into the clearing, flying at a full run toward the schoolhouse.
“Stay here,” he admonished Clare. He ran out on the porch. Aiming his gun toward the rustling sounds coming from the woods, he fired two quick shots while Lily took the rickety schoolhouse steps two at a time.
He caught her outstretched hand and pulled her inside, tucking her between him and his daughter. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, her golden eyes moving from his face to Clare’s and back again. She went pale as a ghost for a second, and he put out a hand to keep her from toppling over.
“You found us!” Clare threw herself at Lily.
Lily’s arms tightened around McBride’s daughter. She buried her face in the little girl’s dark hair. “You’re here.” She looked up at McBride. “How?”
He spared a second to glance at her. “I believed it was possible.”
Her smile spread over him like sunshine, giving him a surge of confidence. He peered out the window, watching for movement. His cover fire had apparently given Lily’s pursuers pause.
“I saw the sketch,” he told her. “The man you saw in the woods is Joe Britt, Andrew Walters’s campaign manager.”
“Andrew Walters is with him.” Lily’s voice darkened. “Abby’s own father was in on it.”
McBride stared at her in shock and revulsion. He reached for Clare, running his hand over her slim back. She leaned against him, shattering his heart into a million little pieces.
Suddenly, he heard a soft, scraping sound at the back of the schoolhouse. He whirled, peering through the gloom of the darkened room toward the slivers of light at the far end, where the weathered pine had buckled and split over the years, letting in daylight. A dark shadow passed across one of the boards and stopped.
“One of them is back there,” McBride murmured. “Cover your ears.”
He aimed his weapon at the dark shadow still evident across one of the openings. Taking a deep breath to steady his aim, he fired. A howl of pain answered.
The front steps of the schoolhouse creaked. McBride flattened himself against the wall, his heart racing. He hoped his first shot had taken out the man at the back, because until help arrived, he was outmanned and possibly outgunned.
“Sirens,” Clare murmured against his arm.
“Shh, baby,” he whispered. Then he heard them. Sirens. At least two cars, probably three, moving in their direction.
The cavalry had finally arrived.
The creaking on the front porch stopped. A second later, McBride heard something crashing through the underbrush. He edged to the doorway in time to catch sight of Andrew Walters running away.
Part of him wanted to pursue, to run Walters down and beat the hell out of him. It was bad enough he’d put his own child in danger for God knew what reason. He’d come here to kill Lily and Clare. McBride had no doubt about it.
But first he had to neutralize Joe Britt as a danger.
“Pull those desks in a circle and hide under them,” McBride told Lily. She went right to work, while he slipped outside and crept around the back of the schoolhouse.
He found Joe Britt on the ground, curled up in a ball of agony. His kneecap was a bloody mass of tissue, bone and singed Italian silk. He didn’t even try to go for his gun as McBride bent to retrieve it.
He was checking Britt for other weapons when he heard footsteps rapidly approaching. He whirled around, gun trained.
Theo Baker held up his hands. “Whoa, Tex.”
McBride lowered his gun. “Finish searching this piece of sh—” He bit back the rest of the curse, aware of his daughter just inside the schoolhouse.
As Theo took over, McBride went around to the front of the schoolhouse. Eight uniformed policemen swarmed the area, two of them holding Andrew Walters by his upper arms. His hands were cuffed behind his back. He met McBride’s gaze for a brief second before lowering his head.
Rage boiling in his gut, McBride forced himself to keep his voice calm. “Lily? You and Clare can come out now. It’s over.”
Lily emerged from the schoolhouse, her arm around Clare’s thin shoulders. She met his eyes with a look so full of emotion it made his breath catch. She joined him at the foot of the steps, her gaze moving past him to settle on Andrew Walters.
Before McBride realized what she was going to do, she’d thrust Clare into his grasp and launched herself toward the politician, her small fist connecting with his jaw. The blow was hard enough to snap his head back.
As a couple of officers grabbed her to keep her from landing a second blow, Lily growled, “You heartless son of a bitch! Your own daughter!”
“Nobody was supposed to get hurt,” Andrew blurted.
“Have you read him his rights?” McBride asked as the officers holding Lily handed her over to him.
“Yes, sir!” one answered with a grin.
McBride couldn’t return the smile. He just gathered Lily and Clare close, thanking God he’d gotten to them both in time.
THE EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR assured them Casey was in good health, though he wanted to keep her overnight for observation. But McBride wasn’t convinced, hovering by the bed long after the little girl had drifted off to sleep.
Lily had already been debriefed by Theo Baker and now sat in an armchair on the other side of the bed, her fingers still entwined with Casey’s. The events of the day had begun to sink in, crushing her beneath the mingled joy and ho
rror.
What was going to happen to Abby? Poor baby, to have lost her mother so horribly, to go through the fear and the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her kidnappers, only to have her father taken away when she needed him most.
Her body thrumming with exhaustion, Lily almost missed the tingle radiating from her spine. But when the door in her mind swept open, she hurried into the mist, hoping she’d find a pair of blue eyes waiting on the other side. She found herself in a dark room, sitting on the edge of a soft mattress.
Abby sat in the middle of a mound of pillows, her knees tucked up to her chest. Lily touched her. Abby gave a start. “Lily? Did you hear me calling?”
Lily caught her up in her arms. “I’m here.”
“I was afraid you’d gone forever,” Abby whispered.
“I told you she’d come. She’ll always find us.”
Lily looked up and met the eyes of McBride’s daughter.
Lily stroked Abby’s hair, wondering how much her aunt had told her about her father. “Are you okay, Abby?”
“Aunt Jenn says I’ll be staying here with her and Uncle David ’cause Mommy’s in heaven and Daddy’s got to go away for a while.” Abby sniffled, her tears warm against Lily’s neck. “But Casey promised you’ll come see me.”
Lily exchanged a glance with Casey, whose solemn little face looked old for its years. “You bet I will.” She felt the tug of the mists at her back. Clinging to Abby as her head began to pound, she tried to hold on.
“We have to go, Abby.” Casey crossed to Lily and took her hand. “We’ll see you again, I promise.”
Lily let Casey lead her back through the enveloping mists. When she opened her eyes, she was in the hospital room, her hand still curled around Casey’s. The girl’s sleepy eyes gazed up at her.
McBride’s voice rumbled in her ear. “Where’d you go?”
Lily squeezed Casey’s hand. “Abby needed to see us.”
McBride’s happy expression faltered. “Poor baby. How will her life ever be normal again?”
Lily wasn’t sure if he was talking about Abby or his daughter. Maybe it didn’t matter. “She’s with people who love her enough to get her through it, whatever it takes.”
Theo Baker stuck his head in the hospital room doorway and beckoned for them to join him. Lily gave Casey’s hand another squeeze and followed McBride to the door.
Theo lowered his voice. “Britt’s telling everything he knows. He wants to make sure Walters doesn’t put it all on him. Seems Walters was down double digits in his campaign’s internal polls, like Blackledge said. He and Britt got desperate.”
And they’d gone for the sympathy vote, using his own daughter. Lily’s heart clenched as she thought of Abby.
“Britt hired Gordon and Scotera to carjack Debra Walters. It was supposed to make the papers, garner public sympathy.”
“But Debra fought back,” McBride guessed.
“Once that happened, Gordy and Skeet went rogue. Walters and Britt didn’t know where to find them till they called Lily.”
“That’s why Andrew Walters wanted me on the case,” Lily realized. “They used me to find their missing accomplices.”
Theo nodded. “When the kidnappers called you but didn’t leave instructions for the ransom drop, Britt figured they were giving Walters a message on how to contact them. They’d had a preplanned meeting place to hand over Abby, so Walters went and left a note for the kidnappers there. When Scotero showed up to check for a message, Britt was there, hiding. He followed Skeet to the trailer.”
“And killed them there.” McBride’s expression turned grim.
“They wanted more money. He decided they were a risk.”
“What about when Britt was chasing Abby in the woods?” Lily asked.
“Britt swears he wasn’t going to hurt her. He just wanted to find her before she could talk to anyone else, in case Skeet and Gordy had said something to her about what was going on.”
“Politics.” McBride grimaced. “I hope they nail Britt and Walters to the wall.” He looked over his shoulder at his daughter, his expression softening. She’d fallen back to sleep.
Theo put his hand on McBride’s shoulder. “I’m glad about Clare. It’s a real miracle.”
McBride slanted a warm look at Lily. “Yes, it is.”
Theo flashed a smile at Lily and left them alone.
McBride walked back to his sleeping daughter’s bedside. He touched a wisp of hair curling on her cheek. “You found her, Lily. Just like you said.” His voice was thick with emotion.
“No, Casey found me.” They’d decided to call her Casey to make her feel more comfortable. Lily had a feeling it would be Clare’s name from now on.
A new name for a new and happier life.
Pulling her close, McBride kissed Lily, his touch setting off a thousand little fires up and down her spine. Releasing her mouth, he whispered, “Forgive me for everything I said this morning.”
“I understood.” She tried to reassure him, but he pressed his fingers to her lips, shushing her.
“No, I need to say this. I realized it didn’t matter whether you were right or wrong. You tried to help me. I could never hate you for trying to help me.” His lips curved. “I love you too much.”
“I love you, too.” She touched his cheek. “I can’t believe you stumbled onto Casey by accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
She cocked her eyebrow, surprised.
“I think I was supposed to take that exit instead of staying on the interstate. I was supposed to find her.”
She shook her head, smiling at the irony. “That’s mighty unskeptical of you, Jubal McBride.”
He grinned. “I know. I don’t think Delaine Howard was a fake, either.” He told her about the mailbox he’d found. “The woman who had Clare was named Grainger. Just like the people I told you about, the family with the little girl that Delaine thought was Clare. When I saw the mailbox, I remembered something about those Graingers. The little girl’s father had been divorced a few years earlier, after his three-year-old daughter, Gina, died of leukemia. It was one reason we thought he might have Clare, having lost a little girl like that.”
“The woman who had Clare was Mr. Grainger’s ex-wife.”
McBride nodded. “I think so.”
“So…what? Mrs. Grainger happened to be walking by and saw Casey playing alone in the yard?”
“I doubt we’ll ever know, but I’m going to look into it.”
“So you believed Casey was alive all on your own, huh?”
He grinned. “Yeah, I did.” He tightened his arms around her. “I saw a miracle today, Lily,” he murmured in her ear. “I saw my dead daughter walk out of that schoolhouse alive. I watched that little girl send you a message clear across the woods, and now I’m looking at you both here with me, safe and sound. I’ll never scoff at your visions again.”
She tilted her head back. “McBride…”
“Marry me, Lily. I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Is that a question or a command?”
He laughed. “Whichever gets you down the aisle with me.”
She chuckled. “Oh, I’ve had it on good authority for a while that you’re the man I’m going to marry. Rose told me so days ago. And I never argue with my sister about such matters.”
“Rose told you?” His brow furrowed.
“Did I forget to tell you both of my sisters have special gifts of their own?”
He looked down at her in mock horror.
She laughed. “It appears to run in both our families.”
He looked back at Casey. “She does have a gift, doesn’t she? Laura always swore her side of the family had ‘the sight.’”
Despite his earlier assurances, Lily’s stomach tightened as she searched his expression. “Are you okay with that?”
“She saved you with her gift. And you saved her with yours.” He claimed her mouth with a deep kiss
that drove away the last of Lily’s doubts. Her gift—her amazing gift that she’d too long seen as a curse—had brought her more joy and hope than she’d ever imagined possible.
He released her and lifted her face, gazing into her eyes. A smile carved lines into his rugged cheeks. “Thanks for showing me how to believe again.”
She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder, looking past him to where his daughter—soon to be hers, too—lay sleeping.
My pleasure, she thought.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0522-2
FORBIDDEN TERRITORY
Copyright © 2006 by Paula Graves
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