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“What are you suggesting?”
“Walters thinks you can find his daughter. That makes you the most important person in his life right now.”
Lily frowned, not liking what he was implying. “Look, I know you didn’t like finding me at Mr. Walters’s hotel, but I assure you—”
“What do you think will happen to Walters if you don’t deliver Abby in the end?” McBride asked.
A flicker of uncertainty ran through her. What if she couldn’t? Was she giving the man false hope?
“You’re telling Andrew Walters that his little girl is all right, that there’s still a chance he’ll find her again. Do you really know that?” McBride edged closer. “What happens if tomorrow we find Abby’s body in a ditch somewhere? How much harder is that going to be for the man?”
Her throat tightened, his soft words painting vivid pictures in her mind. “Stop it.”
McBride suddenly looked tired. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Lily. But there are too damn many odds against her.” His voice was so flat and faraway, she hardly recognized it. “So please, don’t give Walters any false encouragement. Okay?”
“Am I supposed to pretend I never heard of Abby Walters?” Tears blurred Lily’s vision. “She’s a scared little girl who saw her mommy die, and now she’s all alone with two very bad men. I won’t abandon her in that dark place.”
McBride took a deep breath. “Then come to me instead of Walters. Tell me about your visions.”
Wariness flitted through her. “Tell you?”
“I promise I’ll look into everything you tell me.” He looked queasy, but his gaze remained steady.
“Mr. Walters expects me to stay in touch.”
“I’ll tell him you’re part of my investigation and you’ll be reporting to me now.” McBride took a step back. “Deal?”
She licked her lips, realizing that he’d just played her—and that it had worked. She would do what he asked. “You won’t ignore what I tell you?”
“I’ll follow every lead you give me.”
She put her hand over her mouth, wondering if she was making a mistake. But when she dropped her hand, it was to say, “Okay, it’s a deal.”
The look of satisfaction in his eyes made her immediately regret giving in so easily. But she quelled her doubts; she could always break her end of the deal if he broke his.
She released a pent-up breath. “So what do I do, call you if I have a vision? And I guess you’ll want me to write down everything I see, right?”
He seemed flummoxed by the question, as if he hadn’t quite thought past manipulating her into staying away from Andrew Walters. Beneath the confusion, a darker emotion burned in his narrowed eyes.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Yes, write everything down.”
Lily pushed her hair back from her face. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers, his expression shuttered. “No. No problem.”
She studied his face, trying to figure out what he was thinking. He could hide his emotions as well as almost anyone Lily knew, although he couldn’t quite cover up the dark place inside him. It roiled, black and deep, just under the surface.
He took a step toward the doorway. “I should go. I need to head home and change.”
She walked him to the door, leaning against the jamb as he took his jacket from the coat rack. He paused next to her, turning to meet her uplifted gaze.
“Call if you need me.”
Heat bloomed deep in her belly. “I will.”
He leaned in, and she rose on her toes to meet him halfway, as if drawn by a microscopic thread, the pull of his body intense and powerful. She curled her hand around his neck and brushed her lips against his. She’d expected combustion, but instead, the sweetness of the kiss washed over her in a river of warmth. She relaxed, giving in to the velvety caress of his mouth on hers.
When he gently broke away, coldness seeped into the marrow of her bones.
McBride stepped back onto the concrete stoop, gathering his coat around him to ward off the chill. Lily closed the door, needing the distance, the barrier between them.
But she remained there, her cheek against the door, long after she heard his car drive away.
* * *
ROSE ARRIVED AROUND TEN, laden with an overnight case, bran muffins and a thermos. “Iris sent buckbean tea.” Rose hugged Lily. “You okay? McBride said you got a little banged up.”
“I’m fine.” Lily took the basket of muffins from her sister and led her inside. “My car’s totaled, though.”
Rose dropped her bag on the floor by the sofa and followed Lily to the kitchen. She glanced at the two coffee cups in the sink. “So, this McBride—is he cute?”
Lily put the muffins on the counter and gave her sister a warning look.
Rose bent and picked up Delilah, who had wound herself in a knot around her legs. “Hello, gorgeous.” She rubbed the cat’s ears until Delilah purred like a motor-boat. “Iris would’ve come, but she’s almost figured out some mix of bat’s wings and eye of newt that’ll relieve menstrual cramps in half the usual time, and far be it from me to stand in the way of such a miracle.”
Lily pulled the plastic wrap off the basket and picked out a couple of muffins for herself and Rose. “Put my cat down and pour us some tea.”
Rose poured two cups and joined Lily at the kitchen table, moving aside the newspaper McBride had left folded on the table. “So really—who is this McBride and why did he spend the night with you?”
Heat rushed up Lily’s neck and spilled into her cheeks. She touched the edge of the newspaper at her elbow, trying to hide her reaction. But the paper only reminded her that McBride had sat here reading this paper only a few hours earlier, looking sleepy and disheveled and utterly irresistible.
“Ooh, Lil, you’re blushing!” Rose leaned forward, her expression eager. “Spill it!”
Lily gave her sister a stern look. “McBride’s the head of the task force investigating Abby Walters’s abduction.”
“Ooh, and you’re working with him? Because of your visions?”
“Kind of.” Lily caught her up with all that had happened since they’d spoken on the phone the night before.
Rose’s eyes widened with horror. “Someone ran you off the road? McBride just said it was an accident.”
“I don’t know who it was or why he wanted to hurt me,” Lily admitted. “It doesn’t make any sense—the kidnapper who called me the other day seemed to want me to give Andrew a message. But maybe I spooked him when he realized I’d seen him hit Abby.”
“Have you had more visions since then?”
“Yeah. A really strange one.” Glad for a sympathetic ear, Lily told Rose about the second little girl who’d appeared in her visions of Abby. “It was so strange. It was like she’d been watching Abby and me.”
Rose’s eyes glittered. “Creepy!”
“It didn’t feel creepy, though,” Lily said. “At first, maybe, but after that it seemed sort of sweet. How she’d been watching over Abby.”
“You think she knows Abby?”
“I think she’s connected somehow. Maybe a cousin or something. Something about her looks familiar.”
“Why would Abby’s cousin come to you in a vision?”
Lily shrugged. “I’d love to ask Andrew Walters about the little girl, but I promised McBride I’d stay away from him.”
Before Rose could respond, Jezebel jumped from the counter onto the kitchen table, knocking over Lily’s tea.
“Jezzy!” Rose jumped up to avoid the liquid spreading toward her.
Lily shooed the cat away and crossed to the counter to retrieve a roll of paper towels to mop up the mess, while Rose grabbed the newspaper off the table to keep it from getting wet.
When Lily dumped the soaked towels and returned to the table, she found Rose gazing at the paper, a strange light in her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
Rose turned the paper around, showing Lily a front-page photo of McBride and a couple of detectives Lily didn’t recognize, manning phones at police headquarters.
Rose pointed to McBride. “This is McBride, isn’t it?
Lily nodded, chill bumps rising on her arms. The picture caption didn’t identify him by name. “How’d you know?”
Rose’s grin split her face from ear to ear. “Sugar, he’s the man you’re going to marry.”
CHAPTER NINE
MCBRIDE WATCHED THE cable news interview through narrowed eyes, a little unnerved by how well Andrew Walters was holding together under the camera lights. The man was smooth, well-spoken and engaging. The camera loved him.
No wonder he was in politics.
“I’m grateful for everyone’s support. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.” Walters looked straight at the camera, his chin up, his eyes soft with emotion. “Please remember to keep your eyes open. Be aware of who’s around you. That little redhead you see in the grocery store could be my daughter.”
“He’s good,” FBI Special Agent Cal Brody murmured.
McBride glanced at the agent. Brody was a lean, rangy man with the sharp eyes of a hunter. He said little and missed nothing. And he looked just as bemused as McBride felt.
“He has an alibi,” McBride responded, aware what the agent’s dry words were implying. “And no discernible motive.”
“What about his opponent?”
“If Blackledge was behind it, he screwed up. Walters’s poll numbers are way up since his daughter disappeared.” A niggle of unease crept under McBride’s collar as he spoke.
“Motive.” Brody echoed the path of McBride’s thoughts.
McBride pressed his lips together, considering the idea of Walters as the mastermind behind his daughter’s kidnapping. Was it possible? His alibi was airtight, so he’d have had to hire someone else to make the snatch…
No. Until this morning, when he’d arrived to find Walters up to his elbows in campaign discussions with his campaign manager, Joe Britt, McBride had never seen the man as anything other than a desperate, heart-sick father.
But Walters had a job to do, just like McBride.
When Brody joined McBride and Walters that morning, he’d gone over the FBI’s game plan. “We think we’ve figured out this guy’s trace-blocking system, so we should be able to pinpoint him when he calls today. We get his location, we strike, we grab him.” Brody had looked at Walters. “I understand you don’t believe he’s legitimate.”
“Lily is sure he’s a fraud,” Walters had said.
“Lily?” Brody had asked.
“She’s a psychic who’s helping us find Abby,” Walters had said before McBride could stop him. McBride had braced himself for the agent’s reaction.
Brody’s only response had been a quick glance at McBride.
Walters had managed to stay away from the topic of Lily for most of the day, distracted by a Birmingham television news crew who’d arrived to interview him about his missing daughter.
McBride wished he were as easily distracted. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Lily Browning.
The crew wrapped up the interview, broke down their equipment and left. Walters went to change clothes, leaving McBride alone with Brody.
“How closely did you look at him?”
“Verified his alibi. Checked his bank account to see if there were any odd outputs of money, but he is in the middle of a senate run. There’ve been outlays. But they seem legit.”
Brody shrugged. “From what I know about Blackledge, if Walters had any skeletons, they’d be out of the closet already.”
Brody was right. Walters knew what it was like to live under scrutiny. It was only reasonable he’d hold up under pressure better than the average guy with a missing daughter.
Walters returned to the sitting room, minus his jacket and tie. “I hope that earns us a few more eyeballs.”
Odd phrasing, McBride thought. But the trill of a phone diverted his attention.
It was the dedicated line.
McBride glanced at Brody. The fed nodded. Andrew Walters sank onto the sofa and took a deep breath.
As they’d agreed, McBride answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Walters. Remember me?”
McBride recognized the voice from the surveillance tape. He squeezed the receiver tightly. “I remember.” He smoothed his gravelly voice to sound more like Walters.
“We want five hundred grand in tens and twenties, dropped in the waste bin at the corner of 10th and Maple. Tomorrow night at eleven-thirty. We’ll be watching, so don’t be stupid.”
“That’s a lot of money to get together by then.”
“Don’t jerk me around, Walters. You’re worth fifty times that. Eleven-thirty tomorrow night.” The man’s voice quavered despite his attempt to sound tough. “And no cops, got it? I smell so much as a whiff of bacon, the kid is dead.”
