Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation: Forbidden Territory / Forbidden Temptation

Lily tried to hide her surprise. She’d have thought the election would be the last thing on Andrew’s mind.

“You think that’s cold of me.” He sounded resigned.

“No,” she replied.

“People have invested a lot of time and money in my campaign. For their sakes, I have to go through the motions.” He beckoned for her to join him in the sitting area. “It’s good to have something constructive to focus on, to keep my mind away from the worst possibilities.”

She sat where he indicated. “Understandable.”

He sank into an armchair and slanted a considering look at her. “The FBI told me about the call from the kidnapper. Why do you think he called you?”

If Andrew Walters harbored the same suspicions as Lieutenant McBride, he hid it well. He looked desperate and anxious, but he didn’t seem distrustful.

Lily wished she had a better answer for both of them. “I guess they saw my picture in the paper. From the funeral. My name was in the caption, and I don’t imagine there are that many Lily Brownings listed in the Borland phone book.” It was the only explanation that made sense.

“I wonder how the press got your name in the first place.”

She cocked her head. “I assumed you gave it to them.”

“No.” His eyes narrowed. “Probably Blackledge. He knew people would see us together and make assumptions. ‘Andrew Walters didn’t even let his first wife’s body get cold before he found someone else.’”

She grimaced. “People won’t think that.”

He gave her a look that made her feel very naive.

She shook her head, appalled. “If my being there—”

“This is politics. Dirt gets flung. I’m becoming a little better at ducking these days.” His face tightened with anxiety. “McBride says you’ve had visions of my daughter. What did you see?”

She told him what she’d seen in her visions, holding back only the appearance of the second little girl. Andrew Walters listened, his hands clenched in his lap, his sharp-eyed gaze moving over her face as if gauging her veracity. “What was she wearing?” he asked when she finished.

For a second, Lily’s mind went blank. She remembered so much about Abby—the way she smelled, the tear tracks down her dirty, freckled face, the way one red curl hung just off center over her forehead. But what she was wearing?

Lily closed her eyes, recreating the most vivid scene, the one where Abby had been huddled in the back of the moving car. She heard the hum of the motor, smelled the musty odor of the blanket under which the child had crouched, cold and afraid. She saw the messy red curls, the chattering teeth.

The light blue overalls with a yellow rabbit on the front.

“Overalls.” Her voice shook. “Pale blue with a yellow bunny on the bib. And she had a long-sleeved white turtleneck underneath.”

When Lily looked up, Andrew’s face had gone pale. His voice shook when he spoke. “My God, you did see her.”

She released a shaky breath. She’d been afraid she was wrong, that her visions really were delusions, as McBride apparently thought. “That’s what she was wearing?”

The man nodded, color slowly seeping back into his face. “A neighbor who saw her Friday morning remembered the outfit. She’d bought it for Abby on her last birthday.”

“So you believe me?”

Andrew reached across the space between them and took her hand. His expression solemn, he nodded. “I believe you.”

Relief swamped her. “Mr. Walters, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

He managed a smile. “Thank you. And please, call me Andrew.”

She nodded. “Andrew—”

The shrill ring of the telephone interrupted her, the sound jarring her spine.

“The dedicated line.” Andrew’s voice sounded strangled.

“Answer it,” she urged, breathless. Her nerves were so taut that she didn’t recognize the signs until gray mist invaded the edge of her vision.

As the fog thickened, she glimpsed a man hunched over a phone in a dim room. She barely made out dark green walls and a computer nearby. The man’s blond hair was thin and patchy, and his skin was milky pale. The glow of the computer screen made twin blue squares on the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses.

It was the caller, she realized when he spoke.

“Mr. Walters, listen quick.” Lily was certain she’d never heard the voice before. It definitely wasn’t the harsh-voiced man who’d hit Abby, the one who’d called her home on Wednesday.

“Who is this?” Andrew demanded.

“We have your daughter.”

“Is Abby there?” Andrew’s voice was like a fly buzzing in her ear, oddly unreal, even though he was in the same room with her. “Let me speak to her!”

“You have until tomorrow afternoon to get five hundred grand together. When you do that, you’ll talk to your kid. Got it? And if you call the cops, you’ll never see your kid again.” The caller shifted, his desk chair creaking.

Beyond him, Lily saw a bed with rumpled green sheets. A newspaper lay near the pillows. Abby Walters’s freckled face stared up from its front page. But there was no sign of Abby. And the room didn’t remotely resemble the one where she’d seen the little girl in her visions.

“I’ll call back tomorrow to tell you where to drop the money.” The caller’s hand shook as he clutched the phone.

He’s not one of the kidnappers, Lily thought. They know not to call Andrew Walters directly.

She struggled against the swallowing mists, trying to slam shut the door of her mind. She’d seen all she needed to see. She had to tell Mr. Walters what she knew.

She emerged with a jolt when he banged the telephone receiver into its cradle and bent over the table, sucking in several deep, steadying breaths.

Lily stumbled to the couch and sat, pressing her hand to her head. Fighting to end the vision before it was finished had a price; colorful lights crowded her vision, and the first twinge of pain shot up from the base of her skull. She fumbled in her purse for her pills and swallowed one dry, laying her head back against the sofa cushions.

Andrew turned to face her. “He wouldn’t let me talk to her.” Anxiety creased his handsome face.

“He doesn’t have her.” Lily lifted her eyes to meet his, hating to burst his tiny bubble of hope. She told him what she could remember about the vision. “It was a hoax. I’m sorry.”

Andrew sank to the sofa next to her and buried his face in his hands. She touched his shoulder, unsure how to comfort him.

Someone rapped on the door. Andrew went to let two detectives into the room. “He wasn’t on long enough for a trace, and his caller ID’s blocked,” one of them said.

Lily was no longer listening. She drifted on a river of pain, barely aware of the voices of the detectives talking or the trill of Andrew’s cell phone when his campaign manager called back. Andrew’s voice faded as he took the call in another room.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed before a new voice roused her from her pain-washed daze. She struggled up from the depths of the soft couch and opened her eyes.