Page 56 of Chasing Dreams
He watched her face as she enjoyed the tranquil scene, not disturbing her again. Finally she opened her eyes and blinked to focus on him.
He smiled at her.
“I saw Maya’s baby.”
“You sure did. Did she know it’s a boy?”
She nodded. “They told her that months ago.”
“And you knew her doctor’s name?”
“I’m sure I’ve heard her mention it.” She examined the ring in her hand. “But now I know what he’ll look like and how much he’ll weigh.”
Austin couldn’t suppress a chuckle. He took the ring from her and slipped it on his little finger.
“I have the feeling you planned this for a reason. Austin, what does this prove?”
“You’ve only been seeing the future,” he said.
“What?”
“All the dreams you’ve had, all the visions, they all took place in the future. You saw the Deets boy as he’d be the next day, and your navigating instinct led you to the body. You saw his mother before she was on television. You saw Daisy before you got to Colorado.”
“I saw Tommy hurt in the woods,” she went on for him. “But what about the Jenkins girl and the McCullough woman?”
“You didn’t see the girl because she was dead. She’s in the past, but you saw her parents as they are today or tomorrow. You saw the McCullough woman as she’d be the next day or so, just as the detectives found her. She’d been a redhead, by the way, but she had brown hair when they talked to her.”
“That explains the hair dye. Then Jack...” she said, a furrow across her brow. “What does this say about Jack?”
“That you’re seeing him in the future.”
“That’s why I saw him with Bear. Bear’s right here.” She grabbed his wrist. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
She jumped to her feet and raked her hair back. “Some of those things, some of those awful things may not have happened yet!”
He read the mixture of relief and dread on her face. If everything she’d seen was in the future, then it was entirely possible that the things she’d seen happen to Jack hadn’t come about yet.
On the other hand, if she couldn’t see into the past to learn what had become of the boy, they had no immediate way of preventing those things from happening.
He could probably teach her to access that aspect of her vision, but it would take too long.
The only way to do get the information they needed quickly enough would be through someone who could readily experience the past.
Someone... like him.
Chapter 12
He didn’t sleep that night. The sounds of traffic disturbed him. He needed to find a gym for a good workout. Shaine’s tiny apartment and the neighbors crushed in on him.
Even Shaine kept him awake, with a recurring dream that he wouldn’t allow her to experience.
All of those things were the cause of his unease.
Not the fact that he alone held the key to releasing Shaine from her torture and possibly finding the child he now agreed was probably alive.
It had been twenty years since he’d deliberately held an item and searched for its owner. He had sworn to himself that nothing could ever make him do it again. He had worked and strove and built a new life, a life that had nothing to do with taking on the burdensome cares of the world.
