Page 61 of Chasing Dreams
A sensory onslaught threatened to overwhelm him, and he had to remember to back off to the edge and absorb the sights and sounds and colors and emotions at his own pace.
There were so many images, so many emotions and abstract entities to sort through, it took him a while to find the ones he wanted.
“She loves her son so much,” he said. He’d felt these emotions before, experienced them through relatives of missing persons. “Her regrets are destructive. I can identify her fear and rejection. They almost crush her, but she’s a fighter. She doesn’t want to be cheated or deprived. She wants to be a good mother.”
“She was a good mother,” Shaine said softly.
Austin guided the energy away from the intense impressions, so he could isolate the incident he searched for without the overwhelming emotional distraction.
“A Sentra,” he said, catching a glimpse. “A red one.”
Shaine gasped. “That’s her car. The one that went into the river.”
He pedaled backward, sensing he’d gone too far past.
“I’m standing on a road. She walks toward me. I’m with a woman. Maggie gives us directions and points back the way we came. She’s nervous because the kid’s in the car, and she inches toward the Sentra.”
Austin barely sensed Maggie’s confusion and her protective instincts as she moved closer to her car, and toward the woman. He wasn’t tuned in to Maggie; he was picking up on the man who was a dark threat to her.
“She’s off guard now, there’s fear in her eyes. It takes no effort at all to grab her around the waist and press the gun to her head.
“‘Get the kid!’” Austin related.
“The woman yanks open the car door and grabs the boy. The mother’s fighting now, using all her strength, and she manages to break away for a moment. The woman has the kid out of the car, and he still hasn’t shut up.
“She’s surprisingly strong now, but a knock on the head with the gun fixes her. Have to be careful of fingerprints. Get the gloves on. I drag her to the driver door and force her in. She slumps over to the side, but I jerk her back up. I have to lean across her to start the engine. I crank the steering wheel to the right and pull the gearshift lever down.
“The car rolls toward the embankment, and I slam the door shut, then run behind and push so it’ll pick up speed. There’s got to be enough momentum to get the car off the road and down into the water. She isn’t dead, and if she doesn’t drown, she’ll be able to identify me. This kid is worth a bundle.
“The woman is waiting by the car on the road. It’s a white Corsica. New Mexico license plates.” Austin rattled off the numbers and letters.
“‘Piece of cake,’” he went on in the man’s viewpoint. “The Sentra’s slowly sinking into the water. I get back in the white car. ‘Shut the kid up! It’ll take twelve or more hours to reach the contact and get the money, and I’m not going to listen to that crap the whole time.’”
Shaine’s soft crying shifted Austin’s attention from the vivid scene in his vision to her misery.
She stared at him in shock, huge tears rolling down her colorless cheeks.
“I should have done that by myself,” he said gruffly, his mind’s eye still elsewhere. “I shouldn’t have put you through it.”
“I had to know.” She shook her head. “It’s what I’ve needed to know all along. That man killed her!”
Helpless anger arced through her like a bolt of lightning. Maggie had been killed. Her sister had been murdered.
The high color that had been evident on Austin’s face moments ago instantly drained, leaving his tanned cheeks startlingly pale.
“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward.
His expression blanched, and she reached for him.
He gulped for air like he couldn’t breathe. Was he having a heart attack? What was happening to him?
“Austin!” She bracketed his face, but his eyes were glassed over with pain and horror. “Austin!” Caught up in a terror all his own, he couldn’t hear her.
His entire body tensed. Shaine placed her hand over his pounding heart, her own pulse racing with fear.
“Austin, answer me!” She ran her hands over his shoulders, down his arms—and discovered his clenched fist.
The watch.
