So had he. An erotic dream about her. The remembrance half aroused him, and he deliberately brought his thoughts under control. “Really? Which kind?”
“Knowing,” she replied, and pushed her salad plate away.
“Toby?”
She nodded, and then he understood the shadows beneath her eyes. “Tell me.”
“He was at a chrome table with a yellow top. I could see the whole kitchen as plain as I can see the restaurant here. There was some kind of macaroni on his plate. Some peas. He didn’t like the taste, but he was hungry, so he ate some. The woman was there and she sat across from him, smoking. Staring at him.
“‘Where’s Dave?’ Toby asked. The woman got this hateful look on her face, and her voice was full of venom. ‘Dave left. He left us because you were a bad boy.”’
Shaine’s voice quavered on the words. Tears filled her luminous eyes. “How can she treat him like that?”
Austin reached over and covered her hand with his. “I never understood the rotten people I envisioned. Even being in their heads I didn’t understand.”
“He’s just a little boy, practically a baby still,” she said, straining for composure. She locked her fingers as though to keep them under control, and leaned forward. “How did she get him?”
Austin shook his head. He’d had to change his whole way of thinking for her benefit. He had to go under the assumption that this child was alive. And if he believed that as strongly as she did, he’d wonder, too, how the child had gotten from the scene of the accident to this place where he was now. He gave the question his full consideration.
“If someone discovered him, along the riverbank somewhere, they’d have called an ambulance, called the police, notified someone.”
“You would think,” she replied.
“Even if no one found him and he wandered off by himself, a lost child is turned over to authorities.”
“Unless someone unscrupulous found him,” she said.
He considered that possibility. “So if this woman—or her husband or boyfriend or whoever—came across him, what are they still doing with him?”
“Mistreating him.”
“Yes, but why? A person doesn’t hang on to a strange kid they don’t want to take care of.”
“Maybe there’s something in it for them,” she suggested.
“Ransom? They wouldn’t have known who he belonged to.”
“Unless they saw the accident on the news or in the papers. Toby’s photo was in all the papers.”
“Okay,” he said. “They could know who he was, but then they would have made an attempt at ransom.”
“Nothing like that happened,” she told him.
The waitress brought their pizza and Austin placed a slice on a plate for her. They ate in silence until another thought came to him. “What about his father?”
“Whose father?”
“Toby’s.”
She wiped her lips with a napkin and sat back against the vinyl booth. Finally she said, “My sister didn’t have successful relationships with men. Or boys for that matter. All through junior high and high school she went with one jerk after another.”
She hadn’t answered his question, but Austin waited for her to say it the way she wanted to.
“She just couldn’t stand to be without a boyfriend. Not even for a day. For some reason she needed those jerks to make her feel good about herself, I guess. But they never did.” She glanced down at her plate and back up. “Make her feel good about herself, I mean.
“The time she and Toby lived with me was the first time she’d looked out for herself and what was best for her. She was finally pulling her life together.”
The waitress refilled their glasses, and Austin thanked her.
“I don’t know who Toby’s father was,” she said, finally. “She married this guy named Perry just after Toby was born, but Perry wasn’t the father. She told me it wasn’t important, because the father hadn’t known she was pregnant, and he wouldn’t have cared.”
A fatherless child. The correlation between Toby and himself gave Austin pause.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “About Toby’s father.”
“Maggie was doing just fine without a guy messing up her life for a change,” she said.
“A boy needs a father.”
Her gaze penetrated his attempt at nonchalance. “Did you have one?”
He admitted, “Sure, I had one, he just happened to be married to someone else besides my mother, so he didn’t recognize me as his.”
“Even a father who acknowledges his kids as his, doesn’t necessarily make a good dad,” she returned.
“You speaking from experience?”
“My dad let my mom raise Maggie and me. He went to work, paid the bills and hung out with his cronies on weekends. After my mom died, he moved into a trailer and took up with someone new. We didn’t see each other much. He died a couple of years ago.”
Austin turned the subject back to Maggie. “Do you believe Toby’s father wouldn’t have cared?”
She gave a disgusted sniff. “Oh, yeah. I met the guys she went with. I picked up the pieces after those relationships went bad. She was above those jerks, she could just never see it.”
“So there’s no way that Toby’s father could have planned this to get his son.”
She gave him a puzzled frown. “Planned what?”
“Planned to do away with her to get the kid.”
Her topaz eyes widened. “No! They were selfish jerks, but none of them cared enough to be a murderer. You’re suggesting that someone deliberately killed Maggie. That’s impossible. Besides I’m sure that whoever Toby’s father was, he never knew it.”
“Okay.” He pushed the dishes aside and spread his hand over hers on the table. “We needed to consider all the possibilities. The police aren’t going to be any help. You know that”
Her gaze dropped to his hand on hers, before fluttering back to his face. “I know. They consider the case closed, and they think I’m crazy.”
“Shaine.”
She cocked her head in reply.
“When we get more to go on, I’ll contact my FBI friend. He couldn’t do anything officially, but he may be able to help.”
She turned her hand beneath his and squeezed his fingers. “Do you think so?”
“I don’t know. It all depends on what you come up with in the next few days.”
Apprehension flitted across her features. He wouldn’t let himself back out because of what she might have to go through next. This was what she’d wanted from the beginning. But he knew.
He knew.
She had no idea what she was letting herself in for.
Shaine put away the groceries while Austin worked out and went for his run. They were still full from their meal in town, so they’d planned to have fruit and cheese later in the evening.
After his shower, Austin tended the fire and brought a couple of files and envelopes from his office.
With a nervous trembling in her limbs, Shaine surveyed his approach. He placed the items on the low table and sat beside her on the sofa. “Ready?”
Apprehension crushed her resolve. “Are you sure this is necessary? Couldn’t you just tell me how? Talk about it some more?”
He read through a folder. “We’ve talked for days, Shaine.”
“I know, but—”
“Look. This is what you came here for. Why you badgered me into hearing you out. You convinced me to see it your way. I could be doing a dozen other things far less unpleasant, but this is what you asked of me.”
Shame clenched into a fist in her stomach. He was right. He’d warned her a hundred times. He’d tried to talk her out of it, convince her otherwise, but she’d insisted on him teaching her.
Besides, there was no other way to help Toby.
She swallowed her squeamish cowardice and sat up straight. “You’re right. I’m ready.”
Aust
in went into the kitchen for a minute and returned with a pair of tongs. He looked into a bulky manila envelope, used the tongs to remove an object and held it toward her.
Shaine stared at the small pink ballet slipper with an alarming mixture of dread and anticipation. Her hands were glued to the knees of her jeans. She couldn’t have reached for the satin slipper if she’d wanted to.
“I didn’t have to touch anything to see the Deets boy,” she rationalized. “Or Tommy in the woods. I just dreamed about them and knew where they were.”
“That’s right,” he said. “You don’t have to touch things to get random readings. But we’re not looking for a chance vision. We’re zeroing in. This will help you do that. You’ll see more clearly and more specifically.”
He didn’t share her hesitation. He grabbed her right hand, turned it over and placed the object in her palm. Dropping the tongs on the table, he took her other hand and closed it over the slipper, holding both her hands between his.
“It’s like going to sleep,” he said. “If you try too hard, or concentrate on doing it or not doing it, you’ll lay awake all night. Just let it happen.”
For a second Shaine thought she might faint. For another second she thought she had. But then she realized the sense of vertigo wasn’t physical.
“It’s there, Shaine,” Austin said softly near her face. “The picture is there. You feel it. You sense it. Let yourself move toward it. Remember everything we’ve talked about. Remember the exercises. Use your reference points. Nobody is going to care that you can see it. I want you to see it. You want to see it. Don’t fight it. Let go.”
Colors exploded inside her head. Soft colors. Gentle colors. Aqua. Fluffy yellow. Pink.
And in the midst of that half-defined palette of pastels, she saw what he wanted her to see.
Chapter 8
Oh, but she was a beautiful girl. Her gilt-framed photograph sat on a glossy piano in a sunny plant-filled room. In the picture she wore a pink leotard and white tights. The laces of her satin slippers twined up her calves. A ribbon-festooned garland of white net wreathed her head, and hidden beneath the headpiece, her hair was dark and smooth, fashioned into two braids.
A man sat at the piano, his hands moving over the keys, music resonating from the instrument and filling the room. Mozart, but Shaine couldn’t identify the piece by name.
“There’s more,” she whispered, instinctively understanding another realm of this vision waited just out of reach. Frustration and panic warred for prominence, and she clenched her hands into fists.
“Relax,” he said, his voice soothing her apprehension. “Turn with it, Shaine. Let it take you along. Don’t adhere to the boundaries of your natural mind. Go outside them. You’re making all the rules. There’s no wrong or right.”
In her mind she searched until the image came into focus. “It’s a headstone. There are...pink azaleas planted at the foot.”
“Someone’s seeing this, Shaine. Who is it? Whose eyes are you seeing through?”
Deep despair welled up inside her—anguish and suffering and...anger. Anger over her loss. Anger that the life of her child had been snuffed out. Anguish sat like an anvil on her chest. “Her mother,” she whispered, finding it difficult to breathe.
“Don’t stop there. What else do you see? What does the marker say?”
Shaine reached out and touched the cold granite stone, her fingers outlining the rough-texture of the words and the drawing above. “Ballet slippers, with the laces dangling down.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re carved in the stone. And numbers.”
“Read them.”
“Seven-seven-eighty-five to three-six-ninety-six.”
“What else?”
“A dog. A small long-haired white dog with a rhinestone collar.”
“Where’s the dog?”
“I don’t know. In the car. Waiting in the car.”
“Where’s the car?”
“Up on the road. It’s long and silver.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know cars. A Cadillac maybe.”
“Can you see the license plates?”
“Seven dash C three one twenty-nine.”
“What state?”
“I can’t read it from here.”
“Describe it.”
“It’s white with blue numbers. There’s a thin red border. There’s something red in the middle.”
“What is it?”
“It’s—it’s the Statue of Liberty. My chest hurts.”
“It’s okay. That’s enough.” He pried open her fingers, letting the ballet slipper fall to the floor, and took her hands in his. “Shaine?”
The vision swam out of focus and the warmth of his hands on her ice-cold skin brought her back to the log house and the sofa where she sat. She turned astonished eyes on him. “What was that? What did I see?”
He released her hands and opened the folder. “Tamara Sue Jenkins. Birth date July 7, 1985. Abducted March 5, 1996, estimated date of death one day later. Father, a conductor for the New York Symphony.” He looked up. “And I’d bet money they drive a long silver car, have a little white dog and that New York license plates are white with a red Statue of Liberty.”
Feeling as though she’d just awakened from a druginduced state, Shaine grappled with the heavy sense of misery that had accompanied the vision. Something horrible had lurked just out of reach. Shaine hadn’t seen it, but she knew of its existence. She felt it in her being. “What happened to her?”
He scanned the computer printout. “Abducted outside a dance school, missing for three months, until the FBI called in a psychic who located the body with this.” He used the tongs to pick up the shiny pink slipper and place it back in the envelope.
Watching him, she couldn’t help wondering why he used those tongs to avoid touching the slipper if he’d done as good of a job of shutting out his telekinesis as he claimed. However, a crushing sense of sorrow weighed on her heart and diminished the thought. “Do they have the person who did it?”
“Nope.”
“I wasn’t any help then.”
“That’s not why we did this. We did this to see what you could do.”
“And?”
“And I’m amazed at the accuracy of what you learned. I’ve seen cases where the detectives would have given anything for a license plate number or even a state to start in. Your vision is incredibly detailed and accurate.”
“But worthless.”
“In this case perhaps. But this child was already found.”
Shaine stared hard at the envelope, thinking of how careful he’d been not to touch the girl’s slipper. “If you held it...would you see the person who killed her?”
His jaw tensed, and he raised his chin just a notch. “Maybe.” A minute passed and he met her eyes. “Probably.”
But he’d worked determinedly to put a lock on that ability. It wasn’t her place to judge him on that. She hadn’t experienced half the trauma he had.
“Note the way you did that now, Shaine. Do you remember how you got there?”
“Kind of.”
“Do you remember how you felt? Physically?”
She nodded. “My chest hurt. My hands were cold.”
“Those are reference points. Physical ones, but you have mental ones, too. Recognize them now and store them for next time.”
Exhaustion swept over her like a tidal wave. He must have seen it in her face or the way she let her boneless body sag back against the sofa cushions. “Need to sleep?”
She nodded. “How did you know? Did this happen to you afterward, too?”
“No.” He brought the blanket from the arm of the other sofa and draped it over her. “I recognized the pattern from your dreams. I was quite the opposite as a matter of fact.”
“How’s that?”
“After I’d done a session, I’d be wired for ten or twelve hours. I couldn’t have slept if I’d wanted to.�
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“Funny,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” Austin tucked the blanket around her and watched her eyes drift shut. Her gift was extraordinary. At the institute he’d met others with differing abilities, but he’d only known one or two who could actually find a location like Shaine had. He was grateful her first “hands-on” experience hadn’t been a grisly one. He wished he could guarantee she wouldn’t have to go though anything worse. But he couldn’t.
Sooner or later, she’d learn why he’d had to divorce himself from all this. Sooner or later, she’d come face-to-face with something she wished she’d never seen.
And he was leading her right toward that day.
Toby awoke instantly. Beneath him the sheets were warm and wet. He hadn’t meant to do it.
He climbed from the bed and clumsily peeled down the resistant pajamas. From a pile of unfolded laundry by the door, he found a clean pair of underwear and pulled them on backward.
His damp skin sent a shiver through his body, and he wished he could get back into the bed to keep warm.
Dimly, in the back of his mind, he remembered a soft nubby blanket and a faded terry cloth bear. Memories of comfort. Memories of another place. Memories before her.
He tugged a scratchy blanket from the back of a straight chair, got his small pillow and curled up on the floor.
It was scarier down here. He could see the dark places under the bed, and the black shadows in the corners of the room. If he cried she’d come hit him.
When she’d see the bed, she’d hit him, too. His little body trembled with the thought and he cried anyway.
Once there had been the mama who held him when he cried, who hugged him and let him sleep with her. He couldn’t remember her much anymore, but sometimes he remembered how she made him feel.
The door flew back against the wall.
His body stiffened and he blinked against the harsh light in the hall.
“What’s the matter now? Don’t you have any sense? It’s the middle of the night. What’s that smell?”
His cries froze in his ihroat and his heart beat so fast, it hurt.
She smelled worse than his bed. She came toward his place on the floor, and he shrunk back, coming up against the metal leg of the bed
The Truth About Toby Page 9
