The Truth About Toby

by Cheryl St. John

  The men returned. Ken reached into his navy blue sedan and found a slip of paper for Austin. “The address in case I lose you.”

  Austin and Shaine got into their rental and pulled out into traffic.

  The woman was expecting them. She offered coffee and chocolate chip bars in her comfortable living room.

  “That’s all I know,” she said, after relating her version of the missing car and its return.

  “Did you notice anything unusual about the car when you got it back?” Ken asked.

  “It stunk to high heaven,” she said with an irritated grimace. “I had to have it professionally cleaned to get the disgusting smell of cigarette smoke out.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well—” She pursed her lips thoughtfully, and wrinkles radiated from her narrow lips. “It seems like I do recall the police asking me if a couple of things found in the car belonged to me. Yes, that’s right, they did. Maybe a toy of some kind—I don’t remember—and a shoe they had bagged in plastic. I don’t have any children riding in my car, so I told them they weren’t mine.”

  She picked up her cup and saucer. “Imagine someone with children stealing a car to go joyriding,” she scoffed. “What kind of an example are parents setting these days?”

  Shaine’s attention had been riveted to the objects found in the car. “Did you know about that evidence?” she asked Ken as they headed toward the garage.

  He shook his head. “I knew they had prints because the car was broken into. A window was out and the steering column busted in order to hot-wire it, so the crime lab did a routine investigation.”

  Expectation welled in Shaine’s chest. Something belonging to Toby! The police had something she could identify as his! That would make the case official, wouldn’t it? They would believe her now!

  Spontaneously she took Austin’s hand and squeezed it. He returned the touch, searching her face with questioning eyes. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  Mrs. Lorenz let them into her garage. Austin walked around the white car.

  “Mind if we sit inside?” Ken asked her.

  She looked puzzled, and somewhat put out, but she unlocked the doors.

  Ken gestured for Austin to sit in the driver’s seat. He got into the back, and Shaine seated herself on the passenger side.

  Austin placed his hands on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. A nervous tremor ran through Shaine’s stomach. How could he act so calm when she knew he detested this? She decided to follow his example, determinedly relaxed, and placed her hands on the fabric seat on either side of her legs.

  The clock on the dash ticked in the ensuing silence.

  She must’ve been sitting like that a good five minutes when she heard Mrs. Lorenz’s shoes on the garage floor. Shaine opened her eyes and glanced over at Austin, surprised to find him looking at her.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  She shook her head in disappointment. “You?”

  “Nothing I could pick up on. A few blurry images. I think they were hers,” he said, meaning the Lorenz woman waiting impatiently.

  Shaine took her turn thanking the woman for her time. Austin and Ken talked, and they separated, getting into their vehicles.

  Ken pulled onto the street and drove on ahead of them. Austin gave Shaine a glance and pulled her to him. “We’re getting a little closer all the time,” he said.

  “I want this to be it,” she said, her fist clenched against his chest.

  “We have a lot more to go on than we did a week ago.”

  “And we have Ken,” she agreed.

  “He’s a believer,” Austin said.

  “So am I,” Shaine said. “So am I.”

  The detective Ken had contacted led the three of them to a lower-level office that had seen its heyday in the seventies. They seated themselves on duct-taped blue vinyl-cushioned chairs and waited for Detective Parker to check out the evidence and return.

  Ken paged through the file and explained the routine fingerprinting.

  Parker returned with a plastic tub containing three manila envelopes. He opened the first and slid a pink baby bottle out onto the blotter on his scarred wooden desk. “Look familiar?”

  Ken and Austin looked to Shaine for a reply. She shook her head.

  The next envelope held a small white shoe with yellowed laces and a pink and blue flower embroidered on the top. Ken made a note in his pocket spiral. He raised a brow at Austin and Shaine.

  Shaine had never seen the shoe before. “It’s a girl’s shoe, and besides, it’s too small.”

  The final envelope held a miniature spoon with rubber protecting the bowl.

  Again Shaine shook her head, this time with confusion and discouragement weighting her thoughts. “Are you sure you have the right things? We’re looking for the items left in a white Corsica on—what was the date?”

  Ken filled the date in for her.

  The detective slid the file toward himself and pulled out several blown-up photographs. “Here are the photos from the scene. You can see the shoe just under the edge of the passenger seat.” He thumbed through the papers. “The spoon was found behind the rear seat, the bottle in the trunk behind a box of old magazines that the Lorenz woman was planning to take to a thrift store.

  “That’s not Toby’s shoe,” Shaine supplied. “He was too old for a bottle, and there was no spoon in Maggie’s car when he was taken. This stuff belongs to another child.”

  Horrified at the implication, she leaned her forehead into her hand and gripped her temples against the headache she could sense building.

  “Can we have about thirty minutes?” Ken asked.

  She looked up to see the detective glance from Ken to Austin. “The evidence stays right here.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Ken replied.

  With a slightly offended attitude, Parker silently swaggered from the room.

  “What’s this about?” Shaine asked almost resentfully. “None of this stuff is Toby’s.”

  “But it’s from the car,” Ken said logically.

  “And it hasn’t been touched or otherwise contaminated in all this time,” Austin filled in, getting up and moving to sit in the chair Parker had vacated.

  Shaine took her hand from her forehead and stared at him. If this meant what she thought it meant, they’d gotten themselves into something bigger than they’d anticipated. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  Austin looked her in the eye. “I’m going to find out what these things have to do with Toby.”

  Chapter 14

  Austin used one of the empty envelopes to pull the small white shoe toward him. He studied it for a few seconds, preparing himself, relaxing.

  Ken, who’d seen the procedure many times, settled into a chair to wait.

  Austin tuned out Shaine’s tense energy and picked up the shoe. A familiar, yet still surprising current ran up his arm. The leather was soft and pliant, the soft gray sole unscuffed. He covered it with his other palm and turned his perspective inward.

  A dynamic force of energy swirled and stretched and bent itself into colors and sounds and smells that he absorbed, sorting the senses and forms into manageable snips.

  “Her name is Amy.”

  It was even harder to pick up on intelligible information than it had been from Toby’s perspective, but he had her, and now all he had to do was traverse the collective and developing images until he found something he could lock in to.

  It took a while to sift through and find what he wanted, but no one said anything to disturb him.

  “Someone watched her for weeks,” he said finally. “Her mother’s young. Very young. The same man is here. I can sense him, but he’s not alone. He didn’t do this by himself, and he didn’t choose this baby.”

  Rossi. The name came to him like a divine gift. “Rossi staked out the mother and baby as easy prey. Then he...” The picture shifted and took a new shape, and Austin knew the man who’d taken the baby was
only part of a bigger scheme. The one who took the most risks. The one who believed he deserved the most money.

  “I have the baby,” he said, inside the kidnapper’s head now. “It’s so stinkin’ easy to get these kids.” Austin detailed directions to a remote location with the word Greasewood in it. It was off Highway 191, which ran north and south from Interstate 10. “There’s a house. Some outbuildings. It’s hot and dry. I leave the kid here and pick up my money at a post office box.”

  “See if you can get something more on the baby,” Ken said, his words a gentle direction.

  Austin refocused and found a guide point to search from. He scanned each new page that opened to him, backing away from the cloudy unfocused pictures he recognized as the baby’s, and concentrating on the man’s.

  “Here she is. She’s practically waiting for me. The roommate’s gone. The teenybopper mom is on the phone in the other room. Don’t these stupid little bitches have more sense than to get knocked up while they’re still wearing training bras?

  “The baby was asleep, and she didn’t wake up. I didn’t have to use the chloroform.”

  Shaine’s indrawn breath registered dimly.

  “I put her in the car,” he said. “The white Corsica. Doris is in the driver’s seat. The back seat is empty except for the baby. The house. I look back at the house. It needs paint. It’s white with most of the blue trim chipped off. There’s an intersection just ahead. It’s...oh.”

  “What?” Ken asked.

  “There’s a highway sign. It’s Kansas.”

  “Hot damn!” Ken said, slapping a palm on the desk.

  Austin’s focus changed then, shifted, dipped and turned, and a consuming sense of shock and alarm spread through him. “Amy!” The young girl was frantic. “Amy!” She screamed the name again and again. She blamed herself. Her mother had told her she wouldn’t be able to take care of her baby and work and go to school. Her mother would be glad. Maybe she’d planned it!

  No one could help her. The police had nothing. The FBI had nothing. She had nothing. No mother. No husband. No Amy.

  Grief, like a gaping pulsing wound, blotted out all other sensations, and Austin couldn’t fill his lungs with air.

  The shoe was tugged from his fingers. Ken set it on the desktop. Austin concentrated on breathing evenly and remembering the pain wasn’t his.

  But it was. It was.

  He knew just how deeply the girl grieved for her baby. how scared and alone and desperate she was. For that abysmal time it had all been his, and feelings as deep as those were not easily forgotten.

  Ignoring whatever Ken might think, Shaine pulled her chair beside Austin’s and took his hand. He met her eyes, and the depth of emotion in his took her breath away.

  “This is the only chance we’ll have to hold these things,” he said to her. “Take the shoe.”

  The sound of a train roared in Shaine’s head. Why did he want her to do this? What if she saw something awful? What if the future was worse than the past?

  She remembered her dream of Austin, the image of pain and suffering on his face. The pain had all belonged to others. He’d made it his. For her.

  His hand in hers was strong and warm. Imbuing courage. And hope.

  Shaine released him and faced the desk where the tiny white shoe lay. Swiftly, so she wouldn’t have time to anticipate, she swooped forward and took it. The laces dangled between her fingers. She shut her eyes, maneuvering the reference points Austin had taught her to use.

  It was surprisingly easy. As soon as her chest warmed and her fingers grew cold, she knew she was there—and she flowed with it. The heat plunged to her abdomen.

  A toddling girl with a pink dress and floppy bow in her fine hair wobbled across a large room filled with a dozen other children. It appeared as some kind of day-care facility. Children banged toys and whooped. Occasionally one cried.

  “Amanda, they call her,” Shaine was able to tell them.

  “See her mother,” Austin said hopefully. “Can you find her?”

  Shaine tried. She waited patiently for another avenue to open. Nothing came. Finally she shook her head and returned the shoe to the desk. “We know she’s okay,” she said without much excitement in her tone.

  She glanced over at Austin, and did a double-take at the look of awe his face. “You saw her,” he said, his voice low.

  She nodded.

  “We both saw her.”

  Comprehension at his incredulity sunk in. He’d rarely envisioned a live victim. This was almost miraculous for him. Shaine couldn’t help thinking of the stories she’d seen on CNN after the Oklahoma City bombing. Even the search-and-rescue dogs had to find a live body once in a while or they became depressed and quit looking. It was a silly analogy, but an obviously true one. If the need for hope and encouragement affected dogs that way, Shaine could imagine how such a thing would effect a human being.

  Especially a compassionate man like Austin.

  “We have about ten minutes before Parker comes back. You want to do these?” Ken pointed to the bottle and spoon.

  “Yes.” Austin held the objects for impressions, coming up with the same as he had before. Shaine didn’t get much more, either.

  The detective returned, and they ended the session. The afternoon had grown hot beneath the dry sun.

  “You gave me a lot to work with,” Ken said, loosening his tie as they walked back to their cars. “The name Doris isn’t much to go on, but I’ll bet I have the young mother and the locale where the baby was taken from by tonight. The other place, the one with Greasewood in it? Do you think that’s the drop-off point?”

  “I think so,” Austin replied. “It was the man and woman’s destination. Once they got the kid there, they were home-free, and the money was theirs.”

  “Will you guys be staying or heading back?”

  Shaine looked up at Austin.

  “You’ll need to rest,” he said, then glanced back at McKade. “We’ll stay another night, and head back tomorrow. I’ll call your pager and leave the number where we’ll be tonight.”

  “Gotcha.” Ken walked off.

  “We’ll get a place with a phone and a TV,” Austin said as they got into the rental.

  “You can rent space in an airplane hangar, and I’ll sleep,” she replied, leaning her head back against the seat. “Of course you’ll be wide-awake.”

  “That’s why we need the TV.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get more,” she said, regretting being unable to help.

  “You did fine.” He merged the car into traffic and switched on the air-conditioning. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far if not for your dreams.”

  And he wouldn’t have had to see and feel the things he had if not for her sake. She closed her eyes against the thought.

  He woke her what seemed like seconds later, but when she glanced around, they were in front of a hotel.

  “Where are we?”

  “Las Cruces. I felt like driving off some energy, and you seemed comfortable. We can catch a flight from here in the morning.” He checked them in and carried their luggage.

  They stepped into an elevator. “Nice place,” she commented.

  The door slid open. The faint smell of chlorine met her nostrils. “Don’t tell me. There’s a pool and a hot tub and exercise equipment.”

  He led her down a hallway. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.”

  He set their bags down and inserted the plastic card in the lock.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Maybe you should eat before you fall back asleep.”

  “How do you know I’ll fall back asleep?”

  He adjusted the thermostat on the wall. “Because you only slept about an hour and a half. You’ve got at least another six and a half to go to catch up.”

  “I feel like I need a shower.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She brushed h
er hair and teeth, peeled off her clothes and stepped beneath a tingling spray.

  “Shaine?” Austin called a minute later.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to head down to the gym.”

  “Okay.”

  She rinsed her hair.

  “This smell drove me crazy the first couple of times you used my shower,” he said, his voice closer than before, surprising her. “I imagined you standing naked in my bathroom.”

  Shaine wanted to invite him to join her, but she didn’t want to seem too bold or embarrass herself. “Austin?” she called softly, seeing if he was still there.

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to see the real thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  Unable to suppress a smile, she pulled the shower curtain away from the end of the tub so the spray didn’t flood the bathroom.

  He’d dressed in his shorts and a form-fitting T-shirt. His gaze slid over her body and perceptibly darkened. “You are beautiful, Shaine.”

  Her shy smile almost excited him as much as the sight of water dripping from her nipples and sluicing down her thighs. She was by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And the only one he’d ever want from now on. As long as he lived, there would never be anyone to compare to her. Spending these past days and nights with her had shown him that.

  “You’re making it difficult to leave,” he said dryly.

  “Maybe there’ll be babes in thongs,” she said.

  His gaze slid down her lithe body. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe you’d get a better workout here.” She bit her lip.

  He laughed out loud. God, she was fun. And a little uncertain of him. Of them.

  He stripped off his clothes and shoes and stepped into the warm spray beside her. Her palms came up to his chest and his body responded immediately. Her lovely tawny eyes widened. A rivulet trickled down her neck and he bent his head to lap it up.

  Her hot wet skin made him crazy. He stroked her flesh from her jaw, down her collarbone and breasts, to her flat stomach and down her legs, coming back up to cup her buttocks and pull her flush against him.

  The water made their bodies squeaky-slick. Austin enjoyed her smooth satin texture against his hair-roughened skin, framed her jaw and kissed her long and lustily.