Search and Rescue (2 page)

“I'm here now,” I said. “Can't you take a few minutes to fill me in?”

Matt scratched behind his ear. “Fine. Amber went jogging on these trails after lunch. She didn't return. That's her car over there. She was only wearing a light jacket, and we found that along the trail. Before she left, she told her mother she wouldn't be out long.”

“Is her mother here?” I asked. “Can I talk to her?”

“I sent Helen home to get some rest.” Matt glanced at me sideways, like he knew what I was thinking. “Don't call her on your cell. She's scared out of her wits. The last thing she needs is some newspaper reporter asking a bunch of questions.”

“No, of course not,” I said. Although that was what I'd planned to do. “Do you think Amber is simply lost? Or was she kidnapped?”

“Kidnapped?”

I wrote on my notepad as I talked. “Is there any reason to believe someone took her?”

Matt eyed me. “Do you have any reason to believe that?”

“Well, no.” I stopped writing, wondering why I had asked. The question had just popped out of my mouth.

Matt leaned over a map of the wilderness trails. “Look, can we do this in the morning? As you can imagine, I'm a little busy at the moment.”

“May I at least take a picture of the jacket Amber was wearing? If she isn't found tonight, we could run the photo in the paper. Maybe someone saw her in it.”

Matt thought a moment. “That may be useful,” he said. He pulled the jacket from a box and laid it on the table. “But I will find her tonight.” He sounded determined, but I also heard the worry in his voice. Amber had been missing for several hours, and the sun had just set.

“You can run her photo too,” he said. He handed me her high-school picture. Amber was a pretty girl, with long blond hair. Her skin was fair and her eyes were blue. She was taller than most girls her age. Her height made her a natural for basketball.

I tucked the photo into my camera bag. Then I turned to Amber's jacket. The high-school basketball team crest was on the back. “Her team jacket,” I said, reaching for it.

“She plays center,” he said.

As soon as I held the jacket in my hands, I got the oddest sensation. I felt like I was going down a waterslide, inside one of those tubes. I was excited, but scared too. The feeling only lasted a moment.

Then, weirdly, I saw Amber. Her image was in the bus window in front of me, like she was on
TV
. I had a vision of her.

She was lying on the ground. Her hair was over her face. I saw bruises on her arm. She was several feet from the edge of a cliff.

As suddenly as the vision started, it was gone. Instead of Amber's image, I saw my own face reflected in the bus window. My curly brown hair, my heart-shaped face, my brown eyes.

Mom had told me about her visions. What had just happened to me was like what she described. I never really believed her though. I thought she imagined things, or worse. I thought she might be losing her mind.

But I knew my vision was real. Amber was out there, lying injured on the cold ground. I had to find her.

For the first time in my adult life, I believed my mother was a remote viewer. She could reach out to distance places with her mind. Evidently, I could too.

The thought terrified me. I felt so woozy that I dropped Amber's jacket and almost fell down myself.

“Whoa,” said Matt. He grabbed me. “Are you all right? Here, sit down.” He offered me a folding lawn chair.

“I'm fine,” I said. I sat down anyway. “I haven't eaten since breakfast. I guess I'm hungrier than I thought.” I didn't want to tell him what had really happened. He would think I was seeing things and going crazy.

“You better go meet Trevor for that dinner date then,” he said.

“Trevor!” I cried. “He's been waiting in that restaurant all this time. Shit. I forgot all about him.”

Matt grinned and shook his head. “I won't tell him you said that.”

“No, please don't.”

“You better phone him,” said Matt. “I'll grab a coffee and leave you to it.” He turned to get off the bus.

“Matt, wait,” I said. I paused. I knew I was about to embarrass myself in front of Matt and likely the whole town. Word got around quickly in this small community. Everyone would think I was as nutty as my mom.

I was also convinced that if I said nothing about my vision, Amber would be dead by morning.

I stood to face Matt, my hands shaking. He crossed his arms as he waited for me to say something. How could I explain? I didn't really understand what was happening myself. Even so, I knew I had to try.

I took a deep breath and spit it out. “I think I know where Amber is,” I said.

THREE

“I
f you knew where Amber is, why didn't you tell me?” Matt's face reddened with anger. He was intimidating when he was pissed. He tried to stand to his full height and bumped his head on the bus ceiling.

“I didn't know until just now,” I said. “I mean, I had this feeling—”

Matt glared down at me. He was head-and-shoulders taller than me. “You had a
feeling
?” He paused. “You mean like one of your mother's crazy hunches?”

Here we go, I thought. This was exactly the reaction I had feared. I realized then that I had to be sure of Amber's location before I tried to explain further. I also needed some proof to convince Matt that what I'd seen was real. Otherwise, he wouldn't believe me.

“Can I just hold Amber's jacket again?” I asked.

“Why?”

“Humor me,” I said.

Matt handed me the jacket. As soon as I touched it, I felt like I was traveling through a tunnel. Then I saw Amber in the bus window again, as clearly as if I were watching
TV
.

She still lay on the ground. Her hand was near her face, and she wore a charm bracelet. The red bruises on her arm were shaped like fingerprints. Someone had held her too tight. Past her, I saw the cliff beyond. The town lights twinkled below in the evening light.

I
did
know where Amber was. She was at the lookout on the top of Little Mountain.

Was she alive? I tried to focus on her face, what I could see of it under her hair. There was blood on her forehead. She appeared to be unconscious, knocked out. Yet she was still breathing. “Oh, thank god,” I said.

“What?” asked Matt.

As soon as I heard him speak, I lost the vision. I saw only myself in that window now. I looked like I felt: scared. I feared for Amber's safety, but I also feared for my own. Why was this happening to me? The vision left me feeling dizzy and shaky.

Still, I had to focus on Amber. I had to save her. “I was right,” I told Matt. “I know where Amber is. She's still alive, but hurt. I saw her lying on the ground near the Little Mountain viewpoint.”

“Way up there?” Matt asked. “Amber couldn't have walked all that way on foot.” He frowned. “How do you know where she is? Where is she now?”

“Still there, I expect.”

Matt shook his head. “I don't understand. You saw her there, lying on the ground, and didn't think to drive her down? What is the matter with you?”

“I wasn't there, exactly,” I said.

“Did you see her at the viewpoint or not?”

“I saw her there, but I wasn't there myself.” At least, my body wasn't, I thought. I felt like some part of my mind had traveled to find Amber. “They call it
remote viewing
,” I told him.

Matt shook his head. “I don't understand.”

“When I held Amber's jacket earlier and again just now, I saw—” I paused. There was no way out of this. I had to tell him. “I had a vision of her.”

Matt laughed. “A
vision
? You mean like the visions your mom has? Hell, she's forever phoning me up, telling me where to find some lost tourist. All because she saw the poor slob in one of her ‘visions.' I won't take her calls anymore.”

“I know it sounds goofy,” I said. “But I swear that's where Amber is.”

Matt rubbed a finger over the stubble on his upper lip as he thought for a moment. “I heard the cops, ambulance drivers and firefighters call you Radar,” he said. “You turn up at accident scenes before they do.”

“Sometimes,” I said, trying to make less of it. Then I nodded, admitting the truth. “Often.”

“I take it you have these ‘visions' often too.”

“No, I've never experienced anything like this before,” I said. “I've only had hunches, gut feelings. I'll
know
I have to turn down a certain road. Then there'll be an accident on that road in front of me.”

I glanced down at Amber's jacket in my lap. “This time was different. I
saw
Amber as clearly as I'm seeing you.”

“You were imagining things.” He paused. “Or hallucinating.”

“I'm not seeing things, not in that way. I'm not crazy. I can prove it to you.”

“I don't have time for this,” Matt said. “There's a girl missing on that mountain.” He took Amber's jacket from me. “We're into winter, and Amber doesn't even have this to protect her.”

“Matt, please listen to me,” I begged. “I
know
that's where she is.”

“Go home, Claire,” Matt said. He looked down at my bare legs under my short skirt. “And put on something warm so you don't freeze to death yourself.” He went back to studying his map. “I don't want to have to rescue you too.”

I raked a hand through my hair as I searched my memory of the vision. I had to convince Matt that what I saw was real. “She was wearing a charm bracelet,” I told him. “One of the charms was a tiny boat.”

Matt turned back to me, shocked. “Who else were you talking to?” he demanded. “How did you know she was wearing that bracelet?”

“No one,” I said. “Jim told me Amber was missing. Then I came here and talked to you.”

“Then how could you know about the boat on that bracelet?” He peered at me, angry. “Did you talk to Amber's mom before you got here?”

“No. Like I said, I saw it.”

“In a vision.”

“Yes.”

Matt paused a moment, then took my elbow. “Come on.”

He led me outside the bus. I trotted beside him in my high heels as he strode to his pickup truck. “Where are we going?” I asked him.

“Up to the Little Mountain viewpoint,” he said.

“You believe me?”

“No.”

“Then why—?”

“The truth is, we haven't had any luck tracking Amber,” he told me. “The police dog hasn't picked up her scent. Temperatures are dropping. If we don't find her in the next couple of hours, she'll freeze to death. I'll take any lead at this point, no matter how silly it sounds.”

“Aren't you taking a team of searchers with you?” I asked.

“I said I'd check out your story, but I'm not going to waste our volunteers' time. Amber was last seen jogging this wilderness trail. That's where we'll focus the search.” He opened the passenger door of his truck for me. “I'll take you up to the viewpoint myself.”

I hesitated before getting in his truck. “The last thing I want to do is waste your time,” I said.

“You've already done that.” Matt got into the truck and lifted his chin at me. “Get in,” he said.

FOUR

A
s Matt drove up the logging road, he glanced at my high heels. “You're not exactly dressed for this,” he said. When I saw him check out my cleavage, I buttoned my jacket over my white blouse.

Matt turned to face the road ahead of us, embarrassed. “But you look good,” he added. He lowered his voice. “Really good.”

“Thanks, I think,” I said.
He
looked good too, though I wouldn't tell him that. He had a day-old beard, and it suited him. Then, of course, there was his search-and-rescue jacket. I admit, I'm a sucker for a guy in uniform.

I'm sure that's the real reason I agreed to go out with Trevor. There's nothing sexier than a man in firefighting gear. Trevor even had his photo in a pinup calendar the fire department sold to raise funds. Dating him made me feel important.

The thing is, Trevor and I had never got past that goodnight kiss. Then again, if I stopped standing him up, we might end up in bed.

Matt and I reached the top of Little Mountain. “Stop here,” I told him, pointing at a turnout in the road. “This is the place.” I could feel it. “I saw Amber by the cliff. I saw the lights of the town below.”

Matt pulled over, and I stepped out onto the gravel road. The forest around us smelled of pine. Snow had begun to fall. We were supposed to get several inches that night, the first real snowfall of the season.

I led Matt down a narrow path through the woods to the edge of the cliff. This was the viewpoint, overlooking the town of Black Lake. Young lovers often parked here. Teens partied here. Every couple of years, some drunk kid stepped off this cliff to his death.

“This is the place,” I told Matt. Below us, the lights of town glittered around Black Lake as sunset painted the clouds orange. The view was exactly what I'd seen in my vision, but Amber wasn't there.

“She was lying right here.” I pointed at the ground where the pine needles were swept to the side.

“Someone—or something—has been here recently,” Matt said. “Could have been a deer taking a nap. Could have been kids making out.”

“Amber could have been here too, right?” I asked.

In answer, Matt cupped his hands to his mouth. “Amber,” he cried. “Amber!” We both listened, hoping for a reply. There wasn't one.

“She was unconscious,” I said. “She couldn't answer our call.”

“We don't know that,” said Matt. “And she's not here, is she? If she was unconscious, how did she walk away?” His face was grim. Now he
really
didn't believe me.