A Stranger's Touch (5 page)

The taste of iron filled Maggie’s mouth as a fresh wave of nausea hit her. She wrapped her arms over her belly, holding herself together, as what little hope she clung to disintegrated.

She felt as if she’d been treading water for hours, clawing
her way to shore. Now there was nothing to grab on to, nothing to keep her afloat.

Why was this happening to her? To Davie? In spite of the odds, she’d prayed that something would turn up at the crime scene, anything that would have pointed toward her son. Suddenly, the adrenaline she’d been running on for the past eight hours
rushed from her body. Barely able to stand, she rested against her car as she reached into her jacket pocket for the keys.

Stafford kept on walking, beyond the vehicle, toward the hedge. Maggie watched as he approached the yellow tape, dipped beneath it, and emerged on the other side.

She ran to the barrier’s edge on rubbery legs. “You’re not supposed to do that.”

He shrugged. “It’s the only way I’m going to get a reading.” Stafford closed his eyes. His face went blank. His skin glowed, lit from within.

Though Maggie didn’t completely buy the psychic stuff, she knew she was witnessing something strange, outside her experience. She rubbed her hands together to keep them from trembling. “Are you going to pass out on me again?”

Even in the dimness, she could see his cheeks color. “I didn’t actually lose consciousness.”

“You came damn close.”

“When I’m in contact with a subject, I feel their emotions. I touch their soul.”

Maggie tried to hide her disbelief. Was this guy for real? Or an escapee? One of those nutcases who claimed to be a second cousin of the Messiah? “You mean, when you held Davie’s knapsack...”

“I became Davie.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. If that’s true, why did you pass out on the stairs?”

“I didn’t lose con—”

“Okay, okay. Then why did you act so weird?”

“There’s a big difference between touching an inanimate object and being thrust into physical contact with another person. And you...” He looked at her, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “You’re a very powerful woman. The strength of your spirit...it packed a hell of a wallop.”

Maggie stiffened. Had he been able to read her thoughts? Her heart? When she’d ambushed him outside the police station, she’d lost all control. She’d never felt so enraged, or so exposed. Sides of herself she’d never revealed to anyone.

Had Stafford seen it? Felt it? Along with her?

She tried to distance herself from the intimacy, to erase it from her memory. She slapped at the shivers crawling across her shoulders and turned back toward the car. “I’ll get you a flashlight.”

“Not necessary.”

She stopped and swiveled on her heel. “You don’t need to see?”

“Not for this.” He raised his head and moved his arms away from his body, his bare hands open at his sides. He looked like a ship’s bow, offering himself to the elements.

“I thought you had to touch objects to get an impression.”

“I am,” he answered, his eyes, again, closed. “My body is touching the air, the soles of my shoes are touching the earth. I’m trying to pick up on anything that’s imprinted here.”

“You mean you don’t have to—”

“Shhhhh.”

Maggie shut her mouth, pursing her lips to keep from asking the questions whirling inside her. She watched Stafford move beyond the lampposts, outside the murky light they offered. The grass he walked on was a black void. What could he find in the dark that Detective Millar and his dogs hadn’t?

“I sense fear.”

The hairs at the back of Maggie’s neck stood at attention. Who had her son? Were they hurting him? Abusing him? Maggie clutched her shaking hands together and pressed them between her breasts.

“And there’s something else...”

She waited, hoping for and dreading his next words.

“I sense...love.”

Maggie stared at him in disbelief.
“Love?
You sense
love?”
Her stomach lurched. “It’s a sick kind of love when a man abducts a little boy.”

She pasted her hands over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say it, wished she could take back the words. Saying it out loud made her worst fear real—the fear that her son was in the hands of a child molester.

A serial killer.

She felt her body convulse, shake in uncontrollable spasms. She kept her hands on her mouth, smothering the escaping cries, until her knees gave way.

Strong arms wrapped around her, guided her down to the curb, and held her as silent screams quaked through her body.

* * *

Stafford kept quiet. What could he possibly say? That he knew how she felt? She wouldn’t believe him anyway.

He’d been through it before. Twice. In spite of the mental shield he’d constructed around himself, holding Maggie brought back the anguish. And damned if it didn’t bring a hint of pleasure. It had been a while since he’d held a woman in his arms.

In another time, under other circumstances...

He shut out the thought and the emptiness that crushed his chest. His circumstances weren’t going to change. He was different from other men. He wasn’t part of the world. He was an outsider, walking through it.

And right now, so was Maggie. Maybe that’s why he felt such a bond.

He held her until the tears ebbed and her steel guard snapped back into place. She sniffed, reached into her pocket and drew out a tissue.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

She wiped her eyes, her nose. “Thank you.”

The coolness of the evening penetrated Stafford’s jacket. Or was it the way she’d pulled back from him that left the air between them chilled? He let his hands rest on his knees and looked away, giving her some privacy. His gaze moved upwards, toward the night sky.

The moon
peered
out from behind a dark cloud that drifted across it. He remembered something his sister once said. That it didn’t matter if they were miles apart, they could still look up at the same moon and be instantly connected.

For a moment, he could feel Bree’s warmth, as if she were sitting by his side. His sister’s love surrounded him like a bath of hot cocoa. Her scent, strawberry lip gloss and spearmint gum, perfumed the air, making him smile.

Then she disappeared. Or rather, the sensations did. Because Bree hadn’t really been there. Only Maggie. And that big satellite in the sky.

He glanced up at it again and wondered about all the lost and missing kids in the world. Whether they were looking at that same moon or if a killer had shut their eyes forever.

Beside him, Maggie bent forward. She picked up something in the dirt and dusted it off on her pant leg. “Lucky penny,” she said, her voice sounding anything but optimistic. She dropped the coin into his bare palm.

An American penny
. Nothing unusual about that. An American by birth, Stafford had learned that Canadians didn’t differentiate between the coin of their own country and that of their neighbors to the south. Everyone in Canada had US coins—given and accepted freely at any checkout counter.

The penny showed the Lincoln Memorial on one side and the good man himself on the other, with the words
In God We Trust
embossed over his head. Nothing odd in that, either. The strange part was the heat radiating
in Stafford’s palm.

“I’ll drive you home now,” Maggie said. She stood and walked toward her car.

He closed his eyes and saw the tan vehicle again, this time, from the inside. He heard the sounds of the road—a long trip through rugged terrain, a woman’s voice...

“Stafford?” Maggie’s footsteps returned, echoing in his ears as though she were at the other end of a long tunnel. “Did you find something?”

He shook off the images and focused on the real person before him, her face in partial shadow, her mouth a thin, tight line. “It’s not a man. It’s a woman.”

“
What?
How do you know that?”

“The penny. It’s hers. She lost it, struggling with Davie.”

Maggie stared at him, her dark eyes blazing. “Get in the car.”

* * *

She reached for her cell phone as she ran to her vehicle. Energy coursed through her—leg muscles burning, hope filling her heart. Finally, Maggie had a direction. Something to focus on. If it turned out she was grasping at straws...

No. She wouldn’t believe that. She had to keep going. Move forward. Follow any lead. No matter the source.

Forget about reality. It had stopped late that afternoon. At this point, she was willing to try anything, go anywhere, trust anyone. As long as she got her little boy back.

By the time she started the car’s engine, she had Owens on the line. “Stafford thinks it’s a woman. But why would a female abduct a child? Where would she take him?”

“Out of the country, if she can,” Owens told her. “There’s a network of criminals who steal kids. They smuggle them through the States to countries all over the world.”

Maggie remembered hearing about the crime ring several months earlier, when a young boy vanished from a playground in Vancouver. Officers had speculated about a connection to child pornography and the sex trade industry. At the time, the thought had sickened her. She felt far worse now.

“We’ll step up patrols at the border,” Owens promised, “and get David’s photo out to the airports. Good work. But go home now, Mags. Let us do the rest.”

“I’ll be on my cell phone. If you hear anything—”

“I’ll call.”

Maggie pushed the End button seconds after Owens hung up, and slipped her phone into one of the vehicle’s empty cup holders as she pulled out into traffic. She drove on for miles, lost in her fears.

“Turn right up here at the lights.”

Stafford had been so quiet during the drive she might have forgotten he was beside her until he spoke. Might have. But with Stafford, that was impossible.

She could feel him, even from the opposite side of the car. The space between them sizzled, the same feeling she’d experienced when he’d held her in his arms. With him, she felt safe and reassured, anxious and perplexed, all at the same time.

She glanced over at him. Who was this man, this stranger who could touch her soul? An FBI agent turned carpenter? An odd switch to a biblical profession. Maybe he
was
a second cousin of the Messiah, after all.

Maggie reached the intersection and, ignoring the prospect of divine intervention, kept driving. She moved into the passing lane.

“You missed my turn.” His voice sounded calm. His hands, once again encased in black leather, rested quietly on his knees.

Maggie flipped on the radio and pressed down on the gas. The Rolling Stones told her to stop and look around, as her 19
^th
Nervous Breakdown was on its way. Even Mick Jagger was against her.

“Where are you going, Maggie?”

She tightened her grip on the wheel. “After her.” Owens said the abducted kids were taken across the border into the US. She’d begin there.

“Let the police handle it.”

“I
am
the police.”

“Let
Owens
handle it.”

Grasping the gearshift, she jerked the car into fourth. “I can’t sit around and do nothing. I can’t. Look, I’ll pay you for your time.”

“I don’t want to be paid. That’s not the point.”

“No. I have to find my little boy.
That’s
the point.”

“Stop the car, Maggie.”

She ignored him, and Mick, and kept going. Until Stafford issued the order a second time. His voice held such command that she had to obey. She checked her mirror, moved into the right-hand lane and over to the paved shoulder.

She flipped off the radio and swiveled toward him. “What’s the matter with you?”

Her lips trembled as she spoke. She couldn’t control them or the desperation and anger that exploded inside her. “Are you blind? You know how this works. Every hour that passes takes Davie further away from me. Don’t you get it? Don’t you want to help find a missing child?”

A wave of anguish passed over his features. She remembered how he’d looked on the station’s steps when his handsome face contorted with pain. Is that why he hesitated? Because he felt the emotions of others so intensely? Was it a matter of self-preservation?

She looked down and found her fingers curled into claws. She forced them to unfurl, made them lie flat against her thighs.

A gush of air shook the car as another vehicle passed. Then all she could hear was breathing: her own, quick and shallow; his, slow and labored.

She lifted her head and met his eyes. His were troubled, filled with a lifetime of sadness. Maggie lowered her voice to a whisper.

“I don’t have anywhere else to turn. Please. Help me do this.”

He looked away, his focus drifting to the cheap chain on her rearview mirror as it swung to and fro. “Where are you planning to go?”

That was the problem. She had no plan. The Canada/US border stretched more than 5,000 miles. Where would she start?

The futility of her mission hit her, leaving her numb. Her son could be hundreds of miles away. In any direction. Even on his way overseas.

“I don’t know.”

Stafford grasped the chain’s end and looked at the pendant, at the photo of her little boy. Maggie pictured the shot in her mind, Davie’s mouth slanted up into that crooked grin she so loved. The smile she might never see again. She bit the insides of her cheeks to stop the flow of tears. It didn’t help. She’d never felt so scared. So alone.

“Then...let’s go north.”

It took a moment for her to register Stafford’s words. To realize that he’d just agreed to go with her. And that he’d suggested they travel in the opposite direction Owens had planned for his search.

She swiped at the moisture on her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Why north?”

He let go of the chain, waiting for it to settle before he spoke again. “Just a feeling.”

A feeling?
She’d spent the last five minutes begging for Stafford’s help. She’d hoped for more than
a
feeling.

Could she trust him?
Should
she? A few hours earlier, she’d called his abilities hocus-pocus. Yet, here she sat in a car with the man. A stranger.