Page 99 of Diagnosis Attraction

Elizabeth watched him jump aboard, then turned back to the wheel. As she pulled away, the men started shooting again. He and Elizabeth bent low, making themselves as small a target as possible while the craft roared up the bayou.

Matt looked back, seeing the two men on the end of the dock. One seemed to be in charge and gave orders to the other. He pointed toward another motorboat moored nearby, and they ran to the vessel and jumped in.

Matt was pretty sure they wouldn’t make the engine turn over with their minds. But it seemed they didn’t need to. When he heard the craft start, he muttered a curse. Either they knew where to find the key, or they had lucked out.

He cursed again as the boat took off after them, and it quickly became clear that the other craft was more powerful.

“They’re gaining on us. What are we going to do?” she shouted. “Can we goose up the engine?”

“I don’t know.”

He focused on the motor, trying to force it to put out more speed, but the maneuver didn’t seem to be working, and all they could do was keep going.

The men in the boat behind them kept firing their guns, and the shots became more accurate the closer they got. Bullets whizzed past, and some struck the hull. Matt looked down, seeing water rising in the bottom of the boat. They were sinking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“We have to bail out,” he said. “Then dive below the surface and swim toward shore.

“No, wait.” Elizabeth pointed toward a blue van that had turned onto the road beside the bayou and was racing along, keeping pace with the two boats.

He gave her a questioning look.

“It’s them.”

“Who?”

“The woman I told you about. The one who was probing my mind.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I don’t know.”

From the van, a voice zinged toward them.We’re here to help. We’re going to blow up the other boat. Add your energy to ours.

Matt still couldn’t be sure that the people in the van were on their side, but he knew for sure that the men in the other boat were closing in for the kill.

He looked toward the van, trying to see who was inside. Someone slid a window open, and he saw several people.

With a little prayer that he was making the right move, he fed power to the woman in the van.

He felt her building energy, and then a beam of tremendous force shot from the van to the pursuing boat.

For a moment, it seemed to hover in the water. Then the gas tank exploded with an enormous boom. The boat disintegrated, sending a shock wave across the water and swamping Matt and Elizabeth’s craft. They went into the water, gasping for air as waves from the shattered craft pounded them.

Elizabeth,Matt cried out in his mind. When she didn’t answer, everything inside him went cold.

Still shell-shocked by the explosion, he tried to focus, tried to figure out where she was. At first, he heard nothing. Then he picked up dim echoes from her mind. She was under the water, unconscious and sinking.

He dragged in a breath and held it, diving below the surface, swimming toward where he thought she was.

He could see nothing in the murky water, but he kept going, guided by his connection to her. His lungs felt like they would burst, but he stayed under because if Elizabeth died, he might as well die with her.

Finally, his searching hand hit against her shoulder. He grabbed her shirt, trying to summon the strength to pull them both up. Then he realized that another man was beside him, grasping Elizabeth’s other side and helping pull her upward.

They broke the surface, and Matt gasped for breath.

They pulled Elizabeth to shore and laid her on the bank. She was pale and lifeless, and he checked her airways before turning her over and starting to press the water from her lungs.

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