Page 93 of Chasing Dreams
Baldwin looked inside, then spilled a small doll onto the desktop.
Austin got only a few hazy impressions from the doll. The name Catherine kept coming to him, and he wondered if that was the child’s name.
Shaine did better, getting a clear sighting of a small-town grocery store. She got the name of the store and read the captions from a row of candy and gum machines.
The next envelope held a small thin blanket. Austin had an immediate impression of the kidnapper, the same one who’d taken Jack. The broadening vision showed a vicious assault on the child’s mother. Her purse lay on the cement, its contents spilled into a heap. A credit card lay in plain view. Austin read the name and numbers.
Shaine couldn’t get an impression from the blanket, but she didn’t look frustrated. He’d tried to teach her she couldn’t pick up a channel on everything, and apparently she understood that better now.
They continued through the remainder of the envelopes, until they’d held all of the objects hopeful parents had sent.
Austin signaled for Baldwin to shut off the recorder, and he complied. Baldwin placed the envelopes back in the box they’d been in, closed his notebook and stood. “Thanks for the show.”
Austin didn’t bother to watch him leave. He turned right to Shaine. “We’ve done everything we can now.”
She nodded, then looked aside briefly and pointed toward the door. “Are you used to that?”
“I don’t know if you ever get used to it. I was prepared for it. What we can see makes a lot of people nervous.”
She shook her head in disgust.
“He was probably cheating on his wife or planning to rob a bank or something,” he said lightly. “Didn’t want me to read his mind and expose him.”
She grinned. “You’re terrible.”
“Well? I’m not too optimistic about most people’s character anymore.”
“There are a lot of great people in the world,” she argued. “You’ve just seen more than your share of the rotten ones.”
“So, you’re a great person. Who else?”
“Ken. Maya. Craig. Samantha.”
“Don’t exactly need a calculator to count ’em, do you?”
She covered a yawn with the back of her hand. “Well, don’t count them out.”
“Okay. You win. Are you going to fall asleep on me?”
She shook her head. “I’ll make it.”
“I’ll get us coffee.”
A half hour later Ken poked his head through the doorway. “I have something, but I have to run a couple of checks on it. Sit tight.”
It was another thirty minutes before he returned with news. “They delivered a blond boy fitting Jack’s description to a couple in Columbia.”
Shaine’s stomach hit rock bottom. “South America?”
“No, Missouri.”
“Oh.” Feeling foolish, but infinitely relieved, she sat forward.
“Apparently this couple had tried to adopt by conventional means, but the woman has a history of alcoholism. She’d cleaned up her act, but none of the agencies would take a chance on her.”
“This is just incredible,” Shaine said, exasperation lacing her tone. “So what do these people do to get a stolen baby? Advertise in the personals? Ask around at the mall? If I wanted to buy a baby, I wouldn’t have the least idea how to go about it.”
“Of course you don’t,” Ken answered. “But if you were desperate enough, you’d find a way.”
