“If 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.