Free The Phantom of Black's Cove by Jan Hambright Page B

him.
    The details of the precognitive vision were burned in his brain and repeated in a cyclic stream that made his heart hammer and his hands sweat.
    He should never have let her leave this morning and if he managed to get to her in time, he didn’t plan on letting her go again.
     
    O LIVIA FASTENED HER seat belt and slipped the key into the ignition. The compact fired up and she rolled out of the hotel parking lot headed for the back way out of town.
    Mentally, she ran over her checklist, satisfied she’d brought along everything she needed, including a tape recorder just in case the information was substantial and she decided to take the mystery caller up on her offer for more.
    Traffic was light to nonexistent as she reached the edge of town where the speed limit increased and everything opened up into the countryside.
    Olivia pressed down on the accelerator.
    The car sputtered, surged forward, sputtered again and stalled.
    “Shoot!” She stepped on the brake, rolled to a stop and put the car in Park. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she made sure there was no one there to rear-end her before she got the engine started again.
    She turned the key.
    The engine fired. The car roared back to life. Olivia gunned the motor, put the car in gear and took off again, checking the clock on the dashboard—11:53.
    She was going to be late.
    Worry frayed her nerves. Would the information disappear if she didn’t show up on time? Reacting to thethought, she pressed down on the accelerator. The car picked up speed, the speedometer needle climbing to fifty in a forty-five zone.
    Olivia let off the gas, but the needle moved steadily higher.
    Panic clamped on her nerves. She put her foot on the brake.
    Fifty-five…
    Up ahead in the distance, she saw the blinking red warning lights of a railroad crossing come on.
    The letters of an acronym AOT, always on time, zipped by in her brain. The 11:55 freight was always on time.
    She stomped on the brake pedal.
    A puff of smoke rolled out behind the car as the tires grabbed the pavement. The car didn’t slow.
    Sixty…
    Olivia reached up and jerked the gear shift into neutral, the engine revved, the car moved faster.
    Sixty-five…
    She forced the shift lever into Park.
    Gears ground. The transmission locked up, disintegrating from underneath the vehicle, but it didn’t stop.
    Seventy…
    On her right and closing in fast she saw the train, heard its shrill whistle above the racket coming from the possessed car.
    Jump! She had to jump.
    Olivia grabbed for her seat belt closure and pressed the release button. It didn’t open.
    With all the strength she had, she pulled the steering wheel to the left, but the car didn’t respond. It continued on a collision course.
    A destiny with a freight train.

Chapter Seven
    Jack slammed on the brakes, locking them up as he rounded the corner just ahead of the locomotive, and jumped out of the car.
    He channeled his energy, focusing it on the freight train roaring down the tracks. If he cast it on her car, it would be torn apart with her inside. He didn’t doubt that someone was controlling her vehicle and twin energy fields always caused an explosion.
    Reaching out, he felt the sixty-ton engine vibrate the ground under his feet. Its rumble was deafening, its momentum deadly.
    “Stop!” he yelled, raising both his hands in a push-back position against the thundering wall of iron.
    Sweat squeezed out of his pores as he strained to slow the train long enough for her to cross the tracks in front of it.
    The screech of steel wheels on steel tracks split the air.
    The noise coming from the train’s diesel engines went up an octave, as the force he exerted on the locomotive over-revved its drive train and spun the wheels on the tracks.
    A second longer…he could hold it back a second longer.
    Olivia’s car hit the tracks and shot past him.
    He let go.
    Half a second later, the train blasted by.
    Turning around, Jack reached his palm out and took