Flight to Freedom (Flight Trilogy, Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

staring at his own two-year-old son, and not recognizing him? Was he sleepwalking?
    The events that occurred in his imagined other life were too real to dismiss, but too crazy to believe. And the freakish possibility he had somehow altered his present reality from within his dream was even more ridiculous.
    Is it possible the perfume had some twisted effect on my mind ? Could it happen again ? It wouldn’t hurt to try .
    To conduct the experiment, he needed the exact fragrance, but there was no way he could describe it. He could sample fragrances all day at a cosmetic department, but if he sampled more than one fragrance, it would be impossible to isolate which fragrance caused the reaction.
    He needed to find the woman who was wearing the perfume, but he had no clue who she was or where she lived. Her relatives were visiting from Alabama and she was taking them their morning coffee. She must live in Buckhead...near that particular Starbucks. More than likely, she is a regular customer. There’s a chance she will return in the morning wanting to continue her hospitality for her visiting relatives.
    He would be waiting.

CHAPTER 6
    Buckhead , Georgia
    Saturday morning — August 2004
    Keri had the kitchen smelling like an IHOP Restaurant—homemade buttermilk biscuits in the oven, pancakes, scrambled eggs, grits on the stove, and bacon sizzling in the microwave. A “big breakfast”—as she called it—was a Saturday morning tradition at the Mitchell house.
    Martha and David waited patiently at the table for the first delivery of pancakes. “Here they come,” Keri said, as she shoveled up two fluffy pancakes and transferred them to the kid’s plates like a seasoned short-order cook. “More where those came from when you’re finished,” she said. “Martha, would you please cut up David’s pancake and help him with the syrup?”
    “Okaay,” Martha said, sounding like it was a burden to help her little brother, but Keri knew she loved mothering him.
    On the outside, Keri gave the impression it was a typical, carefree Saturday morning, while her interior world wobbled on its axis, unbalanced and uncertain. Something wasn’t just right with Ryan. How could anyone explain the way he acted? She couldn’t believe hearing his words ‘Who is that boy?’ as he stood looking at his son; then to persist they had lived some other life she knew nothing about.
    Could it be dementia , or even worse , the onset of Alzheimer’s ? He’s too young for that .
    Researchers did not know the exact cause of the disease, but they did know it is most likely due to a combination of a variety of genetic factors. Ryan’s mom had Alzheimer’s which compelled Keri to be circumspect that Ryan might be at risk in his later years…but not this early.
    “Thank the Lord for Saturday mornings,” Ryan said. He gave Keri a kiss as she passed in front of him on her way to scoop up more pancakes.
    From now on she would listen watchfully to every word, always hoping nothing he said would reinforce her concerns of dementia. The thought of her losing him mentally at such a young age, and having to care for her young children alone, was unbearable.
    “So who’s up for a field trip today?” Keri said.
    “What do you have in mind,” Ryan said.
    “I thought it would be nice to take a drive…maybe show the kids where we grew up. We’ve been here over a year and haven’t explored our old stomping ground yet. Let’s pretend we’re on a treasure hunt.”
    “That’ll be fun mom,” Martha said.
    The treasure hunt Keri was thinking of was not in the visible world around them, but instead, along the neural pathways of Ryan’s brain. Exposing him to his past might trigger the presence of damaged neurotransmitters responsible for disrupting the cell-to-cell transfer of electrical currents over synapses connecting neurons. She needed to confirm any confusion or loss of memory as soon as possible. Dementia and Alzheimer’s is a sneaky disease,