the other half of our story, was on the road, too. erin thompson was driving her son caden home from a school concert. he played the drums. >> i had always attended all of caden's concerts, and this is the first one i didn't attend because i had car trouble. >> this is caden's stepfather, jason thompson. >> my car was in the shop and finally fixed so erin dropped me off and that's why i wasn't with them. >> and soon the poison, the anxiety, seeped under jason's door, through his windows, onto his nerve endings. >> just all of a sudden i realized, what's going on? why are they late? it just struck me that something definitely was wrong. >> at justine winters' house, the fear was deep now. justine's dad randy was a national guardsman, a volunteer firefighter. he was trained to keep his head, knew what he had to do. randy got in his truck, drove out of town to the road he knew she'd take coming home from her boyfriend's house.