"Stuckey decided to move on," he said, turned himself back to the front, shifted gears, and peeled out onto the road.
"Ummm, are we just leaving him here?" Candi asked with a little half laugh.
Chyna grabbed Candi digging her nails into the palm of her hand. Candi snatched her hand back and glared, but caught the minuscule movement of Chyna's head. The warning, along with the fearful look in her eye, had Candi pressing back in her seat and keeping her mouth shut.
Charlie didn't bother to answer, or maybe he just hadn't heard, but either way Candi was forced to ride back to town worrying about Marlon and wondering what the hell was going on.
*****
Chapter 1
Claire watched as the burly man with the beard kicked the boy over and over again. The boy didn't fight back, couldn't fight, and just lay on the ground in a puddle of misery. Candace was there too, crying and asking over and over again where Marlon went.
To think of the dream as disturbing would have been a gross understatement and Claire was grateful when she woke to find herself in her own room, her own bed. Safe and sound if not well rested.
She had finally - just - been able to find some sense of security. This past year and a half she had spent a lot of time, and a lot of searching, to find that security. Her mother and sister had been with her through the process, trying to find their own comfort while they recovered from what she thought of as the dark time. That dark time when they had been abducted and held by a crazy bastard and his even crazier bastard kid.
Part of that security came from knowing that some really good things had happened after. But before, there had been a dream. And none of them had paid any attention to it until it was too late. This time, with the dream still vivid in her mind, she felt the same sense of reality, and of fear, that she had that first time. But this time she would make sure she didn't just brush it off as the result of an over active imagination and too much junk food before bed.
She tossed her legs over the side of the bed and stood, tugging up the flannel pajama pants that were constantly sliding down from her narrow waist. With a sense of urgency, she hurried from her room and headed downstairs, calling her mother's name. She found her outside on the back patio, elbow deep in potting soil and surrounded by the herbs she was getting ready to plant in the new pots.
"Mom" she said, "there you are."
"Morning honey," her mother said, glancing up with a quick smile. "How'd you sleep?"
"I have to talk to you mom," Claire said without preamble. "I think Candace is in trouble."
Looking up from the brightly colored pots, mother studied daughter, searching her worried face. She knew that look. Stopping what she was doing, she cleared her mind, reaching for calm and something that would resemble wisdom. Maeve Tidewell intended to give her daughter every bit of her attention.
She stood and pulled off the pretty pink and green gardening gloves she'd picked up at the nursery last night and motioned toward the patio table. "Let's sit over here and you can tell me about it. What do you mean Candace is in trouble?"
"I had a dream," Claire said with her big blue, soulful eyes locked onto Maeve's.
Maeve could see the nervousness, the insecurity in the way Claire watched her, the way her shoulders turned forward in a protective posture.
Maeve didn't want to ask, didn't want to know what Claire had seen, but she knew her daughter, and knew they would both be strong enough to deal with whatever it was. She wouldn't turn away from it, she knew that too, and would meet whatever challenges she was faced with.
"Okay," she said, reaching again for that calm. "Tell me. Tell me what happened in the dream."
"There was a guy, well two guys but one was more a boy really. He was about Jason's age, I guess, and the other man was hurting him.” Maeve could see the tears starting to form in Claire's eyes and she took both hands in hers, holding them securely in her lap.
Claire took a deep breath, steadied herself and started again.
"He was kicking him Mom. He had these big black boots and he was kicking him - over and over again - and the boy was just lying on the ground. He wasn't moving mom. I think maybe he was dead."
And then the tears fell and Maeve pulled her daughter close, crooning to her that everything would be alright. Claire felt like because her mother said it, holding her and loving her, then maybe it really would be true.
She pulled away and sat up, sniffing and rubbing her nose across the back of her arm. "Yuck," she said and went into the house for a wet paper towel. She carried it back to the table, wiping her face and arm along the way.
"It's okay Mom. I'm okay," she said and sat back down to finish telling her mother about the dream. Maybe together they could figure something out and help Candace, though she didn't know exactly what she needed help with.
Maeve sat patiently waiting for Claire to continue, but her mind was worried and her heart was hurting for her little girl.
"The thing is Mom, Candace was there. She didn't look the same, but it was her and she was crying and she kept saying "where's Marlon, where's Marlon?” Do you think maybe it's not really Candace that's in trouble and maybe it's just about one of her friends?"
"I don't know honey, but first we'll talk about the details a little more and then I'll go see Beth. I don't want to frighten her but if this is about Candace we need to know. When you say she doesn't look the same, what do you mean?"
"She had all this makeup mom, like bright pink eye shadow and blush, and lipstick, and she had real bleached blond hair in these long pigtails with big pink bows. There was really thick black eyeliner all around her eyes too. She was wearing this weird outfit - like with really short white shorts, a bikini top and fishnet stockings. And a surgical mask, like a bad Halloween costume or something."
Well, Candace was a little bit of a free spirit but Maeve hadn't ever seen her dressed like that. She was almost seventeen, only a year or so older than her own girls, and her best friend’s daughter. And if there was any chance that what Claire had seen in her dream was real, if Candace was in some kind of trouble, she would move mountains to make sure she got help.
"What else?" Maeve asked. "Did you see anything else? Maybe where they were or what the other man looked like?"
"I think they were in the woods but I don't know for sure. There were trees and lots of dead branches and leaves. And the man had his back to me, to Candace, so I didn't really see all of his face.” Claire sat quietly for a minute, thinking hard about everything she'd seen in the dream.
Maeve sat quietly with her, holding on to her hands again, offering support and just to let her daughter know she was there, listening. Such delicate, fine boned hands, Maeve thought, for such a strong girl.
"He was big, not tall but big, you know?" Claire said as she pulled her hands away and spread them apart at her shoulders to show Maeve that the man was broad, bulky. She snapped her fingers and pointed at Maeve. "He had a beard! A long beard but not on his whole face. It was like a - what's it called? Oh, a goatee, yeah a goatee," she said, snapping her fingers again and raising her voice in excitement.
"Do you think you'd recognize him if you saw him?" Maeve was half hoping that Claire would tell her no, she wouldn't know the man if she passed him on the street.
If she couldn't recognize him then she wouldn't be in any danger. And maybe there wasn't any danger, but Maeve was getting that feeling, the one that told her something was definitely wrong.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends