The Renegade

Chapter 4

4

The dream woke her up again that night. It was the strangest thing—she and her mother were in a meadow, the one where sapphire-petaled lupines bloomed every summer. She was probably about ten, and she wore a smocked dress that Mom had made for her. Even though she’d never said so, Isabelle detested that dress.

Why would she dream about a dress she hated?

Her mother was tying something to her ankle. A long string made out of pieces of cloth. She was young in the dream, maybe twenty, which made no sense since she didn’t even have Kai until she was twenty-four. Not that dreams had to make sense, of course. Just like in real life, Mom’s hair was long and light, and she wore a crown of flowers.

“There you go, my darling pigeon,” she said as she tied the knot tight. “Now you can fly anywhere you want.”

“But where should I go, Mommy?”

“Wherever you want, honey.” She tapped a notebook that sat next to her in the grass. A Mead composition book. “Just like me.”

Isabelle flapped her arms and sure enough, she rose off the ground. The wind caught her and she realized she was a kite and that the pieces of cloth made a kite string anchoring her to her mother. She flew higher and higher, uplifted by the air currents. She looked down and watched her mother laugh with joy, clapping her hands together. The higher she got, the smaller her mother became, until she was just a tiny figure lost in a patch of brown in the forest.

And then she looked at her ankle and screamed because the kite string was gone and she was never going to see her mother again.

She sat up in bed, gasping and sweating profusely. The first time she’d had the dream, she’d gone out and bought herself a Mead notebook and written down every detail.

Every night since then, she’d done the same thing so she could compare details. The scientist in her wanted to document it.

She quickly wrote down what she remembered. This time, one thing in the dream was different. The cloth that her mother used to make the kite string was black and sparkly, just like the dress Gracie had just claimed.

Did that have any significance? Or was that particular fabric floating around her consciousness because Gracie had wanted that dress? What did the dream mean? Why wouldn’t it leave her alone?

After the first ten times she’d had the dream, she’d decided it was telling her to go home. Now she was home, and yet the dream kept coming. Would it finally go away if she managed to find those journals? The Mead notebook appeared in the dream so prominently, with her mother actually pointing at it. Sure seemed important.

She knew her mother had secrets. Many secrets.

During their detective phase, she and Jake had discovered that Amanda’s “high school reunion” was actually a night at a hotel in Santa Barbara. Recently, Kai had revealed that their mother had been on her way to meet up with a man the night of the crash. That man had turned out to be Serena’s missing father, who’d died of exposure that same night.

Since he was deceased, no secrets could be learned from him.

But maybe the journal would reveal something important, something her subconscious was telling her to dig up.

Damn subconscious. Why couldn’t it leave her alone and let her get a good night’s sleep?

She rummaged on the nightstand for a melatonin tablet and washed it down with water. Snuggling back under her comforter, she tried a breathing pattern that was supposed to promote sleep. In for four counts, hold the breath for seven, then out for eight counts.

Her next dream had nothing to do with her mother. In this one, Lyle Guero was naked and she was tracing that long scar that curved around his rib cage and ended at his hipbone. And then her hand was going lower, seeking that hard sleek heat she’d only touched, but never forgotten…