The Dream Jumper's Pursuit Read online

  Kevin came out of the restaurant, momentarily blocked by a group of people singing. “Annie!” he yelled.

  She whirled around. “So help me God, Kevin. I’ve got him now. You screwed up.” She pointed her finger at him.

  “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “I don’t care what your side is,” she yelled back. “You ruined everything for me.” She turned to Wyatt. “Come with me, child.” Wyatt looked terrified as Annie pulled him through the crowd.

  Then Tina was out. She opened her eyes in the hotel room, with Kai sleeping quietly beside her. What the hell was about to happen? Was Annie somehow tied up in this?

  Chapter 14

  According to the rental agent, Kevin and Rose found another house. “They told Manuel that they found something else, but didn’t say where,” Diego told Jamey. “He thinks they’re settling in Granada for the time being. When Manuel found out that the dad is a surfer, he suggested San Juan del Sur, but the mom said no. She’s waiting for her parents to join them in Granada.” Jamey and Diego were having lunch at El Camello. Leroy had recommended the Lamb Stew, but Jamey was looking forward to the Ribs and Diego wanted Spaghetti. Jamey had just taken his first bite of the ribs when Tina called. He wiped the sauce from his fingers before answering the phone.

  “I dreamed that Annie is in on this somehow,” she whispered.

  Kai must be asleep. “What?”

  “In the dream, Annie entered a restaurant and came out with Wyatt. Kevin chased her and she told him that he’d screwed up, ruined everything. Wyatt was scared. Oh my God, Jamey. This is weird.”

  Jamey looked over at Diego who was eating a plate of Spaghetti Bolognese. “Precog?” he whispered.

  “Yes. And Kevin knew Annie somehow. He used her name. Wyatt was frightened, but she hung on to him and ran off through the hipica crowd. Then I woke.”

  Shit. No wonder she couldn’t look him in the eyes and kept disappearing. He nodded at Diego. Did he know? “I’m having lunch with Diego, then he has afternoon appointments so I’m on my own.” If Diego was in on this, he didn’t want to tip him off. Damn. Had his new best friend been leading him away from Wyatt all along? Was there a bigger picture with child trafficking involved? What in God’s name was going on?

  “I think you need to confront him,” Tina added. “We don’t have time to waste.”

  He took a swig of his beer and looked around the restaurant. He couldn’t fully trust Diego now. Maybe Kevin and Rose hadn’t even rented a house on the island. Maybe this real estate agent was leading him around on a wild-goose chase while Kevin hid Wyatt. “I’ll come back to the hotel in twenty minutes. We’ll make a plan.” He hung up the phone, his mind whirling.

  “She okay? Kai alright?” Diego picked up his Tona.

  “Yep, baby’s sleeping.” What do you care, you motherfucker, if you’re just buying time while Kevin gets out of town.

  Jamey wished he had a gun right now. Not that he was going to shoot anyone, but he sure as hell felt like a gun would encourage this woman, Annie to talk. He recalled their strange conversation in the half dark this morning. He hadn’t seen her face. Then when it was light, she was gone. Evil had a way of building up inside a person so that the eyes were full of it, but Tina hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

  He called Tina back to tell her that he was going to confront Annie first. Tina agreed that was the best plan. Her afternoon would be spent wandering around town in her straw hat with the stroller, hoping to see the restaurant from the dream.

  Jamey drove along the highway out of town to the turnoff to Mombacho, the thoughts inside his head bouncing around like the bingo machine balls at the Carnation Bingo fest. Diego had lent him the truck thinking Jamey went back to the hotel. If Annie was in on this scheme somehow, then Diego would be too. Had Jamey been set up the day when he was told that Diego was talking to Kevin in the real estate office? No, Kevin probably was there, but Diego had left out the part about him knowing Kevin, and the important part about being on Kevin’s side. No wonder Diego was so happy to help Jamey and walked right up to that rental house without the fear of being shot.

  Jamey turned the truck on to the rutted dirt road, drove past the bar where Wyatt had allegedly been seen, and realized that Kevin and Rose were probably at that bar, waiting for Diego. Passing the turnoff to the convent, he wondered what he’d say to Annie —the woman who was friendly to his wife, and then suspiciously disappeared every time he got near. Tina had just recounted a strange fact-finding conversation she’d had with Annie hours earlier, asking them to dinner again. Of course they wanted to monopolize Jamey and Tina’s time.

  If Annie was running some black market child abduction ring, Jamey wasn’t sure what his next move would be. The FBI would have to be called in. If this was that serious, he needed to play this next move smart, not rush in like a Navy Seal and risk never seeing Wyatt again.

  When he pulled the truck onto the bumpy driveway and passed the turn at the enormous tree that looked like a colony of people could live inside, the house came into view. It sure was a pretty place with the terracotta tile roof and the veranda that stretched along all four sides. And the view. Man, what a setup. Had they funded this house somehow with child racketeering? The idea made Jamey mad. Two barking dogs ran to the driver side, tails wagging. The dogs probably expected Diego to get out. Would they bite him when they realized he wasn’t their master?

  “Hi there, doggies,” he said in a high, baby voice, watching their ears for signs of attack. Turned out they weren’t very good guard dogs. They escorted him up the path way to the house and as Jamey walked closer, he got a flash of the dream he’d had in the guest room about his sister, Jenny. Then, setting foot on the veranda tile, he had a powerful feeling that something was about to happen, like when he was in a fight and second-guessed his opponent’s next move. He looked around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. As a precaution, he dialed Tina’s cell phone and told her to stay on the line, listening. “I’m going to put the phone in my pocket. I’m at the house and something feels weird.”

  “Be careful, Jamey.”

  He followed the dogs past the pool and turned to look inside the house. The doors were wide open like when they’d left this morning, and Jamey wondered if monkeys ever wandered inside the house. “Annie?” he called. Maybe she was in town grabbing Wyatt right now. No, her truck was in the open garage. Tina had said in the dream it looked like festival day, but the town was already filled with decorations, with more going up every hour.

  Jamey walked in to the living room and headed for the master bedroom. Nothing. The doors were open to both bedrooms and the bathroom. “Where’s Annie?” Jamey asked the dogs as he peeked in the guest bedroom. No one.

  The kitchen had been cleaned, all dishes from last night done. Walking out the back door towards their garden, Jamey heard the swish of a broom around the far side of the house. He followed the sound, expecting to see Annie, but instead came upon a small Nicaraguan woman in a blue dress, surprised to see a stranger. “Hola,” he smiled. It probably wasn’t her fault her boss was a child trafficker. “Annie?” he asked.

  The woman looked to a small cabin behind the garden and lifted her chin to indicate that her employer was in the studio. Last night, Jamey had heard that Annie spent copious amounts of time painting. That must be where. “My wife is a loner,” Diego had said and continued eating his dinner. At the time, Jamey felt badly for Diego who seemed to be extremely outgoing, but they seemed to make it work after almost thirty years of marriage. Tina said Annie was sociable enough when Jamey asked her about the day, and even went so far as to say that she got a very strong feeling that they would be friends. Not very damn likely if Annie was selling children.

  Jamey made his way along the stone path, past the thriving garden and a row of banana trees, which reminded him of the huge spider this morning. Music wafted from the studio window, Vivaldi, he guessed. He knocked on the wooden door to the palapa-roofed hut. “
Annie? It’s Jamey Dunn.”

  “Come in, Jamey.” She didn’t sound surprised.

  He pushed the door open to see that the woman facing him from her stance at the easel was someone familiar to him. Very familiar.

  ***

  Tina listened from the other end of the phone. She couldn’t hear anything for a while and just as she heard Jamey call out Annie’s name, Kai began to scream. He’d fallen over from his sitting position and couldn’t get himself sitting up again. “Shhhh” She covered the mouthpiece and righted her son with one arm. Would Annie and Jamey hear this from Jamey’s pocket? The plan to listen in was precautionary and she wasn’t sure what she’d do if Jamey was ambushed. She’d have to get a taxi to take her and the baby up the mountain. The thought might have been amusing if it wasn’t worrisome. When Kai was happily playing again with his toy, Tina crossed the room to hear better, away from Kai’s verbalizing. As sweet as his little sounds were, she needed to hear what came next.

  The phone was dead. Did Jamey hang up or did someone hang up for him. “Oh no,” she said out loud. Now she wished Jamey had a gun. It would’ve made her feel better, especially because this was a potentially dangerous situation. They didn’t know who this person, Annie was. She might have a gun in her house. She dialed Jamey’s number and he picked up. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m safe. Annie and I are going to have a little conversation and I’ll call you after we talk.” Jamey sounded furious. She could imagine what his face looked like. It was an expression she’d seen in dream jumps when their lives were at risk. He’d probably start with asking Annie how she knew Kevin. Or where Wyatt was. Tina hung up, took a deep breath, and packed the diaper bag in case she had to run out with Kai. But then the phone rang and Tina was surprised to hear Pops’ voice on the other end.

  “Hi Kid. How’s my grandson?”

  “He’s good, Pops. How are you doing? Is everything okay? You sound like you have a cold.”

  He cleared his throat. “Everything is fine here, except we’re all worried about Wyatt.”

  Tina interrupted him, knowing she needed to keep the line open for Jamey’s call. “We have a lead on something and I can call you later this afternoon if it pans out, but right now I’m waiting for Jamey to call me back. He’s talking to a woman we met here named Annie, who was in a jump with Wyatt. We think she might be in on this abduction.”

  “She isn’t. I can guarantee you that much. But she might be able to lead you to Kevin.”

  How did Pops know any of this? “Did you talk to Jamey?”

  “Nope, I talked to Annie.” There was a pause and then Pops asked Tina to sit down.

  She did.

  “This gets weird, Kiddo.” He took a deep breath, and then the words spilled from his mouth. “The woman you met named Annie, is Virginia, Jamey’s mother.”

  The blood rushed to Tina’s head, like she’d been in an accident and was going into shock. The mother who deserted her children when Jamey was five? Annie? “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “’Fraid not. Ann is her middle name. It’s a long story, as you can imagine, but Virginia called me this morning, after thirty-six years of silence, to tell me that she believed our son James was in Nicaragua, where she now lives. She asked if that could be true.”

  “Oh, my God.” Jamey’s mother was a child trafficker? “We think she kidnapped Wyatt or at least is in on the scheme,” Tina said. “He’s confronting her right now.”

  “I don’t know the woman anymore, so I can’t say, one way or another.” Pops voice was full of sadness. “I better not keep the line tied up, but I tried to phone him and he’s not picking up. I wanted to warn him.”

  “Oh Pops.” This was a strange piece of information. “Did she say anything about Kevin?”

  “No. Our conversation was very brief. She asked one question, I answered, and she hung up. But maybe Jamey will find out. Keep me posted, will ya?”

  Tina felt like she had verification that the world was actually flat. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything, Pops.” She sat on the side of the bed, watching her son play with a pop up toy they’d bought at the toy store near the market yesterday. She wished that Jamey had left the phone line open so she could hear the conversation between Jamey and his mother—the woman who left the family and never looked back. Would he recognize her? This was a woman Jamey hated. Kevin was originally from Carnation. Rose too. What was the connection? They didn’t have long before the festival and hipica started, and Wyatt would be trampled by a giant prancing horse.

  They had to find him before that happened.

  Chapter 15

  Initially, all Jamey thought when Annie turned around was that there was something achingly familiar about the woman standing at the easel facing him. She looked guilty of something. Then it hit him like he’d run his truck into a tree. Although he hadn’t seen her since he was a young boy, her smile was the same. Her voice too. His mother stood across the room, looking like someone had killed her puppy. He shook his head, looked down at the floor, and took a deep breath. “So it’s you, after all these years.”

  Her eyes were filled with tears but Jamey was immune to her sadness. “After all you’ve put my family through, here you are. Hiding in Nicaragua.”

  “Yes. It’s me, James.” A sob escaped from her throat and she set her paintbrush on the easel. “I saw you last night and wondered if it could be you.”

  “That’s why you pretended to have a headache?”

  She nodded.

  “I see you’re still a coward.” Jamey felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Repeatedly. He hated this woman for what she did to Pops. To the kids in his family. To him. He’d never forgive her for skipping out on a family of young children, leaving them motherless. Abandoning a husband to raise the four children she’d brought in to this world. What could he say to her? He reminded himself that he didn’t have to say anything about deserting the family. His mission to find Wyatt was why he’d come here to talk.

  “How do you know Wyatt?”

  “The boy you’re looking for? I don’t know him.” She looked confused.

  Jamey’s instinct told him she was telling the truth. What the hell?

  “What makes you think I know the child?” Her eyes narrowed and she tipped her head to the side.

  The sound of the two dogs playing outside cut through the afternoon quiet. Did she know about his premonitions? His ability? He used to tell her stuff that he dreamed, but as he recalled, she didn’t think they were any more than silly dreams. She’d tell him that it wasn’t real, just stories that his brain made up while he was sleeping. His real talents hadn’t manifested until after she left. He’d play it safe. “I put two and two together and came up with you. Annie, the artist on Mombacho.” He said the last part like it was an insult.

  “I don’t know what that means, James.” The mother he used to know broke through and Jamey remembered being talked to in that scolding tone, decades ago. Did she not know Wyatt? Maybe she knew one of the others. “What about Kevin and Rose? Do you know them?” Please give me something here, besides a deadbeat mother who’s hiding spot has been found. “Kevin Lenz and Rose Stevens or Stevenson?” Was that the connection?

  Annie went over to a dresser by the window where she found what looked like a photo album. Flipping to the middle, searching for something, she then approached Jamey with the album. “Do you see Rose in this?”

  The photo had been taken facing the sun, making it overexposed and less than perfect. But standing in a group of dinner party revelers on a patio was Rose, smiling into the camera. He pointed to her in the group. “That’s Rose.”

  Annie pursed her lips and put the album down on the dresser. “Mary Rose. From Fall City. Her mother is the only person I still know from my former life.”

  She kept in touch with someone but left her children. “Lucky her.” Sarcasm dripped from the words.

  “I didn’t mean to keep in touch with her. I saw her in Los Angel
es years ago.” She sank to the couch. “She stood outside this restaurant in Marina Del Rey. I almost ran, but she recognized me. She wasn’t in touch with anyone in Carnation anymore. Moved home to Florida with Mary Rose. Kind of like me, she left.” Annie looked apologetically at Jamey. “I convinced her to visit here when Diego and I moved. Two years ago, she bought a vacation house up the road. Mary Rose and Kevin were here then.” Annie looked at Jamey. “If Rose is in town, I expect it’s because her mother is arriving tomorrow.”

  Jamey interrupted. “Why didn’t Diego recognize her?

  “He’s never met her.” She held up the photo. “He was in L.A. when this photo was taken.”

  Where’s the house?”

  Annie nodded. “I’ll take you. It’s off the road off a trail.” She looked at Jamey solemnly. “But you have to promise me that if you see her you won’t hurt Mary Rose.”

  “Only if she won’t give me Wyatt,” he said.

  The woman in the truck beside him was his mother, the person who, along with Pops, gave him life. As he recalled, she’d been a good mother up until the day she ran out. The loss was devastating; like someone pulled the floor out of the family home, and they all were left clinging to the sides of a pit that threatened to swallow them. When Jamey finally decided she wasn’t worth ruining his life, what was left in him was a fierce anger. A chip, people said, without knowing why.