The Dream Jumper's Pursuit Read online

  Jamey looked up, his voice devoid of emotion. “The water was so cold. People arrived, then the fire department, but when they found the car, Gavin, Robert and Jenny were dead inside.” He turned to look at Annie. “When I had the dream the first time I woke up crying and told you it was going to happen. You told me all dreams feel like that.”

  Annie watched her son. “Then you had the dream again. And again.”

  “It was a fuzzy dream. I know the look of those now.” He took a deep breath. “I remember thinking as we fell into the river that Jenny couldn’t swim. She was only two.” A sob escaped Jamey and his hand flew to his mouth.

  Tina had never seen her husband like this and she wanted to go to him, but held off. He needed to face this realization. His mother had left the family to avoid killing her children in a car accident he’d seen in a premonition.

  Annie took a steadying breath and spoke. “The year before the dream, you predicted that I’d break my wrist falling down the stairs to the basement carrying a laundry basket. Do you remember that? Sleeping in our bed one night, you woke up and told me not to go down those stairs. And, two months later, I fell.”

  Jamey nodded. “You had a cast. We all wrote on it. All but Jenny.”

  “And then you predicted that Gavin would lose his Dad’s transistor radio at the school picnic. And he did.” She leaned in to Jamey. “When you told me about going off the bridge, I didn’t know what to do. Winter was coming. I was crazy with fear. I didn’t tell your father because…” She took a deep breath. “Because I didn’t see any way out of this except to leave and I didn’t want to.”

  She sobbed and Kai looked over, then resumed his sucking.

  “Had he known, your father would’ve tried everything to make me stay, but I couldn’t risk my children’s lives like that. I believed, and I still believe, that what you have is very exact. You’d never been wrong before and I couldn’t take the chance that I wouldn’t cause the death of my sweet children. Once my paranoia took over, all I could think about was getting out of your lives to insure you kids would live. By the time I left, I wasn’t fit to be anyone’s mother.”

  Emotion took over and hot tears filled Tina’s eyes and dripped on to Kai’s shoulders. What mother wouldn’t have made that choice for her children? She lifted the baby for a burp and wished she could console her husband, but this moment belonged to Jamey and his mother.

  Annie sobbed into her hands and Jamey moved to kneel beside her chair.

  “I knew.” He held on to her chair’s armrest like a lifeline. “I knew it was the dream. I didn’t tell anyone, but I knew. But all these years, I guess I buried it. I could’ve told Pops but I remember thinking it was my fault and I didn’t want him to blame me. But, I knew it was me.”

  “It was better I leave than kill the other children. That was my choice, James. You warned me. You must never think that it was your fault. I had to leave. You might well have saved your siblings’ lives.”

  This felt too private. Tina stood with Kai and left them. Strolling down the driveway, she hugged her baby’s little body and continued patting his back. She couldn’t imagine leaving a child. Even for the child’s own good. How would a mother walk away from four children she’d loved every day of their lives without being tragically marked forever? All these years that Jamey had hated his mother for leaving them, and she was two states away, and then here in Nicaragua, mourning the loss of her life as a mother and her loss of the children who’d given her life purpose. She’d actually saved the lives of his siblings by unselfishly leaving them and hadn’t wanted him to know it was this ability he’d been cursed or blessed with that caused her departure. Still thinking unselfishly. And deep down, he’d known it was him. His dream.

  Walking down the long driveway with Kai, pointing out butterflies and birds, Tina only hoped Jamey didn’t blame himself for any part of this. If he’d foreseen an accident, he had to believe it was going to happen unless the future was changed. And neither Jamey, nor Tina knew the intricacies of dream jumping and foretelling the future enough to know if Annie might have killed those children some other way. All three kids were still alive thirty-six years later. Annie’s departure must’ve put an end to the pre-ordained accident off the Tolt River Bridge. Tina shuddered to imagine a car with four children plunging to the icy water of a glacial river.

  ***

  Rose was brought into the house before her mother and stepfather arrived. Her wrists were untied. She looked oblivious to what was going on, defiant almost. Kevin came out from the bedroom, rubbing his wrists theatrically. Such an idiot. He sat beside Rose and hugged her.

  With just Tina, Annie, and the kidnappers in the room, Jamey took the lead. “We’re waiting for Carrie and Chris to arrive to decide what to do with you two. I’m pretty sure that wherever you’re going, it’s not together, so enjoy sitting there.”

  Kevin shot him a look as if to tell Jamey to soften up.

  “And where you’re going, Kevin, is probably prison, so enjoy being around a woman—for now,” Jamey shot back.

  When Rose’s parents arrived a few minutes later, Jean rushed to her daughter. “Oh, Rosey. They cut your hair?” she asked.

  Kevin spoke. “She cut it and dyed it and doesn’t it look pretty?” His patronizing tone hinted that the mother should agree.

  Annie hugged Jean, gave her a meaningful look and asked everyone to sit down while she explained the situation as she knew it from all sides. Earlier, Jamey had said he’d be the talker but the plan changed when he threatened to shoot Kevin in the foot if he didn’t shut up about his wife being sick. “We all know she’s a mental case, Kevin, but if you don’t stop begging, I’m gonna take a toe off.” He wasn’t the best choice as a mediator, Annie had said.

  After Annie gave an impartial account of the events as she knew them, detailing Wyatt’s disappearance, being seen in Mexico, then turning up here, she explained how Rose took the baby out of this house, and called Kai her own.

  Tina glanced at Rose who was listening like she was one of the observers, not the abductor.

  Annie finished. “Rose, let’s hear your side.”

  Rose moved to sit at the dining room table with her mother, while her stepfather stood with arms crossed near the kitchen. Rose glanced around the room, her gaze settling on Tina. “My spiritual advisor told me that Kevin belonged with Wyatt. That day on the beach in California, the first day I met him, he told me to convince Kevin that we could give Wyatt a better life than Carrie could. So I told Kevin. Wyatt was better with us.” She smiled, remembering something. “Wyatt has more fun. He’s happier away from the kids who bully him at school.” She looked perfectly sane saying this next part. “We decided that Wyatt thrived with us. Kevin thought Mexico was a good idea, then in Puerto Vallarta, we realized that Jamey was following us. We couldn’t figure out how he knew we were there. Kevin said the best plan was to come to Granada to wait for Mom and Bob. Make a life here.”

  “What about last night?” Jamey asked, his face stoic. “What led you to creep in here through the window, and take our baby, then walk up the mountain to your parent’s house and put him to bed? You renamed him. You called him yours.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, then narrowed in confusion. “I heard a baby cry when I was walking up the road from the taxi stand. At first I thought it was a monkey. In my dream my baby cries for me.” She pulled at the hair on either side of her head, her eyes now tightly closed. “The cries won’t go away. Even during the day, I hear him. It’s like he needs me.” She sobbed into her hands then looked up at her mother whose face had wrinkled in a mask of pain.

  Tina held her breath. It was painful to watch this woman in her swirl of grief and insanity.

  Rose took a moment to smooth her hair, wipe her face, and continued. “Something must’ve happened last night when I heard the baby crying. He sounded so scared. Just like in my dream. I thought it was Christian, my baby. The next thing I knew, I was at Mom’s house with him. It fel
t like part of the dream.”

  “Oh Rosey,” Kevin whispered.

  “It felt like Christian wasn’t dead. My baby had been born to someone else. He even looked like me.” She sounded so happy that Tina bit her tongue to not speak. “I brought him back to the house and tried to reach Kevin to come get us.” She looked Kevin. “You know how my dreams keep telling me that my baby was reborn?”

  Kevin nodded, his face full of sadness.

  “This was him. The baby Noble told me to kill.”

  Noble? Had Tina heard correctly? Did Rose say Noble?

  Jamey’s head whipped around to look at Tina, a look of absolute horror on his face. “Who’s Noble, Rose?” he asked.

  There was silence in the room until Kevin broke through. “Rose has a…” he made air quotes, “spiritual advisor, who visits her in dreams. He guides her,” Kevin said patronizingly.

  “He comes to me when I sleep,” she told the others, “and he told me that Wyatt needed us. You were there, Tina.” She pointed. “You were on the beach, near the water. Noble told me to kill you, but I wouldn’t. I just wanted to go to Mexico with Wyatt. Not stick around California like Noble said. Then, when we got to Mexico, he was angry that we left and said if I ever saw a baby with you, I should kill the child.” Rose looked at her mother. “But I couldn’t because he looks so much like me, Mom. Wait until you see him. If we can do a DNA test, I know you’ll all be convinced.”

  “It was Rose’s dream Tina jumped, not Kevin’s. Jamey spoke. “When was the last time you talked to this Noble?”

  “Last night when he told me to kill Tina.”

  Jamey stood. “You dreamed in the studio?”

  Tina moved to her husband, realizing that there were people in the room who mustn’t know about Noble. People who must continue to think that Rose was troubled, not haunted by the ghost of a man she and Jamey thought was dead and gone forever. She touched her husband’s sleeve and hastened to interrupt him. “It might be helpful to speak with a counselor about your advisor, Rose. Tell them what he says, even what he looks like.”

  Rose looked out the window. “He’s a very large, dark-skinned man, with long black hair. Almost kingly.” She seemed proud of her advisor’s stature.

  Jamey broke through. “What else did he say last night in your dream?”

  Rose’s mother looked to Annie, her expression asking if this was necessary, but Jamey persisted.

  “Was Noble happy that you took the baby yesterday?”

  Rose’s eyebrows knit together, her mouth turned down. “He was very displeased with me. Quite angry. He said I was to kill Tina. Someone in this dimension had to do it.” She looked up, her gaze fixed on Tina. “I could have the baby, he said, if I killed the mother. The only way to make sure I could have the baby was to take a knife from the kitchen and stab you in your sleep.” She shook her head at Tina. “But I’m not a killer; I told him that before.”

  Tina interrupted. “Why kill me?”

  “To break the bond between you and the baby.” She seemed to remember something troubling. “He’s waiting for you on the other side. He said he and his brother are waiting.”

  Kevin moved in and embraced Rose as if to quiet her.

  Tina took that opportunity to look at Jamey whose face still wore a look of horror. Of course Kevin and Rose didn’t know that Noble was a man who blew his brains out in her backyard, then haunted her in her own house. She needed to talk to Jamey. In private. About Noble. “Jamey?”

  “I need a few words with my wife.” Jamey motioned to the guest room.

  Once in the quiet bedroom, Jamey whispered. “Is it possible she’s being haunted by Noble?”

  Tina ran her hands through her hair and blew out a worried breath. “How else would she know about him?” She looked over to her sleeping child. So innocent in of all this. “I thought Noble was gone.”

  Jamey rested his hands on her shoulders and stared into her face. “Noble told Rose that Wyatt belonged with them, then told her to kill you. Then he told her to kill Kai.” His forehead was wrinkled, his eyebrows angled down. “He and his brother are waiting for you? Do you think Rose could be making this up? Could she know our story, somehow?”

  “How? I seriously doubt that she’d have been able to dig up the information that Noble and Hank live in the afterlife and want me there too.”

  “Sounds like he found Rose through the dream on that beach, then tried to get to you.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders, walked to the window and back. “Now I’m wondering if that’s how Noble committed suicide. Maybe Hank invaded his dreams. Got Noble to kill himself. Hank can’t get to your dreams, not after we found his body, and now he wants Noble to kill you. You’d think if Noble could get to Rose’s dreams, he could get to yours.”

  “You think this all comes down to Hank?”

  Jamey nodded. “I’m sorry Darlin’ but he’s a bad mother fucker. Or was a bad mother fucker.”

  Tina felt like she was in a recurring nightmare. “Do you think, if Rose killed me, I’d have ended up with Hank in the afterlife?”

  Jamey shook his head. “I don’t know. But I think it’s obvious that Noble can’t get into your dreams, or he would’ve by now. After this is over, today, we have to figure out how to finish him off.”

  Was this the right time to tell Jamey that Noble had been entering her dreams? It didn’t change what they’d do with Rose. No, she’d wait. “Let’s figure out Kevin and Rose, then deal with Noble.”

  “Agreed” Jamey said. “But in the meantime, Rose is a victim here. Do you agree?”

  She did. “This changes everything.”

  When they emerged from the bedroom, Carrie and Chris had arrived. Wyatt was as happy as Tina had ever seen him, jumping up and down excitedly. Most of his favorite people were in one room.

  Wyatt chattered noisily. “This is like the party, Kev. Except no other kids, or Pops.” He counted off his favorite family members on his fingers.

  “Yeah,” Kevin said, reaching for him. “Come here, Luke Skywalker. I want to tell you something.”

  They listened while Kevin told Wyatt that he and Rose were going to stay here with Jean because they loved the monkeys so much. “But, you’re going home soon to see everyone and have that party in Carnation.” Kevin’s eyes were full of regret. “We’ve kind of had one big fun party all this time anyhow, right Luke.”

  Wyatt sat on Kevin’s knee. “I wanted to see the real Luke Skywalker.”

  “Dude,” Kevin hugged Wyatt. “You are the real Luke Skywalker. So brave, and kind, and smart. He lives inside you, and I love you.”

  Wyatt pulled out of the hug. “You’re crying because you’re proud of me,” he said and then patted Kevin’s shoulder. “Mama, do you want to go swimming?”

  “Daddy will take you,” Carrie looked at Chris apologetically but Chris stood up and took Wyatt’s hand.

  “Sure I will.”

  Jamey watched them walk off to the pool and touched Carrie’s sleeve. “Before we start talking here, can you and I have a word in private?” Carrie nodded, and as she walked by Kevin, her eyes threw daggers at him.

  Tina followed them to the far side of the patio where Jamey told Carrie about Rose’s dreams and that Rose’s spiritual advisor was the same man who killed Tina’s husband, Hank. “It’s Noble in Rose’s dreams. She described him to a T. And Noble told her to take Kai and kill Tina.”

  Carrie looked confused. “Isn’t Noble dead?”

  “He is.” Jamey looked like if Noble wasn’t dead, he’d be the one to make that happen. “Tina and I are sure Noble’s ghost has been in Rose’s dreams. It’s a long story how he gained access, which we don’t fully understand, but Noble has been in this since Malibu.”

  Carrie let out a long breath and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, fastening it with a tie from her wrist. “Why kill Tina?” Her eyes widened, looking at Tina.

  “We can only guess. Maybe Hank wants her in the afterlife.” Jamey’s voice was fil
led with quiet rage.

  “This sounds pretty farfetched, Jamey. Like some paranormal TV show.” Carrie shook her head and looked out at the view of Granada. “Are you telling me that all this was to get to Tina?”

  “Not all,” Tina added. “Kevin and Rose took off with Wyatt, but were influenced by Noble to keep him, we think. We don’t know why.”

  Jamey added, “I think Noble locked on to Rose in that beach dream and manipulated her. Maybe to get me to follow them. Not sure.” He looked apologetically at Carrie. “I don’t want anyone but you and Chris to know this, understand? Not Pops, not Gavin, or anyone else. Just us. I plan to figure this out and put a stop to Noble, but in the meantime, I wanted you to know that some of Rose’s crazy came from Noble.”

  Carrie took a deep breath and shook her head. “See Jamey? This is why we couldn’t stay married. You come with all this.” She gestured grandly. “It drives me crazy.” She walked back in the house, leaving Tina and Jamey looking at each other.

  “I like all this,” Tina said to her husband, and took his hand. “Well, most of it. And the parts I don’t like, are mine anyhow,” she whispered.

  “Good thing,” Jamey said, squeezing her hand.

  Back in the house, Diego asked Kevin to speak first. “Then we can hear from everyone who wants to say their piece.”

  Kevin jumped in like he’d been waiting. “I know I shouldn’t have taken Wyatt. I know that now, but at first I was just going to take off with him to California, with Rose. My birthday week. Then Rose got to thinking we could make a life for ourselves in Mexico. When we got a fake passport made for Wyatt, it seemed too easy.” He looked at Carrie pleadingly. “We got to Mexico and I knew it was wrong. I felt like a criminal. I always planned to bring him home to you eventually. I was trying to help get Rose over this loss.” He looked at his wife. “Then, when I saw Jamey in Mexico, I was going to give him over that day, but Rose had a fit to think Wyatt was leaving.” He glanced at Rose who stared at the table. “We agreed that we’d give him to Chris.”