He sat up with a jolt, grabbed his phone and talked into it, describing exactly what he’d seen. The entire dream, he recorded each memory, each thought, each emotion he’d felt.
One thing he’d learned was to leave nothing out.
He’d sort through it another time. For now, it was just one more clue among thousands, details he remembered that led nowhere, along with notes he’d chased into dead ends. The frustration had piled so high it had nearly broken him more times than he could count.
When he set his phone down, he noticed it was nine in the morning. He never slept that late. Ever.
But he’d been up past two this morning searching his brain for the start of his next series.
Or the location he was going to use, the characters he needed, the personalities to bring his mysteries to life.
He had time, he’d get there. He always did.
After a shower, he found himself in the kitchen looking for something to eat, but he couldn’t get the dream of Rene out of his head.
He needed to see the evidence again. He had to get his hands on the ankle bracelet that everyone else overlooked. Even him. For fifteen fucking years.
Would it be another wild goose chase? Most likely, but he wouldn’t be able to rest until he crossed it off the growing list of clues with red lines through them.
As much as it killed him to do this, he called his mother.
“Rory,” Katy Connors said. “How are you this morning? You don’t normally call.”
“I know,” he said. “I had a dream.”
“Of Rene? How does she look?”
He battled the tears away. His mother wasn’t there to see them. She was the only one who knew. The only one he confided in because his mother confessed that Rene had been visiting her for years.
He hated to think his sister was trapped between worlds. If there was more than one world.
Was she trying to be free? Was she helping them? Looking out for them?
So many questions that he had no answers for.
“She’s doing well. Busting my ass as always. She left me another clue.”
“It’s like a game to her now,” his mother said.
Normally he’d agree. That it was his sister’s ghost playing pranks from the grave. Not this time. This time, he felt it in his gut. The churning and coiling that told him now was the time.
This was too strong. Too deep. The clarity and the importance were not lost on him that it was something only he noticed before she’d left the house and even commented on when his parents were questioned.
He just didn’t know what any of it meant.
“Could be,” he said, not wanting to get her hopes up.
Too many times over the years he’d done that internally, then protected his mother, only for them both to be crushed when nothing came about it.
As for his father, they barely spoke anymore. Mike Connors completely withdrew, his life over when his daughter died, blaming himself more than Rory did. He knew his father blamed his only son too and it was for the best that relationship no longer existed.
His parents had given up on each other. More like his father had given up on life, now just a shell of the man Rory had remembered.
His mother, she never gave up, even dug in so much that she pushed his father away.
Their family had been broken in more than one way on the last vacation they’d ever had together.
“I’m sure you’re going to sink your teeth into it. Are you going to tell me what it is?”
