by Kathi Daley
“Harmony?” Houston asked in a groggy tone of voice after the phone had rung at least six times.
“There was a second girl this morning. The new girl had dark hair. We couldn’t find the blond-haired girl in the missing persons file, but maybe we can find the dark-haired girl.”
“A second girl?”
“That’s what I just said. I know it’s early, but this might be the lead we’ve been waiting for. You need to wake up.”
“I’m awake,” he assured me. “Anything else?”
“The cabin was different in this dream. Similar, but different. If my visions are based in some sort of reality, then I’m going to say that whoever is taking these girls moved the first one before taking the second.”
“But you don’t know where the new cabin is located?”
“No. The windows are boarded up.” I paused to think about it. “There are a ton of seasonal cabins littered across the entire state. They’re rented out to hunters and outdoorsmen in the summer but boarded up in the winter. What if whoever is taking the girls is making use of those cabins?”
“That does make sense.”
“In my dream, there’s always a fireplace, but there doesn’t seem to be any electricity. That would fit the seasonal cabin theory as well since I know water and electricity for the seasonal cabins are usually turned off in the winter.”
“The old woman makes soup or stew. She must have water,” Houston pointed out.
“She probably melts some snow.”
I waited for Houston to reply. I was sure I’d heard him yawn. Eventually, he spoke. “Put on some coffee. Kojak and I will be there in thirty minutes.” Houston referred to his dog.
I got up, pulled on some warm clothes, and let the dogs out for a bathroom break while I got a fire started and made coffee. Usually, I headed over to the barn to feed my blind mule, Homer, and the rest of the animals after having my first mug of coffee, but it was early, and I figured that could wait until after Houston and I chatted. I really hoped that Houston would be able to come up with some information on the dark-haired girl. Knowing who she was and where she’d been taken from would help us narrow down where the cabins in my dreams might actually exist. Assuming, of course, that they did actually exist, and I wasn’t losing my mind, which given the massive headaches I’d been having, combined with my lack of sleep, seemed equally as likely as the alternative.
When Houston arrived, he not only had his rescue dog, Kojak, in tow but his laptop as well. After accepting a mug of dark rich coffee, he logged on and pulled up a file that seemed to contain missing persons reports from across the state. We knew the dark-haired girl had just arrived in this morning’s dream, which seemed to indicate that she’d most likely been kidnapped within the past twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
“That’s her,” I said, pointing to the screen. “That’s the second girl in my dream.”
“Bella Smothers,” Houston read. “She’s twelve years old and went missing while walking home after an after-school piano lesson two days ago.”
“Two days?” I asked. “I wonder why she just now showed up in the dream.” I focused on the image on the screen. “Does she live in Rescue?”
“Tok.”
“Tok? I guess I just assumed the missing girls were from this immediate area.”
“The cabins the kidnapper is using might be in this area, but apparently, the newest girl is from a town east of here.” Houston frowned. “I wonder if that’s why I didn’t find a missing persons report for the first girl. Maybe she was taken from a town even further away.”
“I thought you did a search for the entire state.”
“I did. But I didn’t look for missing twelve-year-olds in Canada. Tok is less than a hundred miles from the Canadian border. What if the first girl was picked up across the border? What if the first cabin was across the border? Maybe our kidnapper is moving west.”
I frowned. “Moving west? You think this guy kidnaped the blond-haired girl, held her for a week or so near the town where she was abducted, and then moved her to a new location where he kidnapped the second girl?”
“I think it’s more likely that he kidnapped the first girl, moved her to a distant location, kidnapped the second girl, and then moved them both to a new location.”
“Yeah. I guess it makes sense that the man would move after the kidnapping took place. The first girl might have been taken from somewhere in Canada, but the first cabin might have been near Tok. Once he took the second girl, he must have taken both girls and the old woman to wherever the second cabin in my dream is located.” I looked at Houston. ”Do you think he’s done? Do you think he’ll take a third girl and then a fourth?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“I guess it makes sense to expand your search.” I looked at the screen again. The girl in the photo was happy and smiling, but the girl in my dream had been terrified. “We need to find her, and we need to find her fast.”
“I agree. I’ll look for a blond-haired girl who’s missing in Canada, and I’ll set up a search grid now that we have confirmation that your dreams are real. We know the second girl was taken in Tok, which gives us a starting point. If we can find the location of the first abduction, it will give us additional data as to how far he travels between kidnappings.”
“Do you think the blond-haired girl was his first?” I hated to consider what might have happened to the others had there been others, but it seemed negligent on our part not to assume that the blond-haired girl might not have been the first.
“I don’t know. I hope the two girls we know about are the only girls who have been taken, but I think it’s likely there could have been other girls. I’m going to widen my search parameters for girls in the ten to fourteen year age range who’ve gone missing over the last five years from either the US or Canada who have never been found. It’s going to bring up a lot of cases, but if there were other girls who fit the pattern, then it will be good to know that.”
“What about the old woman? I know we don’t have much, but maybe someone is looking for her. Maybe there’s a missing persons report or something.”
“You said she was old. How old?”
I shrugged. “I guess she’s in her seventies or eighties. She has totally white hair that’s pulled back into a bun at the base of her neck. She’s petite and almost frail. I don’t remember noticing her eye color. I really only have a small glimpse of her each night, and she never says anything.”
“What does she do exactly?”
“After moving around the kitchen a bit, she ladles whatever it is that she’s cooking on an old woodstove into a bowl and brings it to the room where the blond-haired girl is being kept. In the latest dream, the old woman filled two bowls and took them to a different room where both girls are being kept. Once she delivers the food, she leaves.”
“What is she wearing?”
I closed my eyes and tried to pull the image to the surface. “A dress. An everyday housedress like my great-grandmother used to wear. It’s long with long sleeves.”
“Color?”
“Gray. A sort of medium gray. No pattern. Pretty drab, but serviceable.”
“Has she worn the same thing each time you’ve had a dream?”
My eyes flew open. “Yes. Every single time. That’s odd, right? If the visions are taking place across time, then she should be changing her clothes.”
“That would seem to be the case,” he agreed. “Unless the old woman isn’t actually real. Maybe she’s a manifestation of whoever you’re channeling. Maybe this person, who seems to be in control of what you see, is feeding you prerecorded scripts.”
I frowned. “Prerecorded?”
“You’ve had all the dreams late at night or early in the morning. Today, you called me around three a.m. If the visions were live, then either the dreams are memories stored in the mind of whoever you’re channeling, this old woman is feeding these girls in the middle of the night, or the cabins you see in
your dreams are in Greenland or somewhere in a much different time zone.”
“You make a good point. I hadn’t thought of that. The second girl was taken in Tok. I think we should assume that at least one of the two cabins is located in close proximity to Tok. I’m not sure why the glitch in the timeline hadn’t occurred to me.” I paused to think about it. “I suppose the dreams may even be memories from a day before the one I’m experiencing. But if that’s true, why is whoever I’m connected with feeding me reruns?”
“I don’t know. This whole thing is really confusing to me. What I do know is that you ‘saw’ an actual twelve-year-old who went missing two days ago. To me, that is real and understandable. My number one priority at this point is to find the girl and the cabin in which she is being held, which I intend to do.” He reached out and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. “I think that you should try to get some sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
“No offense, but you don’t look fine. In fact, you look very un-fine to me.”
“Is that your clever way of telling me I look awful?”
He smiled but didn’t respond.
“Jake, Wyatt, Sarge, and five of my regulars at the bar said the same thing to me during my shift, only they were a bit blunter about it.” I ran a hand over my face. “Maybe I will lay down for a bit. I’ll be heading to the animal shelter later, so if you find something, give me a call on my cell phone. I’ll probably be away from the cabin for most of the day.”
Houston put his hands on my shoulders. He pulled me forward and kissed me on top of my head. “Don’t worry,” he said, pulling me in for a hug. “We’ll find these girls, and when we do, the headaches and the sleepless nights should come to an end.”
“I hope so,” I said as I put my arms around his waist and soaked in the comfort of his embrace.
Chapter 4
When I arrived at the shelter, I found Serena kneeling in front of a box that appeared to have been left on the walkway bordering the front door. “What do you have there?” I asked.
“Kittens.”
“Kittens?”
She nodded. “Six of them, three black, one orange, one white, and one gray. I’m afraid I tore the top when I opened the box, rendering it useless as a barrier. I was just about to bring the little tykes inside, but the box got wet, and I’m afraid it will fall apart if I lift it. I was going trying to figure out a way to take a few kittens at a time without the others getting out and getting away, but now that you’re here, you can help me.”
“I’ll open the front door and block it open. Once I do that, I’ll grab three, and you can grab three. How old are they?”
“They look to be four or five weeks old. Probably closer to five. They sure are cute.”
I peeked into the box. “Yes, they are. And they have nice long fur, but it’s freezing out here, so let’s get them inside before we all freeze.”
Once we got all six kittens inside and into a large cage, we called the local veterinarian to come by and look at them, as was our standard procedure for all new arrivals. Once he’d been by and given us his opinion of the situation, we would be able to make a plan for the kittens’ treatment, care, and eventual rehoming. I really couldn’t imagine what sort of person would tape six kittens into a box and then leave them out in the cold, but they looked to have been fed and well cared for before arriving, so perhaps whoever had been taking care of them had found themselves in an impossible situation and had done what they could. Still, I would have preferred that they’d dropped the kittens off during business hours when someone was here to take them in, but I supposed they might have been left in a less friendly environment, so I’d just be grateful we had them now and not worry about the rest.
“Did the man who called about dropping off the husky ever come by yesterday?” I asked Serena as we settled the kittens in their temporary home.
“Actually, he called back and said that his buddy decided to take him, so he wouldn’t be surrendering him after all.”
“That’s good. Hopefully, the dog will have a good home with his friend. It really is too bad the guy who originally owned him had to move and couldn’t take him along. I’m sure the separation will be hard on both the man and the dog.”
“Yeah. I got the feeling the man was unhappy about the situation, but he did say that his buddy will take good care of him.” She nodded her head toward a stack of boxes piled against a nearby wall. “Those are heated dog beds that Harley ordered before he left came in.”
I glanced at the boxes. “That’s wonderful. The beds we have are getting worn.”
“The way Harley really cares about the animals is so nice. I mean, the guy is rich and famous and lives a really big life, yet he took the time to personally order and pay for dog beds before he left.”
“Harley is a nice guy,” I agreed.
“I can’t believe he’s still single. It seems like he could have his choice of women, and yet he seems pretty committed to the bachelor lifestyle.”
I paused and looked at Serena. “Harley seems really happy with the life he’s mapped out, but he lives a duel life that wouldn’t appeal to a lot of women. When he’s not working, he lives here in Rescue. That’s a hard sale with most women, even for a great guy like Harley. And if he did find someone who was into the Alaskan lifestyle, odds are that same woman would hate life in Hollywood, where he spends the other half of his life. And then there is all the traveling…”
“Yeah. I get what you’re saying. Most Hollywood women aren’t Alaska women and vice versa. Still, I hate to see Harley alone.”
“He’s not alone. Harley has Brando, who he adores, and when he’s here in Rescue, he has all of us.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Serena finished settling the kittens and then began opening the boxes with the new dog beds. “Do you want to save the old beds as they’re replaced or recycle them?”
“Let’s keep a few as backups and recycle the others. I know several of the old beds are little more than rags at this point.”
“The dogs do tend to be hard on them. Most of the beds are less than a year old. I guess the dogs get bored during the winter and look for anything they can find to chew on. I’ll make sure everyone has an approved chew toy.” Serena opened the box next in the stack. “Oh, look. A box of chew toys. Harley really did think of everything.”
I recognized that look in Serena’s eyes. I’d had that look for a lot of years. She was falling for the man we both cared a lot about. I hoped the talk we’d just had about Harley’s multiple lifestyles had really sunk in. Serena would hate the Hollywood lifestyle, and despite the fact that Harley spent a lot of time in Rescue, it was my impression that he was far from ready to leave his movie star life behind and settle down.
Once the boxes had been unpacked, Serena headed to the back to clean cages, and I set to work feeding everyone and making sure they had fresh water. We’d had several very successful adoption events during the fall and holiday season, so the number of residents we were currently caring for had been reduced by half of what it had been during the summer. Opening an animal shelter in Rescue had been a dream of mine long before Harley wandered back into my life and made all my dreams come true. I really did owe him a lot, and under a different set of circumstances, the two of us might even have developed a romantic relationship, but as I’d just tried to remind Serena, Harley had one foot planted in Alaska and one foot planted in Hollywood, while I most definitely had both feet firmly planted right here in Rescue. If, and when, I entered into a relationship of the romantic kind, it would be with a man who was as firmly rooted in Rescue as I was.
Not that I was looking for a man. I most definitely wasn’t. Like Harley, I’d carved out a life that I loved. I had my cabin and my animals. I had the animal shelter. I had Jake and the bar. I had the search-and-rescue team and the long hours that came with my participation on the team. Even more importantly, I had friends. Good friends. Friends who meant a lot to me. Friends who filled most, if not
all, the little nooks and crannies of my life. Most days, I felt that I had a life most could only dream of. Still, if I was perfectly honest, I supposed there were times late at night when a longing to snuggle up with someone who wasn’t covered in fur would come over me, and I’d wonder what a life shared with a special someone might be like.
Chapter 5
By the following day, Houston still hadn’t figured out who the old woman was, but he’d expanded his search for the blond-haired girl I’d first seen in my dreams and was following up with some leads. None of the missing girls that he’d identified as possible matches lived in Alaska, but given what we suspected about the kidnapper’s movements, he’d decided to look at Canada and the West Coast of the US as well.
I’d had the dream again last night, although I was so exhausted from my lack of sleep that I had actually managed to get a couple more hours of shut-eye once the dream had passed. Houston had suggested that I write everything down that I remembered from the dream upon waking, so I’d placed a pen and notepad next to the bed and desperately tried to remember if my dream had revealed any information that I hadn’t already had.
The routine followed by the old woman had been the same as it had been every night. As she had the previous evening, she’d prepared two bowls of food and brought them into the room where both girls were being held. The blond-haired girl appeared to thank her for the food and then encouraged the other girl, who looked terrified, but was no longer crying, to take the food since it was likely to be the only food they would receive until the following day.
There wasn’t a lot of new information revealed in my latest dream, but I did notice something that I hadn’t seen before. After the old woman dished up the bowls of soup or stew, she looked toward the front door. It was just a quick glance. She didn’t seem to wait or linger. She just glanced up and then continued with her task. Still, even the quick glance was enough to stoke my curiosity.
