Life is But a Dream: A Marlow and Sage Mystery (A Nursery Rhyme Suspense Book 2)

by Lee Strauss

  I didn’t fit in Ben’s world anymore, and it broke my heart. And apparently, I was invisible. At least to guys. The girls would patronize me by calling me Ben’s sweet little sister, even though they were only a few months older than I was. But the guys, they didn’t even register my existence.

  I threw myself into my school work, aced all my classes, got the highest grades in most of them and accepted that I was smart and not pretty and if I had to choose between them, I’d take smart any day.

  And then, suddenly, I turned pretty.

  Or at least pretty enough to gain the attention of Ben’s friends. I hadn’t even realized it happened. I eventually got my period and decent-sized breasts that were more of a nuisance than anything else. I washed my hair and my face. I didn’t read fashion magazines or wear makeup. I wore shorts and tank tops just to deal with the summer heat.

  I almost had a coronary when Ben’s friend Bronson came over one day and did the sexy whistle. I was sitting on the front steps when he approached looking for Ben. I was confused, of course. I glanced around, looking for the object of Bronson’s attention and didn’t see anyone. When I looked back at Bronson, who, by the way, was a regular Farrell house visitor, and saw him grinning at me, my face flushed with embarrassment.

  “Who are you, beautiful, and what did you do with Ben’s geeky little sister?”

  My life changed at that moment.

  Bronson wasn’t the only boy to acknowledge that I’d grown up. I suddenly had to become a pro managing the attention of the opposite sex. I couldn’t say I handled it well at all times, but I’d learned from my mistakes. That was when I learned to hide behind my glasses, wearing them more often than I needed to.

  A technique that hadn’t worked on Marlow Henry. He had a crush on me, that much was obvious, but did he really think he’d win me over with an outlandish tale like that? Really?

  My heart was heavy with disappointment. I thought Marlow had become a solid friend, something I was in desperate need of right now, but he was just another guy like the rest.

  I skipped classes and went back to bed. Near-death experiences had a way of burning a person out. Just thinking about the canal made me tremble. I had been seconds away from death, and yet here I was very much alive.

  I curled up in my purple blankets and fluffed my pillows, but nothing eased the mental and physical ache I was experiencing. I lay in the fetal position, fists under my chin, fighting back the terror of the night before. My nerves were firing and I knew I’d never fall asleep. I eyed the gel pills on my night table. One capsule would bring on sleep. It would also bring on dreams.

  I wasn’t ready to risk it.

  My phone buzzed, and my mind immediately went to Marlow, but we had a chat-room relationship, not a texting one. It was probably Nora. I reached over the side of my bed to my purse on the floor and dug out my phone.

  Not Nora. Tristan. He wanted to hang out. I suddenly wanted that too. I wanted to stop being a freak and have a normal college experience.

  I met up with Tristan at Harvey’s later that night. He looked gorgeous in the warm light of the room, wearing a tight black T-shirt and low-riding jeans that fit just so. His eyes lit up when he saw me and he waved me over.

  “Sage! Hi!”

  “Hi.” I’d taken extra time getting ready, wearing skinny jeans tucked into tall leather boots and a white lacy blouse that went neon in the black lights of the bar. I made sure to wear contacts and a little more eye make up than I normally do.

  Tristan ordered me a beer and casually put his arm around my shoulders. “You look great,” he said with that crooked grin that hooked me the first time we met.

  “Thanks. You look pretty great too.”

  He tapped his bottle to mine. “Cheers.”

  We played pool and danced and drank too many beers. We collapsed onto a sofa along the back wall, arms entangled around each others waists. I laughed and Tristan kissed me.

  I wasn’t surprised. In fact I’d been waiting for it all night. I wanted to kiss Tristan, to feel safe and ordinary in the midst of all the other couples in the room subtly groping one another.

  Tristan whispered into my hair. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too.”

  “I think we should try again.”

  I sighed happily. “I think so too.”

  Tristan kissed me again, and it was like the months we’d been apart had never happened. I played with his tongue and nibbled his lips and wished we were somewhere else than in that crowded room.

  I wanted that, but I wouldn’t take it, even if offered. No matter how much I’d had to drink, I wasn’t so drunk to know that going slow with Tristan was the prudent thing to do.

  Nora and Jake arrived and I pulled Tristan back onto the dance floor. He was a lumbering giant, barely able to stand with the amount of alcohol in his system. One of his buddies came to my aid before Tristan pulled me to the floor with him, and we got him to a chair.

  “I’m going to take him home,” his friend said.

  “Sure. Good.” I kissed Tristan good-bye before his friend managed to get his giant body into the back of a cab.

  I clung to Nora for the next little while until we eventually toppled into a cab of our own and back to our dorm.

  For most of the evening I’d forgotten my problems. I didn’t think about my dreams, or my near drowning, or Marlow. I had fun. I was back with Tristan.

  My illusion of normalcy and bliss came crashing down in the morning. News flew hard and fast. Two more students had drown in the canal overnight.

  Nora handed me an envelope that had been shoved under our door. “It’s for you.”

  A printed label with my name was attached to the front. I ripped it open and pulled out one sheet of paper. Unfolding it, I read the typewritten words:

  It was supposed to be you.

  Instead of one dead, now there’s two.

  23

  

  Marlow

  I stayed off the computer, off my phone, off of anything that would bring on the mortification I felt at the memory of Sage’s face when she said good-bye. She had that look that said, “For good, loser.”

  What was I thinking? That she’d just wholeheartedly believe a story like that? I hardly believed it anymore. Maybe I was delusional. Completely insane. Maybe none of it actually happened at all.

  When Steve invited me to play War of the Worlds, I jumped at the chance. I now sat on the opposite end of the sagging brown couch as Steve whipped my ass.

  “Dude, you suck today.”

  “I’m distracted.”

  “Maybe you just suck.”

  “Okay, I suck.”

  I wanted to forget everything. Just play video games until my brain was mush, read a book and be on time for my class in the morning.

  It was hard to do. I had saved Sage’s life last night. I hadn’t dreamed that or made it up. She had tried to drown herself whether she was willing to admit it or not. Two other girls had succeeded.

  What was I missing here?

  Steve easily won the other round. He stood and gave me a scathing look. The floor lamp behind him filtered through his brown fro giving him an otherworldly glow. Maybe I’d been abducted by aliens? That would explain a lot.

  He pointed a long finger at me. “You’re not even trying!”

  “I am! I’m just distracted.”

  Steve shook his head with obvious disappointment and left the room while calling for Paul.

  I tossed my controller onto the coffee table. Best to just end this day. Tomorrow was bound to bring more crap and I might as well be rested for it. I moved from the lounge, down the dimly lit hall to my dorm. My laptop was open and a rainbow spiral screensaver shed a soft light. I touched the mouse to awaken it, unable to stop myself from checking the chat room where Sage and I hung out. My heart sunk further to the floor at the absence of her handle. I didn’t know much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I never heard from Sage Farrell again.
r />   Like I said, I didn’t know much. I awoke to panicked knocking on my door the next morning before my alarm had a chance to go off.

  Not wanting to expose myself to whoever was on the other side of the door, I took a moment to scramble into my sweats.

  “Hold on!” I yelled out with a dry voice. “I’m coming!”

  Zed groaned. “Who the hell is that?”

  I swung open the door and froze. Sage Farrell? My jaw dropped and I quickly clamped it closed.

  She looked super freaked out. Wide, glassy eyes; bedhead hair. Sweater over her pjs. My pulse spiked. Something bad had to have happened for Sage to leave her dorm without bothering to dress first. Her eyes moved from my scruffy face to my bare chest and I remembered I didn’t have a shirt on. I folded my arms.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She pushed passed me, closed the door and thrust a piece a paper at my face.

  “This was under my door this morning.”

  I took the paper and started reading.

  “Aren’t you going to turn on some lights first?”

  I glanced up. Everything was crystal clear to me. Sage’s face, the worry lines in her forehead, the words on the page.

  It was supposed to be you.

  Instead of one dead, now there’s two.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Two more are dead, Marlow. Can you turn on some damn lights?”

  I switched on my bedside lamp.

  “Read it,” Sage demanded.

  “I did.”

  “In the dark?”

  I had read it in the dark. How? I shook my head. That didn’t matter now. What was on the paper was what mattered. “I read it.”

  A pillow torpedoed past my head. “Shut the hell up!”

  I whipped on my T-shirt, and put on my glasses out of habit. I grabbed my phone, then Sage’s hand and pulled her out into the hall. “Zed’s cranky in the mornings.”

  I led her to the couch. “I’ll get coffee.”

  Some early bird had put a pot on. I poured two cups and added sugar and creamer, the edible oil product kind. It would probably taste like sludge, but it gave us something to do with our hands.

  Sage took a mug from me, but her hands trembled so much, I quickly took it back. “Here, I’ll set it on the table.”

  “Thanks, Marlow. I’m sorry for waking you so early. I just didn’t know what to do. No one else knows what’s been going on.”

  “Did you dream about these deaths?”

  “No. I don’t know why. Nothing is making any sense.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the news. “Police stumped by recent bout of student suicides.”

  I shot a look at Sage. “They think they’re all suicides?”

  “Apparently there’s security camera footage. Everyone walked in of their own volition.”

  “What about the rower?”

  “The cameras didn’t catch that.”

  “What about you? The cameras must have caught you?”

  She nodded. “They did. The footage is too grainy to see who it is, but it’s clear that you rescued me. There’s a whole paragraph about it.”

  I searched the feed until I came to the headline about the Good Samaritan who dashed onto the scene and dragged out the drowning girl. They included a video. My stomach dropped as I saw how close Sage came to drowning. My nerve endings surged as I watched my image pull her to shore and attempt to resuscitate her. Pumping her chest, breathing into her mouth. My anguish in the moment I thought I’d lost her.

  The kiss good-bye.

  I glanced up sharply. Had Sage seen that? Her face flushed as I stared at her. My guess was yes.

  I covered my eyes with my hand. Oh, God. I was such an imbecile.

  Sage cleared her throat. “The police want us to come forward.”

  I swallowed my pride and looked at her again. “Do you think we should?”

  “And tell them what? That I walked into the canal in my sleep?”

  “Well, that’s what happened.”

  “Yeah, it is and if I were the only one, maybe they’d believe that. How do you explain the others?”

  “Someone must be manipulating everyone. Some kind of hypnosis or something.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Mars. Somehow they’re getting to people through their dreams.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “But how is that possible?”

  Sage shrugged. “I don’t know, but it has to be. It’s the only explanation.”

  I scanned the news feed again. The victims hadn’t been named, but the latest news made me swallow a big lump. “The two victims last night were guys on the rowing team.”

  Sage gasped. She rifled through her purse, brought out her phone and dialed.

  “Tristan! Oh, thank God.”

  I stared hard at her, disbelieving.

  She seemed oblivious to my consternation and kept chatting into her phone. “Two rowers died overnight. I just had to check that you were okay…. Good…. Yeah, okay…. I’ll see you later.”

  I frowned. She’ll see him later?

  “I just need to check with Nora,” Sage said as she texted. “I hope to God it wasn’t Jake.” She let out a slow breath as she read Nora’s response. “He’s fine. And Jamil, they’re both fine.”

  “That’s great.”

  Sage stared blankly at the phone in her hand. I cleared my throat and her gaze snapped back to mine. “Sorry. Just zoned out there.”

  “It’s okay. There’s a lot to process, but we have to try to figure this out.” I leaned forward, poking my thighs with my elbows. “Say it’s true that there’s a person or people behind this string of drownings. Let’s put aside the ‘how’ for now and focus on the ‘who.’ Who is the common denominator? Who knew and interacted with all the victims?”

  Sage pressed against her purple frames with two fingers. “Well, there’s Jamil. He’s on the rowing team and in my support group.”

  I thumbed Jamil’s name onto a list on my phone. “Jamil. Also Jake,” I said, adding his name. “He’s on the rowing team with Jamil, and of course, he knows you.”

  “It’s not Jake.”

  “We can’t be biased with this list, Sage. If someone fits, they go on.”

  “But Jamil also knew the other girls who drowned.”

  “True, but that’s still circumstantial. It’s possible Jake could have known them too. Who else knew the girls?”

  “Everyone in my support group.”

  “Give me names.”

  “Mike, Eliza, Dr. Parker.”

  I thumbed in Mike and Dr. Parker.

  “We have to include Tristan.” I keyed in his name.

  “He’s not a suspect. He’s my boyfriend.”

  She might as well have slapped me. “Since when?”

  “Since last night.”

  I sprung to my feet and ran my hands through my hair. Why did she get back together with him? “You can’t date him, Sage. He’s a suspect.”

  “No he’s not.”

  “He’s on the rowing team. He knows you.”

  “You know me.”

  “I saved your life!”

  “I know you saved my life, and I’m grateful. Really. But are you going to hold that over my head forever?”

  “I’m not holding it over your head.”

  “Then why do you keep bringing it up?”

  I took a deep breath and pinched my lips together. Sometimes Sage just drove me crazy. “We’re not going to get anywhere by fighting.”

  She looked up at me with wide, glassy eyes. “I’m scared, Marlow.”

  I lowered myself onto the spot beside her. “I know.” I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into an embrace. “I’m scared too.”

  24

  

  Sage

  Marlow smelled good. A mix of spicy body spray and creamy coffee. I lingered in his embrace, soaking in the comfort of his arms for a moment longer than a girl with a boyfriend should. I gently pulled away
and pretended to blow my nose when I was really trying to hide my embarrassment.

  When I looked back at him, we pushed up on our glasses at the same time and burst into laughter. Not that it was so funny, but we were both so uptight and high-strung that we easily tipped into hysteria. Everything was so crazy it was laughable. We howled until tears ran down our cheeks and we became aware of the disconcerting stares of other early risers.

  “That’s it,” I said. “I’m verifiably insane.”

  “If you are then I am too.” Marlow tilted his head, eyes hard on me, and let out a long breath. “We need to make a plan.”

  I shifted a little farther away from him on the old couch. “What kind of plan?”

  “We need to start our own investigation.”

  “What about the police?”

  “The police don’t know what we know.”

  He was right, and even so, as of yet we had nothing solid to take to the police.

  “I think we should start with Jake and Jamil,” Marlow said.

  “They have an early morning practice Saturday mornings,” I said.

  Marlow bounced to his feet and arched a dark brow. “Let’s go ask some questions.”

  “I’m not dressed.”

  “Right. Me neither. Wait here while I change and then we’ll go together to your dorm.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at me with serious concern. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

  “I promise, Mars. I’ll wait for you.”

  Marlow returned in less than ten minutes, and I had to admit he had an attractive geek thing going on. We walked together to the front door and he held it open for me. It was another warm mid-March day. Birds sang, the sun shone brightly, a light breeze rustled the green leaves canopying overhead. It looked like an ordinary day. I crossed my arms across my braless chest and kept my head down.