Finding Cade (Dream Catcher Series Book 1)

by Bernice Layton

  So what happened after he’d escaped from the two would-be killers? He had run down the deserted road, hoping the density of the fog would swallow him and make him invisible to his hunters. As if time had rewound the last few minutes, he was back on the road again, and he was caught up in some weird time loop, he was running down the road again…

  Whoa! What the hell?

  He pulled up short, almost stumbling over his own feet and guessing he was suffering from hypothermia or some crazy hallucination brought on by shock. Both sounded plausible to his stuffy ears. That had to be the reason he thought he’d seen the most beautiful woman materialize out of thin air right in front of him. She looked like an ethereal goddess who had stepped out of one of his dreams. She was standing in the road with a foggy mist swirling around her shapely curves.

  A goddess my ass!

  She looked out of place and underdressed for the chilly night.

  Crazy, beautiful woman!

  Although running for his life, the male part of his brain couldn’t help but register the body-hugging tight jeans and enticingly snug sweater she wore. He also noticed her breasts were defined and perfectly symmetrical.

  He didn’t know how long he stared at her. It could have been ten seconds or ten hours. He didn’t care. He was mesmerized and couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He was alarmed by the intensity of the attraction he felt for her, and that scared him more than the two goons breaking through the fog behind her. She walked toward him with her hand extended, and as tempted as he was to see what she wanted, his sixth sense screamed at him to run!

  He sidestepped her and tried to keep moving, but she was signaling to him and pointing her finger to the guardrail.

  She’s telling me to jump. Not on your life, crazy lady! Angel of Death!

  He heard pounding footsteps and knew the goons were catching up. Caught between them and the guardrail, he decided between the lesser of two evils, so he turned and broke out into a run as fast as he could, then took a leap up and over the guardrail.

  Aw, damn…not again…

  On the other side of the rail, he fell hard onto a large crumbling hunk of concrete protruding beneath the bridge. His hands gripped and held onto a piece of steel reinforcement while his feet dangled in midair. He looked up and saw the woman was now peering over the railing. His eyes riveted on her lovely face. He watched her lips calling, but her words were lost in the blare of a fog horn. The horn was so loud, it reverberated through his chest, and his entire body exploded in pain. Seconds later, his hands slid away from the steel reinforcement, pulling away crumbling concrete under his weight. His body plummeted into the freezing cold water. He remembered the fall, and when he hit the water below, he nearly passed out because it had been so shockingly cold. Shivering, coughing, and struggling for breath, his heart hammered in his chest like a hopped-up jackhammer.

  Chapter Five

  Valerie

  Returning to work after the weekend, Valerie took one look at the tray sitting on the corner of her desk and cringed. It was piled high with applications from one hundred district schools seeking funds.

  As Chief Procurement Officer for the Department of Education, it was her job to disburse those educational funds. She had the fortunate task of approving the lucky candidates to receive funds or breaking the news to those whose requests would be denied. It was not an easy job, particularly when there were so many in need.

  Picking up one application from a newly arrived batch, she glanced at the upper right-hand corner to the box marked Amount Requested. She recognized the name of the school. It was one of the poorest in the district, and the school administrator was only requesting $5000 to purchase five new workstations for the computer lab. In the small space provided for an explanation, the administrator wrote the new equipment was to replace the six-year-old computers in the school’s library.

  In Valerie’s mind, it didn't even compute. The computer lab, according to the administrator, currently had twenty computers, ten of which didn’t work. She jotted her approval in the corner of the application. Picking up another application, she noticed a similar situation. The school had requested $20,000 to refurbish the gymnasium and purchase new gym equipment.

  In her mind, these were not major items, but they were necessary for student learning, morale, and culture. The amounts were modest, and as much as she would love to approve all of them, she couldn't. It was the one thing she didn't like about her job, and as much as she fought for grants and funding for those in need, there were limitations.

  Just that morning she’d met with the committee chairman overseeing the surplus funds, and he had delivered a blow. The amount of money her office was to receive for disbursement had been drastically slashed. She’d had high hopes for the award of twenty-five million dollars and not the five million her office was slated to receive. She sat back and sighed.

  That's how her assistant and friend, Zoe, found her. “I’m right there with you, Val.”

  “I don't get it, Zoe. The reduction is drastic. How could this happen? The committee approved everything Glen Walker pushed through with federal approval,” Valerie complained.

  “Listen, Valerie, the news was hard to hear for all of us. Don’t take this personally. We’ll go through the applications and narrow down the list to approve the schools that really, really need the money—because that’s all we can do at this point.”

  Valerie accepted the comforting hand her friend rested on her shoulder before getting up from her desk and walking over to the large window of her fourth-floor corner office. Her eyes scanned the horizon, taking in the drabness of the day. It seemed just a few months ago the colors of fall had beckoned her to stand in this very spot. It was a sight to behold. When a lump formed in her throat, she turned away from the window and waved a hand to her desk.

  “Zoe, all of those schools need the money, and they’re not asking for it to do frivolous things either. I mean, you saw that one application where the school was only asking for a few thousand dollars to repair all of the restrooms…the restrooms, Zoe. How do I say no to that in favor of the school requesting funding to install electronic metal detectors to scan the students for weapons? This is a travesty. We need more than the five million,” she said, snatching up a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbing at her eyes. “And these tears aren’t helping, either.”

  “Stop acting like this is your fault, Valerie. We’ll go through the applications carefully and weed out the frivolous ones, like that school downtown that requested a workout room in the teacher’s lounge, and as far as your tears, they’ll stop in time. You’re still grieving.”

  “Thanks, Zoe. You’re the best. But I do think I need to go talk to Councilman Walker and get to the bottom of this. I need to hear from him what happened because he all but guaranteed that funding was approved.”

  “By all means, talk to him. In the meantime, what are your little senses telling you?”

  Giving Zoe a slight eye roll, Valerie let out a half laugh, half sigh. A few years ago, she’d explained to Zoe about her gift when she’d walked in and found her spaced out. Valerie didn’t think Zoe believed it was anything more than that a sixth sense.

  Turning back to the window and gazing at the bare trees in the distance, her voice was barely a whisper. “It’s telling me that something is wrong. I sense the numbers have been jumbled up and flip-flopped, and I sure as hell will find out what happened.”

  When her office line rang, Zoe rushed to answer and then fielded several more calls. Valerie couldn’t help but smile at Zoe’s comedic expressions as she placed each caller on hold. “I think the word is out already.”

  “I think you’re right,” Zoe replied before leaving.

  Turning back to the window again, Valerie glanced out toward the freeway and watched as cars weaved their way around the trees. Her thoughts immediately went to that stretch of road she’d seen in her vision. She didn’t know where it was located, but she had a feeling that she needed to f
ind it and maybe get some answers about her disturbing visions.

  Closing her eyes quickly to hold onto an image unfolding in her mind, she inhaled deeply, feeling the watery vapors of that foggy night surface, and was immediately transported away from her office.

  He was there. He was so close, she picked up a hint of his pleasant yet subtle aftershave.

  She felt his pain. It was hot and intense like hot lava onto his chest. He’d been shot, and the bullet was lodged so close to his heart that with every heartbeat, blood gushed forward, saturating his dress shirt. She was shivering with cold to the point that her teeth chattered, and she became lightheaded. As she reached out to steady herself, she was surprised to feel and smell the sweet stickiness of his blood on her hand.

  In an instant, the vision vanished, and she opened her eyes. Staring at her shaking hands, she expected to see them covered in blood, but that was not the case. The vision was so vivid the lingering image was imprinted in her mind. She kept seeing his blood oozing between her fingers. She pressed her hand flat against the cold office window and pondered what to do next.

  Shaken, she struggled to regain her equilibrium to breathe normally as Aunt Ruby had taught her. She inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled through her lips. Seconds later and in control, she was about to step away from the window when she noticed the condensation from her handprint was slowly evaporating. In its place, letters appeared, and she had to step back to see them clearly.

  CADE

  As the last two letters begin to fade away, Valerie rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. She knew she hadn’t written those letters. Whoever had was desperately trying to contact her subconsciously.

  When her office line rang, she was still so shaken and disturbed about what she had just experienced, it took her several attempts before she could walk back over to her desk. “Yes, Zoe?” she called out, hoping her voice sounded normal.

  “Hey, Val, I put in a call to Councilman Walker, but his aide said he's out for the rest of the day. He went home because he wasn't feeling well.”

  “Oh, no. Okay, thanks,” Valerie murmured, thinking it strange that her friend and mentor, Glen Walker, was sick. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time when he was sick. “Hey, Zoe, I’ve got to run out for a bit. Please forward me the messages or email from all the calls you get.”

  Less than an hour later, Valerie was in her car, and although she hadn’t planned it, she found herself heading toward the freeway.

  Instinctively, she felt herself going in that direction and guessed it would lead her to a deserted, rarely traveled road…

  …and it did.

  Chapter Six

  Cade

  The two orderlies, John and Ronny, were going about their normal morning routine of bathing and caring for the comatose patients assigned to their care. They had six on their floor at The Bryland Sanitarium. They were working with the matronly and competent Nurse Nancy. She was a large woman with a kind face, and she moved briskly with the efficiency and adeptness of someone who had been caring for patients for many years.

  The orderlies worked swiftly and carefully bathing and shaving the patient while Nurse Nancy went about taking his temperature, checking his blood pressure, and documenting the numbers flashing on the various beeping monitors and making sure all the levels were as they should be.

  Like perfectly coordinated practitioners, the orderlies changed the sheets, carefully rolling the patient first from one side of the bed to the other and swiftly stripping the soiled sheet and replacing it with a crisp white one. Satisfied that all the screens appeared normal, Nurse Nancy cleaned and readjusted the various tubes and wires attached to the patient before attending to his bandages.

  Nothing about their administrations was personal. They were professional and attentive.

  One of the orderlies turned on the small radio they had brought along because they thought the patients seemed to like hearing music even if they couldn’t respond to it. The music wasn’t loud, and Nurse Nancy hummed to a particularly catchy song, and soon, the orderlies joined in.

  Cade Colter heard it too.

  He knew the song and hummed along in his mind. It reminded him of someone.

  Hmm, who was that sweet doe-eyed girl I danced with?

  He floated in his unconscious state. He thought it could have been that new clerk down the hall from his office. But she was off limits—as was every female he worked with, as proclaimed by his brother Dante. But that didn’t stop him. He waited patiently, biding his time until he was ready to make his move, and then one day during a business luncheon, he approached her, and the rest, as they say, was history.

  He had wined, dined her, said all the right things, and when he saw that look in her eyes coupled with crossing and uncrossing her long legs, she was all his…all night long, he recalled.

  She was hot. That body and those ta-tas were so soft, and firm and bouncy…

  Nurse Nancy was still humming and singing as she gently stripped off the old bandage and examined John Doe’s chest tube when she gulped the last strands of the song. “Oh my,” she said, raising her hands in the air and sending the two orderlies an embarrassed smile.

  John and Ronny shook their heads and simply went about their tasks. It wasn’t at all unusual for a comatose patient to move or show signs of arousal.

  “So, um, it would appear that John Doe here is—is having a good dream, huh?” she stammered, flustered, as she carefully cleaned his tubing and rebound the bandage. But now the orderlies shared amused glances as Nurse Nancy’s face continued to redden. That wasn’t the first time it had happened, and she’d seen countless naked bodies, but she was still a modest woman.

  With five more patients to attend to before the doctors made their rounds that morning, the trio tidied up their carts, collected the soiled linens, turned off the radio, and left the room, but not before Nurse Nancy said, “I have a feeling this John Doe is making his way back. Good for you, young man.”

  Cade was still dancing with the doe-eyed clerk whose name he couldn’t remember. When he twirled her around in his arms, he was surprised when another woman’s face stared at him with worried eyes.

  Something about her was vaguely familiar. She was right at the edge of his memory, and then it came to him. She had been standing in the middle of the road.

  Yes, that’s it! Crazy woman! No, crazy, beautiful woman.

  Her eyes had pierced right through him as if she could see straight into his soul when he passed her. But when he turned back, she was gone, disappeared into the mist. Could she have called out to him? Her voice was soft and pleasant, lyrical. He even sensed she could help him get out of wherever it was he’d fallen into.

  That was his last thought as he drifted off. To where? He just couldn’t say.

  ***

  Valerie

  Driving around for what seemed like hours and navigating many dead ends and wrong turns, Valerie was about to give up when a sign for the upcoming exits tickled something in her memory. From the freeway, she took the exit and drove over a small overpass. According to the road signs mounted overhead, the upcoming exit was closed.

  “What am I doing?” she mumbled to herself and took the short exit, then pulled her car over to the gravelly, debris-littered shoulder. Wrapping her long scarf around her neck and tugging her leather gloves on, she stepped from her car. Could this be the right place?

  There, she noticed an array of leaves that had caught up in the brush. Pulling her coat tighter and inhaling the cool air, she couldn’t help but recall this was her aunt Ruby’s favorite time of year. She had insisted that her mind was more open and receptive when the weather was cooler. Valerie wasn’t sure if she’d believed that or not but knew she’d come to this desolate, isolated place because continuing visions had led her there.

  Glancing around, she spotted a leaf caught up in the brush and carefully pulled it out, hoping not to crush it. The spiked tip was yellow, and she recalled the joy of her youth
when she gathered leaves for her art collages.

  Spotting a similar leaf closer to the ground, she was about to reach for it, and without warning, she was instantly transported to another time…nighttime, to be exact.

  A half moon peeking through the clouds provided a sliver of light against the darkness of the unlit road. Glancing around to get her bearings, she jumped at the sudden sound of a revving engine in the distance. It seemed to be growing louder, and then as if in a blur, she watched an old model truck speed by in front of her. It churned up gravel and dirt in its wake. Before she could process anything connected to the vehicle, she returned to the present.

  She looked around as the air seemed to have chilled, and that’s when she saw black circular spots on the ground. They captured her attention, making her forget all about the colorful autumn leaves that had captured her attention a short while ago. Following the black spots for several feet, she was surprised where they ended: at a guardrail. It was the same guardrail she had seen in her visions.

  Walking over to it and stepping up onto the curb, her hand hovered above the guardrail when she saw the dark blotches on the railing and down onto the curb. Could it be that man’s blood? It had to be, she thought. Was this stretch of abandoned road where his life ended? she wondered. Surely, only somebody who was either lost or up to no good would end up there.

  Staring down over the embankment and out to the stillness of the surrounding area, she didn’t understand why she was drawn here. She understood it was impulsive and dangerous on her part. After all, she was alone and unarmed and had left her cell phone charging in the car.

  A lot of good that will do me if I can’t make it back to my car, she thought.

  Anything could happen to her and nobody would know. She stepped back from the railing. Hadn’t Aunt Ruby repeatedly warned her about the very thing she’d done today—following her visions to the locations despite the implied danger? Turning around, she headed back to her car. As she neared her car, she began to feel as if someone was watching her.