Finding Cade (Dream Catcher Series Book 1)

by Bernice Layton

  Aunt Ruby’s disappointed voice resonated in her head when, a short while later, Valerie walked away with that guilt upon her shoulders.

  ***

  Valerie

  Thrashing about in her comfy chair, Valerie fought to pull herself from the trance. It was much harder to do because something was pulling her back, and she suspected it was JD. In his sedated subconscious state, he must have been mentally calling out her name, and she fought the urge to remain where she was.

  She needed to pull away and gain some semblance of control. Also, if he woke and saw her again, he might very well become agitated. She had already seen he had medical issues that warranted him to have continuous monitoring and medication.

  Mentally, she had to push herself out of his room and ran until found herself standing outside of the facility once again. Evening had fallen, and everything was still and quiet and dark, unlike the frantic activities that had occurred in JD’s room. Shaken, she struggled to make sense out of what had happened inside.

  The John Doe No. 6 in that room was JD, her JD. He existed; at least on some level and at some point, he existed. She couldn’t help but wonder if the shock of recognizing her had been the cause of his set back. Or was it the thought that she might know his identity? She didn’t know, but one thing was certain—JD had amnesia. The man she watched slide to the floor in shock and wretched in pain was different from the man whose spell she’d fallen under with his sexy moves and soulful kisses.

  As she pondered those thoughts, she slowed her footsteps and realized that she was once again outside and standing at the wrought iron gates. Stepping back, she glanced up at the sign that was illuminating the name of the medical facility.

  BRYLAND SANITARIUM

  So that’s where I am.

  She felt the chilly evening air and rubbed her arms for warmth. Why was she feeling such a chill if she was still in a trance? Unless she wasn’t.

  With a jolt, it dawned on her why she was so cold. She was awake and remembering what had happened. She was no longer in a trance but was fully awake now.

  Letting her eyes circle around, she saw that she was still in the safety of her bedroom. Turning her head toward the window, she saw that it was still dark outside, and the clock on her nightstand across the room revealed it was nearing five o’clock in the morning. Surprised that she’d been in the trance for several hours, much longer than usual, she began the slow breathing techniques necessary to restore her equilibrium.

  After a few minutes and feeling more centered, her first startling revelation was that she had awakened while she was inside the vision. That had only occurred once before, and she could recall when she’d told Aunt Ruby about it. It sparked a stern warning about the danger of touching things and making her presence known to those she encountered. Of course, not understanding the dire warnings or consequences, she had ignored the advice.

  She hadn’t understood the warnings before, but now…her heart lurched when she thought about JD’s extreme reaction to seeing her in his room. She hadn’t expected that, and it scared the hell out of her.

  A lot of things had changed since her first encounter with him. From the beginning, they had an unnaturally close connection, and at times during her visits with him, she felt like she was inside of him—in his skin…feeling his pain, sharing his thoughts and emotions. As passionate and familiar as he was when they met in that in-between space, it was hard for her to grasp the fact that he didn’t know who she was or who he was, for that matter. What did matter was that her vision had led her to a place with a name.

  Bryland Sanitarium.

  It was something tangible, something searchable on the internet, and that’s what encouraged her to pull herself from the chair and make her way to her bed before being lulled back to sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Valerie

  The ringing telephone jarred Valerie from a troubled sleep. She awakened drained and weak. It took an enormous amount of effort to raise her hand to lift the cordless receiver and bring it to her ear. “Hello,” she mumbled.

  Zoe asked if she was all right.

  “Yes, I was asleep. What’s up, Zoe?” Valerie managed to sit up, and she reached for the tumbler of lukewarm water on her nightstand. When Zoe said she’d been trying to reach her for several hours, Valerie became fully awake, sensing bad news. “What is it, Zoe?”

  It was indeed bad news. Zoe told her that Glen and Sarah Walker’s stately Georgetown home had burned to the ground in an overnight fire.

  “Oh, no.” Valerie felt the blood drain from her face. Zoe recounted that the fire marshal’s preliminarily report indicated arson. All Valerie could think about was how glad she was that Sarah and the kids were still on an extended trip and that Sarah had given her staff several weeks off. The house had been closed.

  “Val, Sarah left two messages for you. First, she said that she and the kids were staying with her sister and brother-in-law and that you already have her information. Then she asked me to give you another message and she wanted me to write it down word for word, and she made me read it back to her.”

  Valerie snatched up a pen and notepad from her nightstand. “Go on, I’m ready.”

  “She said, ‘Glen always believed in your gift and trusted you would connect the dots and follow the money trail to the hill.’ She said don’t delay and that the jewelry box was special to Glen because before he died, he’d reminded her to make sure you got that box.’ That’s it, Val. Can you make heads or tails out of what Sarah meant?”

  Valerie’s eyes landed on the jewelry box sitting on the dresser across the room from her bed. “Yes, I can. Sarah had to get away to protect herself and the kids.”

  At Zoe’s shriek, Valerie quickly regrouped. “Zoe, check back with the fire marshal and see if we can get a copy of his report. I’ll call you later.” Valerie pressed the off button on the cordless handset.

  Getting out of bed, she walked over to her dresser and picked the documents up that had been tucked in the bottom of the jewelry box. She reread them for a hidden meaning besides the obvious words, Congressman’s money trail, but she couldn’t detect anything significant. She decided to make some breakfast before she reviewed the documents again.

  A short while later, finishing off her egg sandwich and coffee, Valerie’s mind stayed on Sarah and Glen’s beautiful Victorian-style house as she walked into her living room. There, she turned on the TV, hoping to catch the story of the fire on the local news. Unfortunately, she’d just missed it, so she flipped to another channel to catch it. The news channel was the one where her sister, Lynne, was an on-camera reporter. Settling in on the couch, she listened as Lynne was interviewing a family whose loved one had been missing for several months. As she leaned forward to set her cup on the coffee table, it barely made it to the table because she almost dropped it to the floor.

  Valerie’s eyes had strayed to the picture of the missing person inserted in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Her jaw dropped, and she fumbled to snatch up the remote. With a shaking hand, she increased the volume in time to see a tall, attractive man standing beside Lynne. He was saying how his family wanted news, good or bad, explaining how desperate they were for any information on his missing brother. The man then turned to the grim-faced people standing behind him. She assumed it was his family.

  Valerie inched closer to the beautiful flat screen TV that was a housewarming gift from her parents to get a better look at the picture of the missing man.

  The man staring back at her in HD clarity was JD. There was no doubt or question in her mind. She would recognize that face anywhere.

  “JD,” she whispered in disbelief, dragging her eyes away from the picture as the camera panned left to focus on an elegant older woman who tearfully pleaded for anyone with information on the whereabouts of her middle son, Kincade Colter, to contact the authorities immediately. When she tried to say more, she couldn’t. So emotionally distraught, a stately gentleman, presumably her hu
sband, stepped forward and guided her away from the podium. The attractive man stepped back in front of the camera, and Valerie saw his name in the caption—Dante Colter, owner of Colter Computer Sales and IT Services. He reiterated the substantial monetary reward available for any information about his brother.

  A younger woman standing to his left touched his arm, and he stepped aside so she could take the microphone. Identified as Jolene Colter and looking right into the camera, she spoke with fierce conviction. “My brother Cade wouldn’t intentionally leave us. If it’s ransom you want, well…whatever it is, we’ll pay it. We just want Cade back.” Her bravado crumbled as she sniffed back tears before she turned to her family. The camera panned back to Lynne, who then signed off the segment with her closing remarks.

  Valerie muted the sound and stared at the television. Her head was spinning and her stomach was in knots. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen and heard.

  “Kincade Colter. C-A-D-E.” Valerie spelled out the letters quietly. “How many times have I seen those letters?” For several minutes she remained frozen on the couch. When it dawned on her the information she possessed, she shot up from the sofa and hurried to the stairs. She had to get to the Colter family and tell them about JD.

  “He’s not dead…he’s—” She stopped short having only made it up three steps when reality hit her. She couldn’t do anything of the sort.

  Deflated, she plopped down on the hardwood step.

  Uppermost in her mind were the times she’d dared to tell about a vision she’d had. It never turned out well. She’d either received disbelief or skepticism. Her aunt Ruby admonished her to not do it again, then chastised her for doing it in the first place.

  The last time she’d done that resulted in the police questioning her.

  She recalled what happened a few years ago when she’d had a vision of a couple appearing to be in a hurry as they rushed through a crowded train station. There was a strange aura around them that was confusing, but the woman’s troubled face kept coming to her. Days later, Valerie read a newspaper article about a missing woman and she recognized her as the same woman from her vision. It had been enough for Valerie to find out why the young woman kept appearing to her.

  She’d managed to locate the woman’s address and rushed there to inform the family she had seen the woman in a very strong dream on a southbound train to Florida. When she arrived to share her news, she’d found the woman’s house swarming with police. When she approached the nearest police officer and stated she might have some useful information, she’d been immediately escorted to the police station and questioned. Annoyed by the amused and flat-out disbelieving looks from every detective she’d had to repeat her story, she couldn’t offer an explanation as to how she’d gotten her information. She had endured the repeated questions, insinuations, and implications, not to mention the lead detective telling her that she was wasting their time with her nonsense. Eventually, but not entirely convinced that she wasn’t holding back, the police finally released her.

  Shaken, humiliated, and exhausted when she was leaving the police station, she was sidelined by a relative of the woman and he’d told her what the detectives didn’t…the missing woman was the lover of a married man and they’d stolen money from the man’s wealthy wife before running away together. The wife had discovered the plan, and after confronting them in the parking of the train depot, she’d shot and killed them both. The police were not releasing all the details at that point. Belatedly, Valerie realized what she had seen in her vision occurred after the couple had already died, which explained the strange aura around them.

  To her credit, Aunt Ruby never brought it up, but Valerie had learned a valuable lesson. Not everything she saw in her dreams, visions, and trances was true to time and place.

  “But this time is different,” she said determinately and, having made her decision, got up and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. When she picked up her satchel from the chair, her day planner fell out onto the bed. Just as she about to stuff it back into her bag, her hand halted. She flipped the pages back several months to the day she’d arranged for that charity to come collect Aunt Ruby’s old furniture and clothing. That’s when she’d first seen the letters and jotted them down in her planner. CADE. They appeared on the frosted window shield of Lynne’s cold, fog-filled car, and now, she had to wonder why Lynne figured so prominently.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Katherine Colter

  Katherine Colter, the matriarch of the Colter family, had just endured another news interview and was again mentally drained. They all were. But as tired and as frustrated as they were, Kate, as many called her, refused to let the story of her missing son die down. Her eyes circled the family room where they’d all gathered and made her feelings known. “I refuse to let Cade become a DC statistic of another black man believed killed over some drug dispute and his body dumped somewhere. I will keep the story in the heads and hearts of everyone who turns on a TV or opens a newspaper, and if I have to, I’ll take out a billboard ad,” she said.

  When Jolene opened her mouth to repeat herself by saying that Cade was just AWOL, Kate held up her hand to stop her.

  “Well, we all know how this will go again,” she began, ignoring Jolene’s ruffled feathers. “The news of the increase of money by another fifty thousand dollars will bring in calls from every lunatic and psychic claiming to know something. But we have to follow the advice of the detective and be cautious.”

  ***

  Dante

  “Mom is absolutely correct,” Dante added, looking pointedly at Jolene.

  “Hey, Dante, that old man swore to me he’d seen Cade walking down the street,” she protested.

  Dante’s eyes narrowed with pained tolerance. “Well, now don’t you feel foolish having paid one thousand dollars of your savings to get the information that old man told you? Only, it was exactly what has been in the newspaper and on TV. Look, do me a favor and keep your bankbook closed, Jolene, or I’ll do it for you. There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there ready to pounce on people like us, the worried family,” he said, crossing over and hugging her. “Yes, we’re desperate, but we have got to be level-headed.” When she nodded, Dante turned to his mother. “Mom, your church group is meeting shortly, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, but honestly, I just can’t do that today. How can I even think about the annual Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with Cade missing?”

  “You can, because it’s what you do, Mom. They need you, and it’s because of you that a lot of people will get a hot Thanksgiving meal and Christmas dinner. You’ve worked hard to keep those food pantries full, and it’s great that the bingo hall down the street from the church has promised to donate a portion of the winning pot to the food pantry. Just ask Theo here. He’s become quite the bingo player at that place.” Dante eyeballed Theo, who was lounging across from him, scrolling through his cell phone.

  “Forget that. I won that thirty-five dollars fair and square. I have no regrets about pocketing it.” Theo snorted.

  “Theo, part of your winnings should go in the donation pot,” Elaine said. “It’s for charity.”

  “Now, you see, Elaine, that’s part of the problem. It wasn’t a pot. It was a collection plate, and he shouldn’t keep that money at all,” Dante corrected his wife.

  While everyone began playfully bickering about Theo’s ill-gotten thirty-five dollars, Dante decided he wouldn’t tell them about the meeting he’d had yesterday with the detective on Cade’s disappearance case. The detective told him about a man identified as Nate Burton was spotted on surveillance cameras circling the block an hour prior to Cade walking up from The Sullivan Hotel. The fact that the man’s deceased body was found right around the corner inside a trash dumpster the same night Cade disappeared had the detective trying to make a connection between the two. Dante prayed that Cade hadn’t met the same fate as Nick Burton.

  Cade’s client list had been the first thing the pol
ice had checked. All of Cade’s assignments had been contacted, and luckily, they all checked out. That was, except for the work order marked Owen. Dante had checked all their resources and contacts to see what the assignment was but couldn’t find it. When he compared the work order to the last place Cade had been seen, at Congressman Owen’s fundraiser, Dante wondered if Cade had gone to the hotel to solicit business.

  Dante had scheduled an appointment with the congressman’s aide, Ted Baxter, but the man denied ever meeting Cade. Baxter had stated that due to security protocols, there was no way the congressman’s office would ever consider using an outside source to service their computers. They could only use services provided them by a government contractor. This hadn’t been news to Dante, but thinking back on that conversation several weeks ago, he still felt foolish for going to Mr. Baxter in the first place.

  Dante was sure Cade would have received the same speech. Still, he thought it was odd because he couldn’t trace the work order.

  ***

  Isaac

  When the morning news broadcast ended, Isaac Bishop turned the TV off in the congressman’s home office. While waiting for the Owens, Isaac pulled his cell phone from his pocket and updated his calendar.

  Still missing, he wrote in his PDA.

  He’d been monitoring the local newspapers and watching the news broadcasts for any new developments in the Kincade Colter case.

  Thinking back when he’d chased that thief up to the rooftop of The Sullivan Hotel, he’d had no idea the man was Cade Colter. When his two hired goons were instructed to capture and dispose of the man they’d followed from the hotel and thrown in the van, Isaac still hadn’t known it was Colter.

  All he knew was that the man had to be found, searched, and killed. But now, Isaac knew why the man looked so familiar to him. He never forgot a face.