Before she could react he yanked her over his lap and twisted her arms behind her. Over her own cries, she heard the horrifying click of the second cuff locking, and she knew it was over.

He would never let down his guard again.

She was as good as dead.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

After a fitful night’s sleep, Brianna showered, then scraped her curly hair into a loose, dark knot before throwing on yesterday’s faded jeans and her favorite cotton tee. While St. Ives preened himself, she went to the kitchen to make coffee and clean a few dishes that seemed to have multiplied on their own in her sink.

Last night’s dreams still lingered with their disturbing images, but in the predawn hours she had convinced herself that her dreams were hers to own, period. It was silly to think that skeletons in the desert had any connection to Tanisha’s nightmares. “It’s all just some weird cosmic coincidence,” she muttered as the doorbell pealed.

She glanced at the clock on her stove.

The sun wasn’t even up yet.

No one stopped by this early.

Wiping her hands, she made her way to the front door, peered through one of the sidelights, and spied Selma Denning on the front stoop. Selma stood in a cloud of smoke, pulling hard on a cigarette.

Brianna felt a chill deep inside. Selma had given up smoking years ago, and it wasn’t like her to drop by so early in the morning. Pale as death, her graying hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, Selma looked unkempt and stark under the porch light. Dawn was breaking, fingers of gray light crawling through the city streets, chasing away the shadows, but from the looks of Selma’s rumpled shorts, T-shirt, and cardigan sweater, Brianna suspected that she hadn’t slept a wink.

As Brianna unlocked and opened the door, Selma quickly squashed her cigarette.

“Selma?”

“It’s the twins,” Selma said before Brianna could ask any questions. “Zoe and Chloe. They’re . . . they’re missing!” Her face was twisted in pain, her eyes red behind her rimless glasses.

Brianna held the front door open. “Come in, come in . . . please. And start over at the beginning.”

“It was their birthday. I mean, it is their birthday and oh, God.” Selma didn’t budge from her spot on the porch as her eyes filled with tears. She dropped her face into her hands and hiccuped a sob. “I know it hasn’t been all that long, but I just know something has gone wrong. I can feel it in my bones, you know?”

Brianna nodded. Although she wasn’t a mother, she did understand the invisible connections between people. Now Tanisha’s call and her own dreams of a disturbance, a separation in the universe, took on a new significance. The soft ping of alarm deep inside her began to swell.