Free Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel by Ellie James Page B

and ran my hand along the love seat, careful to keep my back to him.
    He never saw me swipe the picture of my mother, and slip it into my back pocket.
    *   *   *
    Fleurish! was a mess.
    Detective LaSalle and I walked in a few minutes before five and found Aunt Sara hurriedly folding T-shirts, while keeping an eye on a group of older women clustered around the jewelry, and two more smelling candles.
    We joined her. It took twenty minutes, but by the time the chatty lady from Phoenix left with the turquoise and vintage cross necklace gift wrapped, Detective LaSalle had straightened the front display, and I’d told my aunt about coming up empty at Grace’s apartment.
    I wasn’t ready to talk about the picture.
    “I’m bummed I couldn’t help,” I said. “I was hoping something would pop.” Like it had at the house on Prytania.
    With her hair pulled into a loose ponytail at the base of her neck, Aunt Sara looked up from wrapping pink ribbon back around the spool. “You tried. That’s all you can do.”
    “But it’s not enough.” Sparks shot from a votive near the end of its wick. “It’s like this vague scavenger hunt, with clues coming to me that I don’t understand or can’t remember—”
    LaSalle looked up from his phone. “What clues?”
    “That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t know. Sometimes I get this feeling that there’s something there, something I’m supposed to understand. Like this morning—I was convinced I wasn’t alone, that someone was there, watching me.”
    My aunt dropped the spool to the counter as the memory of Delphi’s ears flat back, her eyes locked onto something unseen, crawled through me.
    “But I couldn’t move,” I murmured. “Couldn’t see. It was like I was awake but dreaming at the same time, but I couldn’t make myself go either direction, couldn’t focus.” And I could feel it again, standing right there by the candle display, the paralysis, the way my chest had burned.
    “It’s like some kind of clue was right there, ” I said. “And if I just could have gone back, back into the dream, I could have seen…”
    As if in slow motion, LaSalle slid his phone into his pocket and stepped toward me. “What if,” he said, his voice really, really weird, “I can take you?”
    Something crazy and fast zipped through me. “Take me—”
    “No—” my aunt said, hurrying over. “We talked about this. No .”
    He was tall and she wasn’t, so even though she stood right up in his space, all he had to do was look past her to make eye contact with me.
    “Aaron.”
    Something odd flashed in his eyes. “Sara—”
    “I said no.”
    I’d never heard them raise their voices at each other. I wasn’t even sure they’d had anything as basic as a disagreement.
    “No to what?” I asked, stepping toward them. I could tell that it was big.
    But it was like I wasn’t even there. While my heart was about to pound out of my chest, they stood locked in a silent battle of wills.
    “Um, hello?” I tried again. “One of you needs to talk.”
    Detective LaSalle looked away first, toward me. “Your dreams,” he said gently. “What if I can take you back into your dreams?”
    I felt my mouth drop open. “That’s possible?”
    “With hypnosis, yes,” he said as my aunt glared at him.
    I made myself swallow—but so didn’t understand, not what he was talking about—not why she was so edgy. “Hypnosis?”
    He stepped closer, reaching for her hand.
    She yanked it back.
    “It’s called dream regression therapy,” he said. “It’s still experimental.”
    “Which is why she’s not doing it.” Aunt Sara breathed. “It’s too dangerous.”
    But a new door swung open inside me, revealing a world of possibility I’d never imagined. But I’d hoped. I’d … obsessed. What if I could get back into my dreams? What if I could explore what I saw, see more ? That would have made a huge difference with finding Jessie.
    “What’s dangerous about it? How