Free Dangerous Destiny: A Night Sky novella by Suzanne Brockmann, Melanie Brockmann

never like this. So why Sasha? And why tonight?
    Vaguely, I remembered a night several years ago when my friend Nicole and I called the Psychic Hotline and talked to a lady with a phony Jamaican accent who made us giggle uncontrollably. I wasn’t exactly a firm believer in fortune-telling or prescience or whatever you wanted to call it.
    Still, it was an awfully strange coincidence.
    And it was Sasha—who was squirrelly enough at bedtime to require three night lights and a teddy bear. Why in the world would she wander out of her house in the middle of the night?
    Instinctively, I knew that she hadn’t wandered anywhere. She had to have been taken. But who would do such a terrible thing?
    Hoping I was wrong, I dashed upstairs to throw on some sweatpants and to get a scrunchie for my unruly hair. I grabbed my phone while I was at it, intending to call Calvin so he could help with the search.
    As I clattered back downstairs, the image from my dream—of Sasha walking down the highway—popped into my head. I cleared my throat and tried not to remember.
    Carmen was gone, no doubt to continue searching for her daughter in the rain and the dark.
    My mom had already put on her raincoat. “We’re going to the Rodriguezes’ house,” she informed me.
    I stopped short. “Shouldn’t we be searching in other places?”
    Mom shook her head. “It’s possible that if Sasha did wander off, she’ll come home eventually. Someone should be there, in case she does. Plus, who knows? There’s always the possibility that she’s hiding somewhere. In the…dryer…or…”
    “The dryer ?” I said incredulously. Mom was ridiculous. Yes, Sasha was tiny, but she was a nine-year-old girl, not a cat.
    “It’s called holding down the fort ,” Mom replied, jingling her car keys worriedly. “Let’s go.”
    Just then, my phone rang and I saw that it was Calvin. “Neighborhood watch just called. Have you heard?” he asked. Neither one of us bothered to say hello.
    “Yeah. We’re heading over to Sasha’s house now,” I told him.
    He was excited. “Did they find her?”
    “They totally didn’t,” I said, “but according to my mother, Carmen might not have looked hard enough, and we just might find Sasha hiding in an empty appliance.”
    “I see,” Calvin said, and I laughed despite my ever-growing anxiety.
    “You know Mom. Just humor her.”
    “Meet you there,” Cal told me.
    • • •
    The Rodriguez family lived down the street, about halfway between my house and Calvin’s, in a little one-story ranch, painted red with dark green shutters. Even though it was by far the least fancy-schmancy house on the block, it was the one with the most character.
    Sasha’s dad, Edmund, was a freelance artist by day and a security guard by night, and most of his daytime projects had made their way onto the Rodriguezes’ front lawn. Sculptures in the shapes of eggs, cars, and giant quirky animals stood outside on the grass. A few of the neighbors had made a fuss about it, as it didn’t give the house traditional Coconut Key curb appeal. But Calvin and I had always thought it was pretty cool.
    Tonight, in the predawn drizzle, the sculptures looked ominous. Neighbors I’d never seen before hovered across the street, staring at the house as if the small building would somehow offer answers.
    “Man,” Calvin said, still on the phone with me as I sat in the passenger seat of my mom’s white SUV. We’d driven over instead of walking, “just in case” we needed the car, but really because Mom never walked anywhere. “There’s, like, a Ken and a Marge on every corner with flashlights, looking in the ditches and even up in the damn trees!” “A Ken” is Calvin’s name for a really old guy. “A Marge” is the female equivalent.
    He pulled his car into the narrow driveway, right behind us, and we both hung up.
    “You and Calvin stay close, you hear?” Mom said, cutting the engine.
    I willed myself to refrain from a smart-ass