Read Online Dangerous Destiny: A Night Sky novella by Suzanne Brockmann, Melanie Brockmann - Free Book Online Page B

beat wildly in my chest.
    BOOM BOOM BOOM!
    “Holy crap!” I shouted, because the sound hadn’t come from my dream. Someone really was knocking on our front door.
    Correction: someone was pounding on the front door.
    BOOM BOOM BOOM!
    And apparently they weren’t going to stop until somebody answered.
    I lunged out of my bed, tugging my oversized nightshirt down so that it covered more of my legs. I felt sick from waking up so quickly, my nerves beyond shot from the horrible nightmare.
    “Sky?” My mom stumbled out of her room and met me in the hallway, her eyes a mixture of grogginess and concern. Her terrycloth bathrobe was snug against her body. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if fending off a chill. Her hands were tucked into the robe’s oversized pockets.
    “It’s okay, Mom,” I said, and hurried down the stairs.
    I could see the silhouette of a petite figure through the door’s stained-glass panel.
    BOOM BOOM—
    I flung the door open, even as Mom descended the stairs behind me.
    It was raining in real life, and the woman standing in the doorway was absolutely drenched. It was Sasha’s mother. And she was sobbing.
    “Skylar!” she said. “Lord help me!”
    “Carmen?” I said disbelievingly. “What’s wrong?”
    “Mrs. Rodriguez?” my mom asked, pushing me slightly to the side in the doorway. I felt a twinge of irritation. “What’s going on?”
    Carmen Rodriguez wrung her hands in the doorway, her long, dark hair sticking to the sides of her face in the rain. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, and the storm had brought the normally balmy Florida temperature down quite a few degrees. I shivered, imagining how chilly she must have been.
    “Have you seen her?” Carmen gasped, her voice shrill with panic. She shifted her focus to me. “Sky! Tell me you’ve seen Sasha! Tell me you’ve got my baby here, and she’s safe!”
    Now Mom was looking at me too, but I shook my head. I hadn’t seen Sasha since I’d babysat last night. And I still didn’t quite understand. “Sasha’s gone ?”
    Carmen’s face crumpled, and she raised her hands to the sky as if imploring God himself to bring the little girl back. I swallowed hard as images from my dream popped into my head. Sasha walking so quickly from the car…how I hadn’t been able to catch up with her.
    “I tucked her into be-e-ed tonight,” Carmen hiccupped, “and when I woke up to get ready to go to work, she wasn’t there!”
    As Carmen collapsed into my mom’s arms, sobbing hysterically, I looked over my shoulder at the huge grandfather clock that stood beside the staircase in our entryway. It was four o’clock in the morning.
    In a typical, allergic-to-emotion move, Mom hugged Carmen awkwardly, with only the top half of her body touching the shorter woman.
    I glanced over their heads, trying to figure out where Sasha might have gone. Many of our neighbors were standing in their doorways as well, craning their necks to get a better look at the scene. Some people were wandering around in pajamas and with umbrellas. Others carried flashlights. I could smell brewed coffee. Apparently our door wasn’t the first that Carmen had pounded on.
    I didn’t see Edmund, Sasha’s dad, but then again, I wouldn’t. He worked the night shift as a security guard at the fish market. Sasha and I had always laughed at the idea of fish needing a guard. Of course Mom had killed the funny by telling me—out of Sasha’s earshot—that these days, in the part of town over by the fish market, people were so hungry they’d rob the place at gunpoint if the guards like Edmund weren’t there, actively on patrol.
    “We’re going to find her,” my mom said, patting Carmen’s rain-matted hair. “She can’t have gone too far.”
    “Who knows how long she was missing before I woke up?” Carmen sobbed. “It could have been hours! Oh my God! ”
    I felt sick. Why had I dreamed about Sasha? I never had nightmares. True, I’d always dreamed vividly, but