The Complete Colony Series. Lisa Jackson

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      “What was it that Renee said when you met with the other girls?” Hudson asked Becca, holding a cool washrag over her head as she lay on the bed.

      They’d checked into a motel near the county sheriff’s offices, basic and weather beaten, willing to take pets, and surrounded by a small strip mall and a couple of fast-food eateries. Neither of them felt like driving home, and Hudson had decisions to make about the disposition of Renee’s body anyway.

      So they’d just headed into the musty-smelling room and Hudson had insisted Becca lie down on the bed while he ministered to her. He’d shaken out a couple of aspirin and handed her a glass of water while Ringo paced around the top of the bedspread, occasionally glaring at Hudson as if Becca’s condition were his fault.

      Becca had tossed back the aspirin, insisting she was fine, though her headache wasn’t giving up its grip. Hudson, meanwhile, kept going over everything and anything that could explain what had happened, a circular litany that did not require any input from her. She understood that this was his way of trying to grasp his sister’s death, and she lay quietly, petting her dog, as he paced the room, running on restless energy, unable to stop.

      “What was it Renee said when you met with the other girls?” Hudson asked.

      “She thought something was after her. Us. She was digging up stuff about Jessie and she stirred it up.”

      “It.”

      “She couldn’t explain her feelings. Tamara thought she’d taken the Tarot too seriously, but it was more than that. But she was determined to get the story, like it was going to save us all, I guess. I don’t know. She didn’t say that. It just seemed like that.”

      He squinted his eyes, as if in pain. “Something that killed her.”

      “Why would anyone kill Renee?”

      “Her story about Jessie. God, I don’t know.” He shook his head in frustration.

      Becca sighed, feeling that same frustration. “You said Renee called you. What did she say?”

      “I couldn’t hear her. It was a bad connection.”

      “You didn’t hear anything?”

      “She was excited about the story. About Jessie. Something about getting justice and some history…about people living on cliffs. Colonies forming on cliffs,” he corrected himself.

      Becca shook her head, perplexed.

      “Your visions,” he said. “You said you’ve had a series of them since Jessie’s remains were found.”

      She looked into his tense face. He was grasping at straws. Lines of weariness radiated from the corners of his eyes. She suspected she looked much the same.

      “Like I said, I had the first one at the mall. Jessie was standing on a cliff above the ocean. She put her fingers to her lips and then she said something to me. I couldn’t make it out. And then I saw her outside the Dandelion Diner.”

      “When we met McNally and his partner?”

      She nodded. “That’s why I went into the restroom. I was afraid I was going to pass out. And then I saw the nursery rhyme note to Glenn, and then this latest one, my car being pushed off the road.”

      “Do you think you were reminded of it because of Renee’s accident?”

      “Possibly.” But it had felt far more real than that. A vision, not a memory.

      Hudson came back to the bed and lay down beside her, moving a reluctant Ringo aside. “I can’t take it all in.”

      “Me, neither.”

      He draped an arm around her, pulling her close. Time passed while they were lost in their own thoughts. Becca eventually heard Hudson’s breathing grow more even, but her own mind ran through a maze of alleys, seeking answers that were always around the next corner, always just out of reach.