Page 23 of In Her Grasp

When Tommy said the name aloud, Jenna gasped. She felt her heart rate quicken, not from panic but from the sudden rush of insight. Now she knew what the man in her dream had been trying to tell her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Chills skittered down Jenna’s spine as she processed the implications of what Tommy Larson had just told her. She understood that her gift, her curse, had already given her yet another piece of this puzzle, but she had made a mistake in interpretation. That wasn’t unusual. The messages she received from the dead were often unclear, and decoding them could be a struggle.

Jenna extended her hand. “Tommy, I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve shared,” she said. “We might need to talk to you again. Could you give me your phone number?”

Tommy nodded, digging into his pocket to produce a crumpled piece of paper, scrawling his number across it with a pen borrowed from the counter.

“Anything that helps find out what happened to Mike... and Sly,” he muttered, the last part of his sentence trailing off as if caught by a sudden gust of wind. Jenna folded the paper with precision, tucking it safely into her jacket pocket.

As they passed through the store, they saw the widow at a checkout line, working as she must have done every day for many years. For a moment, Mary glanced up, but she quickly turned back to the customer, who seemed bent on chatting with her. Jenna felt a pang of sympathy for how all of the woman’s assumptions about what had happened to her husband had suddenly been burst.

Jenna and Jake continued on their way toward the exit. When they emerged from the store, the chime above the door tolling once, twice, its sound heavy in the stillness of the Colstock afternoon.

When they both slid into their seats in the cruiser, “Jenna—” Jake began, concern in his eyes. “Why’d we leave so quickly?”

“Jake, I just had a realization about my dream,” she replied. “The figure from the waters wasn’t saying ‘I’m alive.’ He was saying, ‘I’m Clive.’”

Jake’s eyes widened. “Clive Carroway?” he echoed. “The friend Tommy mentioned? Nicknamed Sly?”

“Exactly. And if Clive is appearing in my dreams...” she began, her voice taut with revelation.

“He’s dead, too," Jake responded quickly.

“Not just dead,” Jenna countered. “From what I saw, potentially murdered and dumped in the Sablewood Reservoir, just like Mike.”

“And Sly vanished six years earlier.” Jake reclined, giving himself a moment to absorb the chilling implications of their new lead. “But Jenna, the figure in your dream said something else, didn’t he?” Jake queried, eyes narrowing as he sought confirmation.

Jenna’s response came through clenched teeth. “He said, ‘There are three of us.’ If I’m right about this, it means there are two more bodies in that reservoir.”

Three lives snuffed out, three stories concluded prematurely beneath the deceptively tranquil waters of Sablewood Reservoir. Jenna felt a familiar chill creep up her spine, a spectral whisper that spoke of things unseen yet deeply felt. Somewhere beneath those still waters lay the answers, entwined with the reeds and lost to the depths—answers that she was determined to dredge up.

The V8 engine of their unmarked cruiser growled as Jenna started it and headed towards Sablewood Dam. The town of Colstock retreated in the rearview mirror as the vehicle surged forward. Jenna’s mind raced alongside the engine’s rhythm, piecing together a puzzle from beyond the veil.

As she drove, she again recounted her dream to Jake, making sure not to miss the smallest detail. Jake listened intently, hisdetective’s mind cataloging every detail. And now an image came back to Jenna that she’d almost forgotten—the haunting image of the willow tree, its limbs heavy with sorrow, fronds dipping into the murky water where the ghostly figure had appeared.

“Every branch seemed to be reaching for something just out of grasp,” Jenna described, her voice steady despite the unnerving nature of her visions.

As the car crested a hill, the Sablewood Reservoir came into view, a vast expanse of water bordered by the stoic guardianship of trees.

“Let’s stop here,” Jenna instructed suddenly, pointing towards the shore where three willows stood sentry. They exited the vehicle, and Jenna immediately set her sights on the middle tree, its trunk twisted with age, branches caressing the water’s edge like a mother soothing a child. “That one, Jake. The one on that point that juts out over the water. It’s identical to my dream.”

They got back into the car and continued on to Paul Rauer’s office, a small structure posted on one end of the dam. They knocked on the door and heard Paul call out, “Come in.”

They entered to see a workspace created of necessity rather than design, crammed with the tools of Paul’s trade. Maps dotted the walls, lines and notes scrawled across them in an organized chaos only decipherable to a practiced eye. Monitors flickered with readings and charts, each a silent custodian of the reservoir’s health and of the dam that held those waters in place.

“Paul,” Jenna greeted, barely containing the urgency in her tone. Immersed in his work, Paul Rauer turned, his expression shifting rapidly from surprise to concern as he absorbed the gravity of their presence.

“Jenna, Jake. What brings you two out here?” Rauer asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Jenna exchanged a quick glance with Jake, silently communicating the need for discretion. “We have information suggesting there might be more to find in the reservoir.”

“Specifically, at least one more body,” Jake added. “Maybe two.”

Jenna watched Rauer’s reaction, noting the way his shoulders tensed under the weight of the news. He was a fixture in this town, known for his silent strength, but even he seemed shaken by the implications of what he was hearing.

As Rauer absorbed her words, he nudged the precarious edge of his glasses back up again as if to brace for a clearer view of an unwelcome reality. “Damn it, this is going to be a nightmare,” he muttered.

---