Page 14 of In Her Sights

“Perhaps,” Jenna mused aloud, her eyes reflecting the enigma before her, “we should find this water together.”

“I can’t think,” the man beside her muttered, desperation in his voice. “That noise is driving me crazy. Can’t you stop it for me?”

Jenna frowned, searching the immediate vicinity for any sign of disturbance. “What noise?” she asked, her voice sounding strangely hollow in the stillness.

“Can’t you hear it too?” There was a pleading note in his question, one that resonated with an urgency she couldn’t ignore. She focused, tuning into the spectrum of silence, and then—there it was. A loud ticking, rhythmic and relentless, like the pulse of an unseen clock, echoing through the space around them.

“You hear it now, don’t you?” the man asked. “That’s what it’s all about.” His eyes, hollows of despair, held hers with an intensity that was almost overpowering. “Time,” he added, “it’s all about time. Five years. It’s always five years.”

He reached out toward her as if seeking help. The movement drew her attention back to his hand where ink bloomed against his skin—a tattoo, intricate and dark. It depicted a pair of angelic wings, their feathers stretching elegantly across his forearm, disappearing beneath the frayed edge of his sleeve. The detailwas remarkable, each feather drawn with such precision that Jenna could almost envision them rustling in an unseen breeze.

“What does it mean?” she asked him.

His eyes, clouded with confusion, met hers. “Don’t know,” he admitted, the words edged with frustration. His hand reached out in a helpless gesture, as if grasping for an answer floating just beyond his reach.

“Guardian,” he murmured, his voice soft, harmonizing with the gentle flutter of wings. Then, as if as an afterthought, he said again, “Five years. Five years.”

“Please explain that to me,” she urged him, but any reply he made was stolen by the intrusion of a harsh sound—a shrill ring that sliced through the silence of the dream.

Jenna’s eyes snapped open, and the murky world of the bus stop at Hank’s Derby dissolved into the familiar colors of her bedroom. The phone continued its insistent call, dragging her further from the realm of sleep. Jenna reached out, her movements automatic as she fumbled and finally grasped the device, bringing it to her ear.

“Hello?” Her voice carried the sound of her disorientation. She blinked against the sunlight that played across her comforter, casting patterns that seemed to mock her sudden return to reality.

“Jenna, it’s Jake.” His voice was clear, a stark contrast to the spectral echoes of her dream. “Did I wake you?”

“Hey,” she managed to respond, the dream remnants clinging to her like cobwebs. She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, trying to ground herself in the room’s tangible details—the way the early light caught the edges of her dresser, the soft hum of her air conditioner.

“Are you okay?” There was a hint of concern in Jake’s voice, a subtle reminder of the protective shield he often cast over her.

“I’m fine,” Jenna assured him, though her mind was still racing with the enigmatic words from the man who couldn’t board the bus. She shook her head, willing the image away, focusing on the urgency of the present. “What’s up?”

“Checking in. We’re organizing the search teams for Sarah Thompson this morning. Wanted to make sure you were in the loop.”

“Jake, I won’t be joining you at Whispering Pines,” Jenna said. “I’ve got something else I need to do. I think you’ll have plenty of help.”

“Sure thing, Jenna,” came Jake’s response, ease in his tone. He was used to her sudden intuitions, her unexplained hunches that often led her down separate paths. “Billy Schmitt and his deputy rangers will all be on the job, and they know the landscape a lot better than I do. I might even be kind of superfluous. But maybe we’ll find something that will help wrap this case up one way or another.”

“Keep me updated,” she told him. “And be careful out there.”

“Alright, see you soon,” Jake said. “Call if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Jenna replied automatically.

He ended the call with the usual click that felt like punctuation to their brief exchange. The clock on her nightstand ticked steadily, reminding her of the ticking sound in her dream, the one that grew louder just before she woke. It made her uneasy, though she had no idea why. She remembered the words of the man who had spoken to her: “It’s all about time.” He’d also kept saying something about “five years.” She knew she was working against the ticking clock of a missing person’s case, but was that all his words meant?

Jenna sat up in bed, the sheets falling away from her as if shedding the remnants of that dream. She set the phone down, took a deep breath, and let her gaze drift to the window where the sky painted promises of a new day over Trentville. But herthoughts were on the night that had just ended and on the day ahead. The dream had been a signpost, a nudge from beyond the veil, pointing her toward something—or someone.

The man with the fishing rod, the silent whir of buses, the insistent tick of a clock—all fragments of a subconscious puzzle that demanded attention. It was always up to her to connect dots unseen by others, to draw lines between the living and the dead, but so far this message was still a mystery.

She welcomed the one thing she had grasped clearly. The man in her dream had said a name: Sheriff Frank, the man who had turned his job over to her. But Frank Doyle was more than just her predecessor. He was her mentor. His steadfast presence had guided her through the murky waters of law enforcement and sometimes even through the unpredictable seas of her dreams. If anyone could help her navigate these surreal tides, it would be Frank.

She swung her legs off the bed and planted her feet firmly on the floor as if to verify her existence within this waking world. She moved with purpose, dressing quickly in her uniform and holstering her weapon. Her hand found its way to the phone once more, but this time it was to place it in her pocket. Jenna Graves, Sheriff of Genesius County, stood framed in the doorway of her bedroom—a figure cut from both reality and something altogether different.

Time, the red-bearded man had said, was slipping away, and someone was in terrible danger. The answers Jenna needed to find lay somewhere in a tangle of dreams and reality. As she left her home, the door closed behind her, the click of the latch a punctuation mark on her decision.

“I need to see Frank,” she murmured to herself as she continued on her way. “Something really odd must have happened on his watch.”

But why had Frank never told her about it?

---