Angels Mark (The Serena Wilcox Mysteries Dystopian Thriller Trilogy) by Natalie Buske Thomas Page B

bombings, and that we’d be better off if we were not in the system. I can’t explain why, just a bad feeling,” Serena insisted.
    Bryce-Otto looked from Tom to Serena; and back again. “I can’t tell if you people are crazy and delusional, or if you’re lying. If you’re crazy, you got it right – bombs happened. WWIII, everything hit the fan. So you’re not crazy. Which means you must be lying, because I don’t believe in that psychic dream crap you’re giving me.”
    “My mom isn’t lying. She had a dream. And we left because something bad was going to happen,” Carrie spoke up, causing everyone at the table to look at her. She stared back at all the faces. “Well, it’s true. My parents are not crazy, and they are not lying.”
    Bryce-Otto leaned across the table and said in a raspy whisper, “Tell me about your mother’s friend. The one she e-mails in Iran. Her friend have a dream too?”
    Serena froze for half a second, and then she began to sing, “Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away…”
    Her singing caught Bryce-Otto off guard and he sat stunned, as the girls’ voices joined in.
    “To a land where joys shall never end, I’ll fly away…”
    And on that note, the family did what they always did after singing that song. They left the room with great haste. The surprise factor gave them only a few seconds lead, but it was enough time to get into the van and lock the doors before Bryce-Otto reached them. He put his face two inches from Tom’s window and yelled, “I know where you live!”
    “Just go, go!” urged Serena.
    Tom drove, and drove. They looked over their shoulders every few minutes. No VW beetle, of any color. “Where do we go? Our safe house is not safe anymore.”
    “Let’s take Karyn up on her offer to visit.”
    “You have her address?”
    “She lives up North, a cabin in Deer River, near Bowstring Lake.”
    “We won’t get there until after midnight. Will she be okay with that?”
    “She’ll have to be.”

 
     
    8
     
    After driving for about five hours, the Bridge-Meadows family arrived at the lakeside cabin where Karyn lived with her husband Dan and four children. “Cabin” was a misleading description. Their home was impressive – large and rambling with many levels. There was a family room, living room, sitting area, large open kitchen, and enough space to sleep about a dozen people. Serena thought the cabin looked like a bed and breakfast hotel, generously roomy for a single family home.
    “Wow, this is really nice,” said Carrie. She squinted at the fully lit front entrance. Even the landscaping was illuminated, with soft solar lighting along the pathway to the door.
    Serena glanced at her three children, who all looked a little rough around the edges after their harrowing exit from the restaurant the day before, traveling into the wee hours of the night, and sleeping on and off with their heads mashed against whatever they could find to lean on. Well, this wasn’t a reunion, and besides, Karyn was not a pretentious person, or at least not the Karyn she remembered.
    Serena reached out to ring the doorbell, but before she could press the button, Karyn flung the door open wide. “Serena! You made it!” She ushered the family in.
    “Is that coffee I smell?” asked Tom.
    “Karyn, you do realize we’ve imposed upon you at 2:30 in the morning?” Serena laughed. She couldn’t believe the feast she saw for them on the table. Artfully arranged on a country checked tablecloth was a bowl of fruit containing perfectly ripened bananas, deep purple grapes, and red apples worthy of Snow White’s temptation, a basket of assorted breads with a side dish of butter pats and jellies, a tier of three different varieties of breakfast muffins, a pitcher of what appeared to be fresh-squeezed orange juice in a bucket of ice, serving dishes, cloth napkins, and elegant long stemmed glassware – all waiting for Serena and her family to consume