CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The familiar landscape unfolded before Jenna, just as it had in her dream. Ahead was the railroad crossing, its sign weathered by time, the gate poised open as if waiting for a train that might never come. But this was no dream; the tang of pine in the cool morning air was undeniably real, as was the somewhat skeptical deputy she’d brought along with her.

She brought the cruiser to a stop at the side of the road and killed the engine.

“Here,” she said tersely. “This is where my dream led me. I recognized this place when I saw it.”

Jake scanned the area, then glanced at Jenna, his expression unreadable. Without a word, they stepped out of the car, and Jenna led the way as they walked along the tracks. She stopped when she spotted the old oak tree near the tracks.

A branch that once threatened to encroach upon the steel rails had been amputated long ago, leaving behind a scar that bore a weathered cryptic message: “SV + NS.”

“Same as in your dream?” Jake’s voice held a note of skepticism, though Jenna knew he was trying to keep an open mind.

“Exactly the same,” Jenna confirmed, the wood rough under Jenna’s fingertips as she traced the carved initials. “Except that the initials were freshly cut.”

Jake frowned as he studied the carvings. ““Any idea who ‘SV’ and ‘NS’ might be?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “But I intend to find out.” The uncertainty was a stark reminder that even with her unique insights, some answers still remained hidden.

“I’ve seen that same tree in two dreams now,” Jenna said, her voice low. “And those initials...they were so clear last night.”

She gazed around the area, remembering the women who had led her past the tree.

“I saw something more,” she said. “Let’s see if I’m right about what that was.”

Jenna motioned for Jake to follow her as she stepped off the path and deeper into the woods. The morning light filtered through the dense foliage, casting an eerie glow upon the forest floor. The ground sloped gently, leading them away from the train tracks. They arrived at a small clearing where the earth itself seemed to tell a grim tale.

There, two mounds rose ominously from the ground. Despite being overgrown with tangled weeds, their shapes were too deliberate, too calculated to be anything fashioned by nature alone. The air seemed to have unsettling stillness, as if even nature itself held its breath in fear of disturbing whatever lay beneath the surface.

“Are those graves?” Jake’s tone was suddenly serious.

“Almost sure of it,” Jenna replied, recalling the vivid images from her dream—the dirt freshly turned, the hollow beneath the earth awaiting its secrets to be buried. “I have a shovel in the car. We could start digging...”

“Whoa, hold up,” Jake cautioned, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We can’t just start unearthing graves, Jenna. There are protocols.”

“You’re right,” she conceded, embarrassment tinging her cheeks. Her impulsive desire to excavate clashed with the reality of their duty to uphold the law. “But I do know how to go about that.”

Pulling out her cellphone, Jenna’s fingers worked quickly, capturing the morbid tableau before her with the camera. Then she scrolled through her contacts and entered the Genesius County Coroner’s office phone number.

“Melissa, it’s Jenna Graves,” she said tersely when the call connected with the coroner herself. “We’ve got something odd out here in the woods near the Freeport Road crossing—looks like two old unmarked graves.”

“You think someone is buried out there?” Dr. Melissa Stark’s voice held both concern and professional curiosity. “Can you send photos?”

“Sending them now,” Jenna replied, her thumb already hovering over the “send” button of the text message loaded with ominous pictures.

After a few moments, Melissa spoke again. “Alright, Jenna, they do look like graves. I need to sort out the legalities—you know, the formalities involved with disinterring unmarked graves.”

“If bodies are actually buried there, it could be an urgent connection to a current investigation,” Jenna told her. “That’s why I’m calling you instead of just filing a report.”

“In that case, my team and I will get right on it,” Melissa assured her with calm efficiency. “Just give me an hour. If it’s what you think, we should be able to start the process of trying to identify them right away.”

“Thanks, Melissa. See you soon.” Jenna ended the call. She could always count on Melissa for swift action when it was needed, no questions asked—a trait that had fortified their friendship over the years.

She felt a surge of anticipation; these graves in the woods might just be the break they needed in Amber Stevens’ case—or they might open up an entirely new mystery. But since they had appeared in her dream, she felt confident in following up on them.

“An hour, huh?” Jake commented. Then he suggested, “Breakfast? We got up and out awfully early, and I could use some more coffee.”

“Sounds good,” Jenna replied, though her thoughts were elsewhere. “The truck stop is just down the road. They have good food.”

She and Jake walked along Freeport Road, the stillness of the morning in Trentville giving way to the muffled sounds of Hank’s Derby truck stop. The place was a time capsule, a slice of Americana with its neon sign flickering even as they sky brightened.

They settled into a booth by a window, vinyl squeaking beneath them. The waitress, a middle-aged woman with an apron that had seen better days, brought coffee, then took their orders and disappeared behind the counter.

“Tell me about the dream, Jenna,” Jake said, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the tabletop. His eyes searched hers, seeking to understand what lay beyond their emerald depths.

Jenna wrapped her hands around the warmth of her coffee mug, grounding herself. She recounted the vision, starting with the oak tree and the carving hand. “It was the same tree, but the initials carved into the wood kept changing, The last time I saw were just like they are now, SV + NS.”

“So those initials—they didn’t mean anything to you?” Jake asked, sipping his coffee, his brow furrowed.

“Not yet.” Jenna shook her head slightly, her chestnut hair swaying. “But then there was a woman— one I thought could be Amber Stevens when she appeared in my last dream.”

“Could be? Or is?” Jake pressed a note of urgency in his tone.

“That’s where things get complicated.” Jenna paused, her gaze unfocused as if she were seeing through the diner walls and back to the dream landscape. The clink of cutlery and the smell of frying bacon filtered through the air as she pieced together fragments of her visions with Amber’s case and the graves they had found. As she recounted the details of her dream, the fog in her memory began to dissipate, allowing her to interpret features with greater clarity.

“Then,” she continued, “another woman appeared beside the one I had thought was our missing girl Amber.”

Jake’s hand paused mid-air, his coffee cup an inch from his lips. “Another one?”

“Identical almost, in a haunting way. But as the mist cleared, it was obvious—neither of them was actually Amber.”

“Do you think that could mean that Amber is still alive?” he ventured.

“Perhaps,” she conceded. “In my dream, I followed those two women into the woods.” She gestured vaguely with her hand, mimicking the motion of pushing through unseen branches. “They led me to that clearing where the ground was disturbed—two graves, freshly dug. The same ones we saw today.”

Jake set down his cup with a soft clink against the slick tabletop, his expression somber yet alert. “In your dream, you saw graves when they were new? Before anyone was buried there?”

Jenna nodded, her mind’s eye retracing the steps through the dream’s wooded labyrinth. “We returned to the tree afterward. That’s when I saw it—the pruning scar was different. It bore initials: SV + NS. Carved deeply, like they were meant to endure time itself.”

“SV and NS,” Jake repeated softly, as though saying the letters aloud could unlock their meaning.

“The oak stood by the tracks just as it does now,” Jenna went on, her gaze momentarily distant, “and the crossing was right there, a short walk away. Everything in the dream was connected to this place, this moment.” Her hands enveloped the warmth of her coffee mug as if it could anchor her to the here and now.

The diner hummed around them, a comforting backdrop to the intensity of their conversation. The scent of brewing coffee mingled with the promise of breakfast on the griddle. But for Jenna, the only hunger that mattered was for answers. The dream had been a map, and she had followed it to this juncture between realms—where reality and visions met.

“Then I woke up,” she finished, “and I called you right away.” There was no hesitation in her voice, no second-guessing the impulse that had driven her to act on her preternatural insight.

From behind the kitchen, the sound of a bell signaled their order was up. The waitress scurried over and brought their plates laden with eggs, toast, and strips of bacon. For a brief moment, they allowed themselves a respite; the simple act of beginning their meal was as an acknowledgment of the challenging day ahead.

They both ate in a companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts—Jenna’s mind replaying the dream, the faces of the women, the fresh graves, and most of all, the initials carved into the tree. The significance of those letters eluded her, but she sensed their importance.

Jake paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, and fixed Jenna with a look that seemed to penetrate her defenses. “You okay?” he asked. “In the middle of all this …”

“Fine,” she responded automatically, though the dark circles under her eyes betrayed the restless night behind her. She pushed around a piece of bacon on her plate, trying to muster the energy the food was supposed to provide.

“How about you?”

“Strange” was too mild a term for what they were dealing with, but it was the one Jake settled on, his voice laced with skepticism. “I mean, this kind of ‘evidence’... It’s hard to wrap my head around it.”

“Can’t blame you,” Jenna responded.

“Question is,” Jake continued, “if neither of the women you saw is Amber Stevens, could these graves, the tree, and all of it be unrelated to the case? Could your dream be leading us off track?”

“I’ve never had a dream that didn’t connect to a case.” Her tone held conviction. “The details … the timing of them... it’s always significant.”

Before Jake could reply, Jenna’s phone erupted with a shrill ring that sliced through the silence. A glance at the caller ID, and her stomach clenched—Mayor Simmons. She exhaled slowly, steeling herself for the conversation.

“Graves,” she answered, keeping her voice even as she switched the call to speakerphone.

Mayor Simmons’s voice, sharp as broken glass, cut through the hum of Hank’s Derby. “Graves, what’s this I’m hearing about unmarked graves near Freeport Road?”

“We don’t know yet, Mayor Simmons,” Jenna began, her eyes fixed on Jake for moral support. “We’ve discovered anomalies in the ground that suggest unmarked graves. They could be related to Amber Stevens’s disappearance.”

“Could be? That’s hardly definitive. And how did you come across them?” Mayor Simmons’s tone suggested she was unsatisfied with vague justifications.

Jenna felt taken off guard, but she knew she should have seen this coming. Why wouldn’t the mayor want to know how she’d managed to find these graves that no one had apparently noticed for many years?

“During our investigation,” Jenna replied, skirting the facts. Her psychic insights were not something she could disclose to the mayor—or, for that matter, to anyone except the two people who knew about it already, Jake and Frank. “We’re following up on a lead. Melissa Stark will be on site soon, and I’ll report back with her findings.”

“I know about that. Actually, I’ve decided that I’ll be joining her team. I want to see this for myself.” The line went dead before Jenna could protest.