Dream Sky by Brett Battles Read Free Book Online

standing there when the other bikes came by, Noreen ducked around the rear of the nearby shop and crouched behind a Dumpster. She could hear three motorcycles race past back on Main Street. A few moments later, a vehicle she guessed was a truck followed.
    What was wrong with these people? Why did they care about Riley and Craig?
    Staying hidden, she spent the next ten minutes trying to reach her friends.
    Finally, Riley answered. “We’re okay.”
    “What happened?”
    “We cut up a hill into a residential area. They must have thought Craig had taken the highway north. They sped off that way. We watched them for a few minutes, but can’t see them anymore.”
    “Why did they chase you?” Noreen asked.
    “Maybe because we were spying on them?” Craig suggested.
    “I guess, but why shoot at you?”
    The only reply was silence, but Noreen suspected she already knew the answer.
    The rules of life they’d grown up with no longer applied.
     
    RIDGECREST, CALIFORNIA
    12:36 PM PST
     
    B EN BOWERMAN HAD checked everyplace he thought Martina might be.
    When he had arrived in her hometown two nights before, his intention had been to head straight to her house. He had been there only once and that had been the previous summer, so he had just a vague idea of its location. If Martina had lived in one of the housing tracts within the city limits, he was sure he’d have no trouble finding her house. But the Gables’ home was down a dirt road west of town, where everyone had his or her own few acres of desert.
    It turned out there were a lot of dirt roads in that direction, and Ben’s search wasn’t helped by the sun going down. It took him until almost ten that night before he finally found the house, recognizing it by the large, detached three-car garage with asymmetrical sloped roof.
    He felt a rush of hope when he saw Martina’s Toyota Corolla parked out front. He jumped out of his car and ran to the front door of the house. It was locked.
    “Martina, it’s me!” he yelled, knocking loudly.
    Nothing. Not even the creak of a floorboard.
    He raced around to the back door, but it was also locked.
    “Martina! Are you in there?”
    He looked up at the darkened second-floor windows but sensed no movement beyond them.
    He remembered Martina had said her family kept a spare key in the garage, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall where. So he grabbed a log off the firewood pile on the side of the house and smashed it through the window next to the rear door.
    “Sorry!” he yelled through the opening just in case someone was there. “It’s me. Ben Bowerman. Martina’s boyfriend.”
    He reached inside, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.
    “Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”
    No answer.
    Reluctantly, he stuck his head a few inches inside and sniffed the air. Stale, but no smell of death. Relieved, he stepped all the way inside.
    The house was quiet, the same kind of undisturbed silence he’d experienced pretty much everywhere he’d been the last several days. He felt along the wall until he found a light switch and flicked it up. Nothing. He hadn’t really expected it to work. He had seen no lights on anywhere else in town. So he returned to his car and retrieved a flashlight from the bag of things he’d been collecting to replace the stuff he’d lost when Iris Carlson stole his Jeep.
    Back inside, he methodically worked his way through the house, hoping to find a note or some other indication of where Martina went. It was clear from the open drawers and closets in the bedrooms that the Gable family had left in a hurry, but he discovered no clue about their destination.
    He slumped down on Martina’s bed, tired and frustrated and depressed. He had been so sure he’d find her here that he hadn’t considered what to do if he didn’t.
    He hadn’t intended on falling asleep right there in her room, but that’s where he found himself late the next morning when he woke. Still unsure what he’d do, he