Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(244)

“Look what I found in the weeds over there.” Gabe appeared holding the red plastic gas can that was always kept in the garage.

“Anything left in it?” Ethan asked.

Gabe shook his head and threw the can down in disgust. “I don’t care if I have to order twenty-four-hour surveillance. I’m getting to the bottom of this.”

Rachel squeezed Kristy’s hand. “It’s a good thing the two of you stopped by. We would have had a hard time putting it out by ourselves.”

“We came over to bring Chip back. We also have something to tell you.” Kristy exchanged a conspiratorial smile with Ethan, and then her eyes widened. “Ethan, we forgot. We left the kids in the car.”

“Kids?” Rachel moved toward the front of the cottage.

“We took Rosie, too,” Ethan explained, as the rest of them followed. “Jane and Cal needed a break.”

“What do you have to tell us?” Rachel asked.

Ethan smiled. “Maybe we’ll let Chip break the news.”

They rounded the cottage. Kristy drew in her breath, and then all of them froze.

The Range Rover was missing. And there was no sign of the children.



Bobby Dennis couldn’t get enough air. He kept opening his mouth and trying to suck more in, but it was as if his lungs had shrunk. Both kids in the back were crying, and the boy wouldn’t stop yelling at him.

“You let us out right now, o r Gabe is going to shoot you with his gun! I mean it! He’s got a million guns, and he’ll shoot you, then cut you up with a knife!”

Bobby couldn’t stand it anymore. “Shut up or you’re going to make me wreck!”

The boy shut up, but the baby kept screaming. Bobby wanted to ditch the car and get away from them, but he couldn’t because he’d left his Lumina behind miles ago. It was parked near the road that led up to Heartache Mountain.

Bobby’d been so wired he hadn’t even seen the kids in the back when he’d jumped in the car. If he’d seen them, he sure as hell wouldn’t have given in to the temptation to steal the Range Rover.

How had everything gotten so screwed up? It was Rachel Snopes’s fault. If it wasn’t for the Temple, his parents wouldn’t have gotten divorced. Because of the Temple, his mom had gotten so religious that she’d driven his dad away.

Bobby still remembered how he used to have to go to services with her and listen to G. Dwayne Snopes preach, while his bitch of a wife sat there drinking in every word. G. Dwayne was dead, so Bobby couldn’t get back at him, but after all these years, he’d finally gotten back at his wife.

Except everything was going wrong.

Even though he’d been drunk, he knew now that he never should have torn apart the drive-in. But when he’d come into the snack shop, she’d looked so happy working there it made him sick. It wasn’t right she should be happy when his mom was bitching at him all the time, and his dad didn’t call him anymore.

Him and Joey and Dave had been drinking Mountain Dew and vodka during the second movie. Afterward, Bobby had wanted to party some more at this kid’s house he knew, but Joey and Dave said they were tired. Buncha losers. Bobby’d gotten rid of them, had some more vodka, then gone back to the drive-in. Everybody had left, so he’d sneaked in and sorta gone crazy.

It wasn’t till Saturday afternoon when he was driving around that he’d thought about the stuff he had locked in his trunk and started to worry about what he’d do if his mom or somebody found it. That’s when he’d spotted Rachel’s piece-of-shit Escort parked by those new condos. The street was quiet, nobody was around, and he’d been scared, so he’d hidden the stuff from his trunk under the boxes she had in the back. Today he’d heard she’d been arrested and put in jail. That made him feel good until he heard she’d got out right away.


He realized he was coming up too fast on the car ahead, and he swung into the left lane.

There was a pickup heading right toward him.

Adrenaline rushed through Bobby’s veins. A horn blared, and, at the last moment, the pickup shot off the road, landing crookedly in a ditch.

“You’re going too fast!” the boy cried from the back-seat.

Bobby wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the shoulder of his T-shirt. “I told you to shut up!”

If only his mom hadn’t found the weed in his closet this morning, she wouldn’t have kicked him out of the house. She’d said it was for good, but he hadn’t believed her until he’d gone back a couple of hours ago and seen a locksmith’s truck parked in the drive. The truck had a sign on the side that said 24 Hour Service.

He didn’t know what to do. The last he’d heard, his dad was down in Jacksonville, so he decided to go there, but he didn’t know if his dad would want him.

He’d drunk a couple of beers, smoked some weed, and as he was driving around, he’d passed the road that led up Heartache Mountain. He couldn’t stand the fact that Rachel was out of jail and probably still all-smiley and everything. The next thing he knew, he’d ditched his Lumina in the trees and climbed through the woods.

He figured Gabe and Rachel would be cleaning up the drive-in, and he decided to burn the house while they were gone. But just as he’d sneaked the gasoline can from the garage, Gabe had stepped out on the back porch. Bobby wasn’t crazy enough to burn the house when people were in it, so he’d thrown the gasoline on the garage instead.