Escape Your Nightmares

By Zoey Mahrie Taylor

When Christie Livingston wakes in the morning, she suffers heart palpitations and shivers with fear. Lately, her sinister, recurring dreams have been featuring visions of kidnappings, home invasions, and motorcycle gangs. At times, this retired Kelowna, British Columbia, resident questions her own sanity. She especially worries about her family and friends when they make appearances in her dreams. Christie prays that these events remain in her subconcious alone.

But soon, Christie’s worst nightmares are manifested when her best friend’s young granddaughter is abducted from school. With a fierce winter storm approaching, authorities launch desperate efforts to obtain the handicapped child’s safe return. A massive manhunt— for someone in Christie’s life— begins in earnest.

A roller coaster ride of drama and suspense, Escape Your Nightmares reveals the twisted thinking of a disturbed serial killer and touches upon the terror produced by a contagious and potentially fatal disease. , Author Zoey Taylor’s new psycho-thriller addresses topics of current relevance while holding you captive to a tension-filled tale. Author's Website www.mahriesradiodreams.com EARLY REVIEWS Zoey Taylor has done it again with her signature storytelling and believable characters. Escape Your Nightmares holds our attention when Chrisite's premonitions become all too real; a gang fight leads to the abduction of an innocent child. Throw in a bit of HIN! flu, a school lockdown, and a desperate search for two unpredictable murderers, and you've got another page-turner with a fast-moving plot that you won't be able to put down. Janeah Rose, author of Finding Happiness Without Children. I loved reading your novel. While some aspects of Escape Your Nightmares dealt with subjects outside my usual milieu, I found the experience both enlightening and educational. I feel like Christie-- her family and friends are people I've known for ages and about whom I care. In Paolo's case, I'd sum it up as "power of love" and power of prayer" equals justice. Karma suggests his next life will find him learning some tough lessons the hard way! Sylvia Port, retired Violent Crime Analyst Once you begin reading Escape Your Nightmares by Zoey Taylor, you won't want to wait to find out what happens next! the plot as well as the characters reflect the interesting twists and turns of current-day events in contemporary society. Dee Battista, Realtor

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781440198823

Zoey Mahrie Taylor

Zoey- Mahrie Taylor is a former Learning Disabilities/Primary Teacher from Kelowna, British Columbia. She received her teaching degree from UBC and later earned several counselling certificates. For a time she owned a book store in her home city. Zoey has travelled extensively but still believes the Okanagan Valley to be one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Her adventures have touched on the British Isles, Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Northen Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Costa Rica, Mexico, Belize, the Caribbean, Alaska, and almost everywhere in North America. Wanderlust can be addictive but it also is the best antidote for writer's block. Zoey-Mahrie is the mother of three adult children and one white puppy. When she is not writing, she is either golfing or reading! Zoey is currently working on a new novel. Visit her website for more detailed information. www.mahriesradiodreams.com

Book preview

Copyright © 2009 Zoey Taylor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-9881-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-9883-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-9882-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009913585

iUniverse rev. date: 11/28//2020

Contents

Advance Reviews

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

EPILOGUE

Follow Your Dreams

Reviews

ALSO BY ZOEY TAYLOR

Follow Your Dreams

Advance Reviews

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Once you begin reading Escape Your Nightmares by Zoey Taylor, you won’t want to put the book down. It is tied in with interesting twists of current-day events that makes it even more convincing to relate to. I enjoy reading Zoey’s books and look forward to more stories to follow.

—Dee Baptistta, realtor

Zoey Taylor has done it again with her great storytelling and believable plot and characters. Escape Your Nightmares, the sequel to Follow Your Dreams, holds our attention when Christie’s nighttime premonitions become all too real; and a gang fight leads to the abduction of an innocent child. Throw in a bit of H1N1 flu, a school lockdown, and a desperate search for two unpredictable murderers, and you’ve got another a page-turner that you won’t be able to put down.

—Janeah Rose, author of Finding Happiness without Children

I loved reading your novel! While some of Escape Your Nightmares dealt with subjects outside my usual milieu, I found the experience both enlightening and educational. I feel like Christie—her family and friends are people I’ve known for ages and about whom I care. In Paolo’s case, I’d sum it up as power of love and power of prayer equals justice. Karma suggests his next life will find him learning some tough lessons the hard way!

—Sylvia Port, retired violent crime analyst

Escape Your Nightmares is a work of fiction. Although it contains incidental references to actual people and places, these references are used merely to lend the fiction a realistic setting. All other names, characters, places, business establishments, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. With one exception, any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Heather Zais from Kelowna, the psychic mentioned in this book, actually does help to locate missing persons; and she had worked on cases for the police in British Columbia, Canada.

Author Web site:

www.mahriesradiodreams.com

This novel is

dedicated to my parents, Alan and Beth

Patterson, who always told me that I could do anything

that I set my mind to do.

Acknowledgments

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Thanks to my husband, Brian, who cooked our meals when I really got into my writing and who insisted that I should keep writing when the ideas arrived because he wanted me to follow my dreams. Thanks to my daughter Holly Rebecca Davis, who is wiser than her years and has a knack for proofreading along with a good smattering of common sense. I suspect that one day soon, she will become a best-selling author. Thanks to my daughter Karen Mary-Beth Davis, who has always believed in me and supported me. Thanks to my daughter Tracy Marie Davis, a free spirit, for having the courage to walk her own path. She has taught me about detachment, courage, and compassion.

Thanks to Sylvia Beardmore Port, a fellow writer and retired violent crime analyst, who has given me invaluable advice about police procedures. Thanks to Karen Boreham, who gave me great information about the Amber Alert Program in British Columbia. Any police procedural mistakes in this novel that you may find are entirely my fault and are no reflection upon any of my information sources.

Thanks to my friend Heather Zais for her support and inspiration. Heather, from Kelowna, British Columbia, has been psychic since birth and has been involved in many missing-person cases, has diagnosed illnesses of hundreds of people, and has clients around the world. Thanks to Janeah Rose, my intuitive writer friend, who has given me both support and inspiration. Janeah Rose, I hope to see you and your book, Finding Happiness without Children, on Oprah one day soon.

Thanks to my friend Janice. The information she gave me was invaluable. Janice spends her life helping others and is a true earth angel. Thanks to my friend Caprice Desjardins-Paulson for her steadfast friendship and support. She has become my adoptive sister and has taken the place of the sister I never had. She too qualifies as an earth angel. Thanks to Shawn Hickey, a hardworking and dedicated paramedic, for his medical knowledge and point of view. Thanks, Shawn, for helping me get my facts straight.

Thanks to Kathi Wittkamper, my editorial consultant, for her invaluable suggestions and guidance.

Chapter 1

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Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

—Acts 2:17

C hristie wondered if she was losing her mind. During the day, life went on as usual; but almost every night, she had dreams that were causing her to shiver with fear and to wake with heart palpitations. Were the nightmares a symptom of frightening personality traits that were waiting to strike and obliterate her rational mind, or were they warning her about future events? She tried to push the dreams away, but they pushed harder to stay.

Was she going crazy? As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she turned and faced her sleepy husband and appealed for his understanding and honesty.

Blake. Are you awake?

I am now.

Do you think I’m crazy?

He looked bewildered. Why do you ask? Of course you’re not crazy. You’re one of the sanest people I’ve ever met.

It’s my nightmares.A few weeks ago I dreamt about a fire in a church, and a few days later, the Lakewood Baptist Church burned down. Last week, I dreamt about a car-bus collision; and two days later, my dream happened, exactly the way I saw it in my nightmare. Remember? I’m either crazy or psychically picking up on disasters. I don’t like either scenario.

Honey, either way, you can’t do much about it. Just relax. Ask the doctor for something to help you sleep.

Christie looked at her husband with frustration. "It’s not about sleeping—it’s about what happens when I sleep! Worst of all, lately, my dreams have been about kidnappings, home invasions, and guns. Faces are starting to come to me, and I’ve seen flashes of both Paolo and Joy. It scares me. What does it mean?"

Blake turned and put his arm around his wife. Christie, you’re the trained counsellor. Maybe you could talk to one of your peers about this.

She jumped out of bed, and her green eyes flashed with fury. "I knew it. You do think I’m crazy."

"No, I don’t, darling. I know very well how accurate your dreams can be. You were the one who dreamed about my face before we met. Remember? I just think you need to talk to someone who knows more about this stuff than I do. Now let’s get up and have some breakfast."

Blake got out of bed, put his arms around his wife and gave her a kiss on the cheek to brush away her tears of frustration.

***

Christie was fascinated by dreams. Ten years ago, she was riveted by recurring dreams and followed them—literally— all the way to Portugal. For a couple of years before she flew to Portugal, Christie had been experiencing dreams that revealed settings that were obviously Portuguese or Spanish in nature. As time went on, the dreams revealed the face of a handsome man with magnetic grey eyes. The dreams of Portugal and the handsome man’s face occurred frequently and insistently, and it was at that point that she determined that she was destined to travel to Portugal.

With a few close girlfriends, Christie finally followed her soul’s desire and went to Portugal, where she met and fell in love with her husband, Blake Livingstone. Ever since her personal experience with the prophetic value of dreams, Christie had learned to employ the dreams of her clients and friends to help resolve their troubling issues. She believed that dreams, which were messages from the soul, were often a subconscious attempt to resolve problems; and she spent a great deal of time on the Web site Dream Dictionaries.

Christie usually looked forward to her dreams, and she kept a notepad and pen by her bedside. But then her dreams inexplicitly transformed into horrifying almost-nightly movies of home invasions, robberies, and kidnappings. Her nightmares were frightening and confusing, and she prayed that they would come to an end. She willed her nightmares to stop. Briefly, they did.

Christie had trained herself to remember her dreams every morning, and if they were particularly fascinating, she would share them with Blake; and often, they would have a good laugh together. Blake, on the other hand, would swear that he hardly ever dreamed; but when he did, he would eagerly share his nighttime adventures with his wife.

Blake tended to be a quiet hypochondriac, and one night, his dreams took his minor indigestion to the worst-possible scenario. He shared his bizarre dream with Christie. Christie, you won’t believe what I dreamed. I was in a hospital waiting for a heart transplant, and the heart-lung machine went quiet. They sent the heart back because they thought I’d died! The doctor discovered that the machine was off because the plug had come out of the socket … and then they sent me home!

Honey, you just had your annual medical check, and everything was fine. So what do you think the message of your dream might be? coaxed Christie with a twinkle in her eye.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m perfectly healthy, and I shouldn’t worry so much. But I’m concerned about this rash on my leg—I think it might be skin cancer.

Blake! Stop it! Christie squealed and threw a pillow at him. That was the beginning of their pillow fight. Pillows flew back and forth; and finally, Blake’s ancient feather pillow exploded, and the room was filled with fluttering feathers. They both collapsed in laughter, and T-Bone looked up at them with doggie astonishment.

Blake burst out with one of his famous one-liners. Sometimes you act so young that you grow pimples!

What? Very funny. Her voice was filled with sarcasm. But, honey, I’m the one who keeps you young! Blake just grinned.

Chapter 2

T en years had passed since Christie and her friend Allison had met and married their second husbands, and God had let them get a lot of good living done in those years. The two friends had been through many twists and turns of fortune, and their friendship remained strong. When they got together, time seemed to fall away; and they giggled and gossiped about husbands, ex-husbands, and things that were dear to their hearts.

Christie, with her heart-shaped face and sea green eyes, still had her slim figure; but her long copper hair was now cut in a short pixie style. Christie’s curly brown-haired friend Allison was tall and athletic with shapely legs that still attracted a lot of male attention. Allison worked full-time as a special-needs teacher and maintained a wardrobe of business suits and classy sweaters and slacks. Allison always had coordinating colors and matching accessories and scarves while Christie, since early retirement, usually wore jeans and sweaters and felt underdressed when she stood next to her girlfriend. In jest, they still referred to themselves as the Portrait and the Print.

Christie’s husband, Blake, had aged well too; but his once salt-and-pepper hair was now totally white. He didn’t have a vain bone in his body and laughed at Christie when she suggested that he dye his hair back to its natural color. What you saw was what you got, and what you got was very pleasing to the eyes.

Darling, I don’t mind you being a short ass, so don’t harp on my white hair.

Blake, I wasn’t. I just thought—

I know. You had good intentions. And at least you’re more than five feet tall!

Just barely. Last time she was measured, she was only five foot two, so time had stolen an inch. Better not lose any more.

His figure was trim, and his knowing silver eyes still had their mischievous twinkle. Despite his air of mischief, he was a very powerful man in his own right and was well respected by everyone he knew. His voice was soft, but everyone understood there was power and wisdom there, and no one dared to cross Blake Livingston.

Christie and Blake lived in the city of Kelowna, British Columbia, in a town house that was only steps to the sandy beach. Christie had spent months redecorating, and the lovely pastel colors and mirrors that reflected the lake gave them a feeling of peace. Their town house boasted small skylights along one side of the roof, and from these skylights, she had hung crystal pendants and prisms. The effect was magical, and depending on the direction of the sunlight at any given time, they had a different light show.

She had transformed her office into a combination writing and meditation centre, and to Christie, it felt sacred. Outside their front door, they had placed a fountain sprouting angels and lily pads, and they had already received several unsolicited offers for purchase from envious hopeful buyers. They lived in a miniature paradise.

Kelowna was built on the eastern shores of Lake Okanagan, and warm summers and mild winters had given it the nickname of Napa North. Wineries dotted the valley, and every spring and fall, the