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Jenna could see red warning lights blinking lazily against the night sky as she drove toward the radio tower.

The local cop on duty at the entrance to the utility road that led there waved her on by.

As she drove through the dark, ignoring the washboard texture of the seldom used road beneath the tires, she kept thinking of the man who had appeared in her dream.

Within minutes she reached the makeshift parking area at the base of the tower.

Several police vehicles were already there, lights still spinning.

She saw that they had set up spotlights around the bottom of the tower.

She swung her cruiser into an open spot, threw it into park, and killed the engine in a series of swift motions.

Jenna stepped out of the car and walked past the assembled officers, catching snippets of hushed conversations and a few glances from her team. She acknowledged them and headed for the area where she could see yellow tape fluttering in the artificial light.

Deputy Jake Hawkins broke away from the cluster of uniforms. His mouth was set in a grim line that did nothing to hide the warmth in his eyes when they met hers.

“Jenna,” he greeted her. “It’s an ugly scene this time. You’re not going to believe this one.” Then he added with his voice pitched low, “Unless of course …”

She realized he was wondering if she’d already dreamed about this.

Aside from her friend and mentor, former Sheriff Frank Doyle, Jake was the only person who knew about her gift, and she’d only recently confided in him about it.

When she just nodded in reply, Jake gave her a knowing look that spoke volumes about their shared history and the unconventional nature of some of their cases.

Jenna wondered if he’d guessed how eerily accurate her dream had been this time.

“Any idea how long until Melissa gets here?” she asked, trying tried to focus on logistics such as the arrival of Melissa Stark, the Genesius County coroner, and her forensics team.

“Shouldn’t be long now. But Jenna—” His gaze held hers, anchoring her even as the whirlwind of thoughts spun faster in her mind.

She swallowed, forcing herself to meet his intensity head-on. “I know. I just—of course I need to see it.”

Jake gave a brief nod, one that said he understood more than she sometimes wanted him to. Before he could respond, approaching footsteps drew their attention.

“Sheriff, Deputy,” said Officer Mike Donovan, jogging towards them with the urgency of a rookie on his first big case.

A stocky young man with a receding hairline and kind eyes, he usually radiated calm.

But his expression told Jenna this was not the kind of scene any officer could approach lightly.

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you around to the scene. ”

“Fill me in, Mike,” Jenna said, falling into step beside him.

“Two teenagers, Lola Wigton and Max Riker, found the body about an hour ago,” Mike said. “They’re pretty shaken up. We’ve put them in one of our patrol cars, and Officer Delgado’s with them now.”

“Did they give a statement yet?” she asked.

“They did.” Mike’s words came out in short bursts. “Said they were climbing up the hill below the tower, just messing around in the woods, having a bit of fun. When they reached the tower, they stumbled upon it.”

Jenna’s mind flashed back to her own teenage years, to secret escapades and midnight adventures, many of them with Piper as her companion—so innocent, by comparison.

Another small cluster of officers stood near the base of the tower, their silhouettes somber against the artificial lights. Jenna’s breath caught in her throat when she spotted the body.

There, bound to the base of the radio tower with a tangle of electronic cables, was the victim.

He was a middle-aged man, his bearded face frozen in a look of sheer terror.

The cables binding him were pulled tight, cutting into his flesh and creating an intricate web of wires and wounds, and his arms and legs were spread wide.

Jenna’s gaze lingered on his neck, where a deep ligature mark was visible—consistent with strangulation.

She recognized him, but not from any local community. It was the same man who had haunted her dream just hours ago. Of course she had known he was dead, but hadn’t known how or where.

***

Now he hung limply from the tower structure, his arms outstretched, and the cables coiled around him like a grotesque nest of snakes. This wasn’t a random act of violence. This was deliberate. Planned. Personal.

It was one thing to dream of a face, to hear its disembodied voice shouting warnings at her from beyond the veil of sleep. It was another to stand here, to see that person in stark white floodlights, flesh and blood and unmistakably real.

Jake must have seen the shock in her eyes. He touched her arm, a gesture of both solidarity and concern. His unspoken question hung in the air: The dream?

They exchanged a glance that conveyed more than words ever could.

Jenna knew Jake would keep the rest of the officers from learning about this latest supernatural episode.

They’d whispered enough about her as it was, always wondering how it was that she solved so many cases, what information she had access to that no one else did.

“Where are the kids who found him?” Jenna asked.

Jack led her back to a cruiser parked in the lot, where Officer Maria Delgado stood just outside the open back door.

The two teenagers sat huddled together in the back seat, their youthful faces ghostly pale.

The petite brunette, Lola, sobbed quietly into her boyfriend’s shoulder.

Max, a red-haired boy, looked shell-shocked, his arm wrapped protectively around her.

“Let me talk to them,” she said to Jake, her voice softening as she approached the distraught pair.

She crouched down to meet them at eye level, her badge gleaming faintly in the muted light.

“Lola, Max,” she said gently, “I’m Sheriff Graves.

I know this is difficult, but can you tell me what happened? ”

Lola lifted her head, eyes wide and filled with a horror no teenager should have to witness. “We... we were just messing around,” she managed between sobs, her voice tremulous. “We weren’t hurting anything. We didn’t expect to find anything like—like that.”

Max took a deep breath, his grip on Lola tightening as he tried to be brave for both of them. “We were playing flashlight tag in the woods,” he said, his words shaky but determined to be helpful. “She dashed ahead, and that’s when she saw him. She screamed, and then I caught up with her.”

Jenna nodded, absorbing their account with a seriousness that told them she believed every word. “You did the right thing, calling it in,” she assured them, glancing at Maria who moved in to continue comforting the kids. “The officers will make sure you get home soon.”

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, pulling her attention back to the immediate task at hand. It was a message from Melissa Stark saying she was in the service road, on the way with her team. Then a sudden commotion at the edge of the parking area indicated that someone else had arrived.

Jenna stood, watching as a tall, imposing figure strode towards them with long, purposeful steps.

The other officers parted like water around a rock, making way for Colonel Chad Spelling from the State Highway Patrol.

He cut a tall and authoritative figure in his pristine uniform, exuding command as he approached the scene with the seasoned confidence of a veteran law enforcement officer.

“Sheriff Graves,” Spelling said, his voice as commanding as the uniform he wore. The man carried himself with an air of authority that left no doubt he was used to being in charge. “What have you got here?”

Jenna gestured towards the tower, meeting Spelling’s gaze with her own steady one. “Just around the side, Colonel. Where you see the tape and the lights.”

She and Jake followed Spelling back to the crime scene. Jake explained, “Looks like he was strangled and then tied to the tower.”

Spelling’s eyes widened with surprise. After a long moment he said, “That’s got to be Marcus Derrick,” he said, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “A ham radio operator who lived outside of Pinecrest.”

Jenna felt a jolt of clarity and affirmation. This certainly fit with the ghost who had identified himself as Charlie Tango 4 Caesar Alpha.

“You know him, Colonel?” Jenna asked, her curiosity piqued by the man’s reaction.

Spelling nodded, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair as he processed the scene before him.

“Not personally, but we’ve been looking for him since last night, using an old driver’s license photo taken before he went off the grid.

Got a call from a ham operator in Nebraska, said he was mid-conversation with an operator with a Missouri call sign when something happened.

Sounded violent. We traced the call sign to Derrick’s place in Pinecrest, but when we got there, the door was open, signs of a struggle, but no Derrick. ”

Jenna absorbed the new information, her mind racing to connect the dots between her dream and what the Colonel had just told them.

The ranting man in her dream, his paranoia about electronic devices, the call sign he gave her—in its twisted way, and made more and more sense.

Derrick had been trying to alert her to his fate.

That’s why he reached out, why he came to her with that vivid, desperate plea.

Before she could voice her thoughts, the sound of an approaching vehicle cut through the morning air. Melissa Stark had arrived, her team unloading equipment with clinical efficiency. Melissa herself, a no-nonsense woman in her fifties, made her way towards Jenna with long, brisk strides.

“Well, isn’t this a cozy little party,” Melissa remarked dryly as she reached them. “Hello Colonel. Glad to see you Jenna, Jake. Too bad it’s always this kind of situation.” She didn’t waste time on formalities, diving straight into her work.

“Cause of death appears to be strangulation,” she said after a quick examination, pointing to the deep ligature mark on Derrick’s neck. “Likely with the same type of cable he’s bound with. I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

“How long ago do you think he was killed?” Spelling asked.

“I’d say he’s been dead for some twenty-four hours now,” Melissa said. “His body was probably put here shortly after he was killed.”

Jenna nodded, grateful for Melissa’s efficiency and unwillingness to dance around the grim reality of the situation. She knew the coroner’s findings would corroborate what she already suspected, what she had seen so clearly in her mind’s eye.

“So the corpse has been here since last night,” Spelling mused, looking all around.

“I guess it’s not surprising that nobody found the body until a little while ago.

The base of the tower isn’t visible from the highway, not even from the service road, with all these trees and brush.

If the kids hadn’t found the corpse, I don’t suppose anyone would have until they noticed vultures circling the tower. ”

“Killer must have used that service road to bring the body here,” Jake commented. “But too many of our cars have driven it now, probably no evidence to be found there.”

As Melissa’s team gathered around the body, recording everything before removing it, Jenna turned her attention back to Colonel Spelling.

“So what do you think, Colonel?” she asked.

“Since Derrick lived in Pinecrest, in Cable County, this’ll be a joint investigation between the State Police and the Pinecrest PD,” Spelling said, glancing at his watch as if he already had a dozen other places to be.

“Since the body was found on your turf, it’s your case as well.

I’ll be heading to Pinecrest first thing in the morning, in just a few hours.

Care to join me at the police station there? ”

Jenna glanced at Jake, who nodded. “My deputy and I can both be there,” she assured Spelling.

“Good,” he said, “Meet me there at 8 AM sharp.”

Jenna thanked him, and she and Jake returned to their cars. The events of the night—the dream, the murder, the strange coincidences—swirled in Jenna’s mind, a storm of questions without answers.

“I’ll pick you up for that meeting,” Jake said. “Meanwhile, try to get a few hours of sleep.”

“Thanks,” she replied.

“You had a dream about this, didn’t you?” he asked, voicing the question he’d kept to himself until he could talk to her alone.

“That’s right,” Jenna said. “And this isn’t an ordinary case, Jake. The way that body was treated—that was a message. I need to figure out what it means and whether more people are in danger.”