She was wearing black slacks and a black V-neck sweater so she wouldn’t stand out in the darkness, nice enough clothes that she wouldn’t look out of place in Luigi’s. She walked into the bar and stood just out of sight until she spotted him at a quiet booth at the back of the main dining room.
No one was with him. Perhaps he was waiting for someone. McKenzie wouldn’t want to make a scene in nice place like this. It was the perfect time to approach.
Autumn crossed the room and slid into the booth beside him.
“Don’t yell and don’t get mad. What I have to tell you will only take a minute.”
His jaw clamped down. He looked like the top of his head might blow off any minute. “Get out of here or I’m going to have you thrown out.”
“I went to see Gerald Meeks. I talked to him and he told me he didn’t kill Molly. I think he would be willing to tell you the same thing if you went there and asked him yourself.”
Something shifted in his features. “You went to the federal penitentiary to see Gerald Meeks?”
“Meeks was transferred to the facility in Sheridan, Oregon for good behavior. I drove down on Saturday.”
He sat back in the booth, his face an unreadable mask. “I hired a detective to check you out. You really are a teacher. In fact you have an extremely good reputation at the school where you work.”
“I’m not crazy. And I swear I’m not after your money.”
“So what do you want?”
“I think your daughter Molly is alive. I’ve seen her in my dreams. I don’t know where she is, but I think she is reaching out to me for help.”
“Why you? And if she really is alive, why would she wait until now?”
“I haven’t figured that part out. I think it has something to do with you…with me seeing you at the gym. I probably wouldn’t believe any of this myself except…”
“Except what?”
“This happened to me once before. I had a dream about my two best friends—the same dream over and over. In the dream, Jeff and Jolie and a third kid were killed in a car accident. I was only fifteen. I didn’t believe it would actually happen and I thought that even if I said something, no one would believe me, that they would just make fun of me.”
“What happened?”
“They went to a party and their car went off the road into a tree, just like in my dream. All three of them were killed.”
A long silence followed.
“I’m sorry,” Ben said.
“I can’t ignore it this time. I won’t. In my dream, I saw your daughter taken that day from in front of your house but the man I saw wasn’t Gerald Meeks. I’ve seen Molly as she is now, six years older, a lovely young girl approaching her teens. It’s her, Ben—the same pale blond hair, the same big blue eyes. She’s alive. I know it.”
He swallowed and glanced away. When he looked at her again, the pain in his eyes made an ache throb in her chest.
“Do you have any idea how hard this is for me? Can you begin to know the way I suffered when Molly was abducted? If I believe you, all that pain will surface again, all the terrible grief. If you’re wrong or even if you’re right and I can’t find her—I don’t think I can survive that kind of pain again.”
Autumn didn’t know what to say. She knew what she was asking, knew the terrible price Ben McKenzie would pay if she was wrong. But there was a lost young girl to think of. A child who seemed desperate for her help.
“We have to try. I lost three friends the last time. There was pain there, too, Ben.”
“If you’re wrong, I swear to God—”
“I could be. I won’t lie about it. This has only happened to me once before. But the dreams are so clear, so real. I see her face—the same face I saw in the newspapers. I hear the little boy, Robbie, calling her name.”
His head whipped toward her. “Robbie? Robbie Hines?”
“I don’t know his last name. They were playing together in the yard that day.”
He tightened his hand into a fist to keep it from trembling. “Robbie was there that day. It wasn’t in the papers.”
“Red hair and freckles?”
“That’s him.”
“You have to help me, Ben. You have no other choice.”
He took a deep breath and slowly released it. “I need to sleep on this. Pete came up with your address and phone number. Unless I regain my senses, I’ll be in touch with you soon.”
Autumn gave him a tentative smile, fighting to hold back tears. “Thank you.”
She started to get up from the booth as an exotic, olive-skinned woman walked up to the table. She was tall and elegantly thin, her skin silky smooth, the most beautiful woman Autumn had ever seen.
“Sorry I am late, querido, but the limo got tied up in traffic.” Her nearly black eyes swung to Autumn. “I see you have kept yourself entertained.”
“Autumn Sommers this is Delores Delgato.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Autumn said. “I didn’t mean to interfere with your evening, Ms. Delgato. I just needed to speak to Mr. McKenzie about a personal matter.”
“That is all right, chica. If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else.”
Ben frowned.
“I look forward to your call,” Autumn said to him, feeling awkward and desperate to escape.
Ben just nodded. As Autumn turned to walk away, he helped Delores Delgato remove her burgundy cashmere jacket then seated her beside him in the booth.
Winding her way through the tables toward the front door, Autumn stepped out into the crisp Seattle night air. She had accomplished her goal: convinced Ben McKenzie to listen and perhaps begin to believe her at least a little.
From now on, she didn’t think he would be able to turn away. Molly was his daughter. From the pain Autumn had seen in his face, it was obvious how much he loved her. If Molly was alive, he would have to try to find her.
He would have no other choice.
Ben endured his evening with Delores, all the while wishing the night would end. His mind was on Autumn Sommers and on Molly and whether or not he dared to believe she might still be alive.
Though Delores made it clear she expected him to join her in her suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, he declined. Sometime over the past few days, sex with the exotic model had lost its appeal. Like most of the women he dated, Delores required a lot of attention. Currently his attention was fixed somewhere else.
Leaving Delores fuming in the grandiose lobby of the five-star hotel, he walked the few blocks to his penthouse. The answering machine in his office was blinking. Next to it, a stack of papers waited in the fax machine.
He played back the phone messages, including one from Pete Rossi explaining the fax: more information Pete had collected on Autumn Sommers. Ben lifted the pages out of the machine, walked over and sank down in his butter-soft leather chair.
He skimmed through Pete’s report, the high points of which the detective had given him over the phone.
Autumn Kathleen Sommers. Born June 3, 1980 to Kathleen L. and Maxwell M. Sommers.
Kathleen Sommers had died