too-fast pounding of her heart.
Gerald Meeks looked her in the eye. “I would have told ’em, but they wouldn’t have listened if I had, so I just kept quiet.”
“Told them what?”
“You want the truth? I never laid eyes on Molly McKenzie. I didn’t kill her. I wasn’t anywhere near her. I just figured…let ’em keep guessing, what do I care? Kind of gave me a chuckle in the middle of the night, those cops all thinkin’ it was me.”
For several seconds Autumn just sat there. Of course, there was no way to know for sure if Gerald Meeks was telling the truth, but Autumn believed him completely.
From what she had read, after his arrest Meeks had bragged about the murders he had committed but he had never mentioned little Molly.
“Thank you for your candor, Mr. Meeks.”
“My…pleasure…” Meeks rose and so did she. She could feel his eyes on her all the way to the door.
Relief washed over her as the door closed behind her and she headed back down the hall. She returned to the screening area to be re-checked before being allowed to leave.
As she pushed through the doors of the main building and walked out into the sunshine, she took a deep breath of clean Oregon air. Though no one had physically touched her, she felt as if she needed a long, hot shower. She couldn’t wait till she got to her friend Sandy’s house so she could bathe and put on fresh clothes.
It was ridiculous. The facility was clean and well cared for but that didn’t change the way she felt. In truth, it was a dismal experience, but the trip had been worth it.
Autumn was even more convinced that Molly McKenzie was alive and reaching out to her for help.
She had to see Ben. This time Autumn had something to tell him that might make him listen. Or at least she hoped he would.
Sitting in the Coffee Bean Café across the street from the McKenzie building after work on Monday night, she felt like the stalker he believed her to be. She had no idea what time he might leave his office, but she had arrived at five-thirty, determined to wait until midnight if she had to.
Fortunately, Ben walked through the glass lobby doors onto the sidewalk at six-thirty. Autumn waited until he reached the corner, then slipped out of the café and followed him down the street, careful to keep her distance and stay in the shadows. She shuddered to think what McKenzie might do if he realized she was there.
She had no idea where he might be going, but she was hoping to find a place where she could corner him, make him listen without creating a scene. She kept pace with him—she didn’t want to lose him—but didn’t get too close.
She wondered where he was headed. Wherever it was, he walked with purpose as he always seemed to do, his long legs carrying him rapidly down the street. Another few blocks and she saw him go into a little Italian restaurant called Luigi’s. She had been there a couple of times and had enjoyed the food and the quiet atmosphere.
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
