Part 23 (1/2)
”No, but...” Autumn grinned. ”I came up with this fabulous idea.”
One of his eyebrows arched. ”Which is..?”
”We hire a hypnotist. We get someone to put me in a hypnotic trance and maybe I'll remember where I saw him. I've seen it done on the cop shows on TV and it works like a charm.”
”Unfortunately, this isn't TV.”
”I know, but it's worth a try, don't you think?”
Ben pondered the notion. ”Might just be. I'll put Jennifer to work on it Monday.”
”Too late. I've got a guy lined up to come over at eleven in the morning. Tomorrow's Sat.u.r.day. You don't have to go to work. I was thinking you could be here to listen in case I said something important.”
”I was planning to go into the office...”
”It might work, Ben.”
He smiled. ”I suppose work can wait. If you're game, we'll see what you come up with.”
They talked a bit about the idea of using hypnotism as a memory stimulus, but as time pa.s.sed the conversation grew more and more stilted and the looks that pa.s.sed between them, more and more heated.
Ben stood up. ”I think it's time we went to bed.” He reached out, caught her hand and urged her to her feet. Autumn made a funny little squeak as he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
They made love as pa.s.sionately as they had on the boat and after the second time, Autumn drifted into a deep, trouble-free sleep.
Autumn's eyes popped open and she snapped bolt upright, her heart hammering madly from the shock of her latest dream. The clock on the nightstand read two forty-five a.m.
”Oh, G.o.d, Ben!”
He reached over and clicked on the lamp next to the bed. They were using a small tape recorder now and it sat on the nightstand. The morning after, they transcribed whatever new information, if any, Autumn had received.
Ben reached for the palm-sized machine and turned it on. ”Slow down. Tell me what you saw.”
”I-I can't believe it. It was just...just like Riker said.” She looked up at him. ”There's another little girl, Ben. She's there in the house with the others.”
Ben frowned. ”It's pretty coincidental, don't you think, that you would dream about another little girl right after you talked to Riker. Are you sure this didn't happen because he mentioned it, put the thought into your mind? The power of suggestion can be extremely strong.”
She raked back her heavy auburn curls with a shaky hand. ”I don't know, I...I don't think so, but maybe...” She looked up at him. ”Until the very end, it was just like the other dreams. The women were in the kitchen cooking supper. Then the blond man walked in. The conversation was exactly the same until they started to sit down at the table and the man asked where Mary was.”
”Mary? That was the little girl's name?”
She nodded. ”He was talking to the older woman-the one he calls Rachael. Then he said, Rachael, where's Mary?'”
”What did Rachael say?” Ben asked softly, the tape whirring quietly in the background.
”Rachael said Mary was being punished, she wasn't going to get any supper until she learned to answer to the name she had been given.”
”So Mary's not her real name, just like with Molly. How old was she?”
”I think...somewhere between five and seven. She looks just like Molly when she was that same age.”
”What happened next?”
Autumn closed her eyes and allowed the dream to resurface in her mind. ”The little girl walked from the other room to the kitchen door. She stopped and the blond man stood up. He said he would deal with Mary. That she was old enough for a visit to his workshop in the garage. That's when I woke up.”
She looked at him and tears welled in her eyes. ”Oh, G.o.d, Ben, what if the dream is real and he's abducted another little girl?”
Ben turned off the tape recorder and pulled her into his arms. Autumn clung to his neck, her cheek pressed against his. She tried not to cry but tears began to leak from beneath her lashes and roll down her cheeks.
She didn't know how much more of this she could take. How much more either of them could handle.
When in G.o.d's name would all of this be over?
She felt Ben's hands moving gently up and down her back, easing the tremors running through her.
”It's all right, honey. It doesn't do any good to cry. Believe me, I know.”
Autumn silently nodded. She held on to him a moment more, then dragged in a shaky breath and eased away. ”I think it was real, Ben.”
The sigh he released sounded weary. ”As real as any of this, you mean.”
”Yeah...as real as a dream can be.”
He s.h.i.+fted to the side of the bed and stood up. He pulled on the dark brown terrycloth robe he had brought with him the last time he had spent the night. ”I want to go over everything you saw one more time and I want to replay the tape.”
”All right.”
”I think we need a pot of coffee.”
”Good idea.” Autumn reached for her pink quilted robe and walked past him out of the bedroom into the kitchen.
”We've got to talk to the police,” Ben said, trailing along behind her. ”We need to know if a child who fits the description of the one in your dream has come up missing in the last few months. It would have to be fairly recent if Mary isn't ready to accept her new name.”
”That's what I was thinking.”
”I'll call Doug Watkins in the morning. See what I can find out.”
”If we tell the police the truth, they won't believe us.”
”Doug's a pretty good guy,” Ben said. ”I think he might do us a favor.”
”If a child was abducted, it couldn't have happened anywhere around here or we would have seen it on the news. Maybe he kidnapped her in another state.”
”Could be. h.e.l.l, maybe he lives halfway across the country and we've been looking in the wrong place all along.”
Autumn shook her head. ”Maybe, but I don't think so.” She padded over to the cupboard and pulled out a bag of fresh ground coffee. ”I saw him once, remember? I travel some, but I have a hunch it was somewhere not that far away.”
”You never know-maybe your hypnotist will help us figure it out.”
She glanced over to where he stood next to the breakfast bar. He looked worried and exhausted. ”I hope so,” she said. ”G.o.d, I hope so.”