Part 33 (2/2)
It was a little after midnight when she lost her battle with exhaustion and finally fell asleep.
At half-past-two, she began to dream.
She was back in the house where Molly lived, in the steamy kitchen with the long wooden table and the old-fas.h.i.+oned lamp hanging over it. Molly was there, along with Rachael and the little girl the women called Mary. But the blond man wasn't with them and it wasn't dinner time, as it had always been before.
The hands on the old oak clock above the kitchen door read four in the afternoon. Autumn watched as Molly climbed up on a chair next to the table.
”I just need to mark the hem,” Rachael said, ”then we'll be finished.”
Molly made no reply, just stood there staring down at her feet, encased in low-heeled st.u.r.dy leather shoes. She was wearing a high-waisted dress, her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s just beginning to bud beneath the fabric. The gown came to her ankles. White cotton with small pink flowers embroidered across the bodice and around the bottom of the skirt.
”We've only got a little time left,” Rachael said.
”I know.” Molly moved and Rachael tugged on the dress.
”You're fidgeting, Ruthie. I told you to stand still.” She folded the hem up and marked it with a pin. ”You want to look pretty for him, don't you? You want him to be pleased?”
”I guess so.”
Sarah, the teenage girl, toyed with her dress, a printed cotton that came well below her knees. ”I never please him, no matter what I do.”
”That isn't true.” Rachael jabbed another pin into the hem of Molly's dress.
”It is so true.” Next to the chair, Sarah turned and smoothed a hand over her stomach, and Autumn's heart began to hammer wildly.
She bit back a scream as she shot up in bed and Ben came awake beside her. She swallowed as he reached for her hand. She could still see the swollen outline of Sarah's body-the roundness of the baby she carried in her young belly.
Ben sat in his office.
After Autumn's latest dream, he'd made himself go to work. He had to get away, had to do something besides think of Molly. If he didn't, he was going to go crazy.
He spoke to his attorney, Marvin Steinberg; his vice president, Jerry Vincent; his financial officer, Bill Simpson; and also John Yates at Russell-Bingham, the small investment banking firm that had agreed to represent them. Russ Petrone had managed to lease, then sub-lease, the building near his store in the Pioneer Square district, stifling A-1 for a while, but it wasn't enough. He was tired of A-1's constant threats and determined to do something to stop them. He and his staff had been working hard to solve the problem.
Ben almost smiled. So far his ducks were lining up in a very nice row.
He had just finished talking to Yates when Pete Rossi phoned. Pete rattled off the info he'd managed to dig up on the Community Brethren Church and the Brotherhood of Lazarus, most of which Ben knew. Except that Samuel Beecher had been arrested on charges of s.e.xual contact with a minor as well as conspiracy in an alleged forced marriage of a teenage girl. Both charges were dropped for insufficient evidence, Rossi said. No one would testify against him. And then the girl disappeared, probably packed up and s.h.i.+pped off to another plural family somewhere else.
But Beecher had fallen under the Was.h.i.+ngton State radar and at this time remained there.
Ben tried not to think what the information might mean for Molly.
”I haven't gotten into Beecher's personal life,” Pete continued. ”I'll start digging and get back to you.”
”The sooner the better,” Ben said.
He left the office, his mind still on overload, went down to the climbing gym and spent a couple of hours on the wall. He'd been doing that fairly regularly since he had started Autumn's cla.s.ses. He'd even taken a couple of private lessons from Jess Peters, a climber who worked at his downtown store. He and Jess had made a couple of afternoon trips up into the mountains to practice. Maybe he was hoping to impress Autumn, he wasn't completely sure. Whatever the reason, he was really coming to like climbing and he wanted to give it his all.
It was late in the day by the time he got back upstairs to his office. He started in on the stack of paperwork he'd been avoiding all week that now looked like a good way to keep his mind from straying to places he didn't want to go.
It was the call from Deputy Cobb that took him by surprise. Jenn buzzed him on the intercom and told him who was on the line. He steeled himself before he picked up the phone. Jenn knew the whole story now and as he should have expected, she was doing everything in her power to keep him sane and help him find his daughter.
”McKenzie.”
”It's Deputy Cobb. I figured you'd want to know as soon as possible. An arrest was made this afternoon in the Vreeland murder case.”
His chest tightened.
”It'll be big news when it hits the airways but the information hasn't yet been released.”
”Who was it?” Ben asked.
”The Beecher brothers-Samuel Beecher's sons, Joseph and Jedediah. They said they spoke to G.o.d and he told them to kill Priscilla Vreeland.”
Ben leaned forward in his chair, his mind spinning. ”Where are they now?”
”In custody at the city jail in Warren.”
”I need to talk to them.”
”I don't think the authorities will let you.”
”I've got to try. Thanks, Deputy. I really appreciate the call.”
”I figured it might be...you know...something that could help you find your daughter. I'd be grateful if you'd keep my name out of it though. I'd sure like to keep my job.”
”Your name won't come up. You have my word.” Ben hung up the phone and sat there for several moments, digesting the deputy's information. Then he dialed Autumn.
”I'm going up to Warren. They just arrested the two men who murdered Priscilla Vreeland.”
”Oh, my G.o.d.”
”Joseph and Jedediah Beecher-Samuel Beecher's sons. I don't know how I'm going to convince the police to let me talk to them, but I've got to find a way. I'll call you when I get back.”
”No way. If you think you're going up there without me, you're crazy. I'm coming with you.”
”Not this time. You got hurt before. I'm not taking any chances something like that might happen again.”
”I'm going, Ben. Either I go with you or I drive up there by myself.”
He clamped down on his jaw. He knew her well enough to know she wasn't making an idle threat. ”Dammit, Autumn-”
”I mean it, Ben.”
He sighed into the phone. ”Fine. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes.”
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