Part 34 (1/2)
”I'll be waiting in the lobby.” She hung up before he could say more. He should have known she would want to go. It just wasn't her way to sit on the sidelines.
For the first time that day, Ben actually smiled. That incredible grit of hers was only one of the reasons he had fallen crazy in love with her.
Ben was late. Since he was always on time, Autumn began to worry. Pacing back and forth across the narrow, tile-floored lobby of her apartment building, she looked out at the street. She didn't see Ben's truck and checked her watch for the umpteenth time. She was reaching for her cell phone to see where he was when it started to ring.
She recognized his number and flipped open the phone. ”What's happened, Ben?”
”d.a.m.n truck won't start. I think I may have left the inside light on last night. Triple A's on the way but I don't have time to wait. We can take the Mercedes, but-”
”Let's take my car. Like you said, it's a lot less conspicuous. I'll pick you up in five minutes.”
She headed down to the parking garage, unlocked the car and tossed her overnight bag into the back, on top of the bag of climbing gear she always carried. A few minutes later, she pulled up in front of the ritzy Bay Towers, spotted Ben on the sidewalk and pulled over to the curb.
He leaned into the window on the pa.s.senger side. ”Want me to drive?”
”It isn't that far. You can take over once we get there.”
Amazingly, he didn't argue, just got in and leaned back in the seat. The set of his shoulders and the tight line of his jaw betrayed the tension humming through him.
”I didn't think it would go down this way,” he said.
She pulled the car up onto the freeway. ”You figured the law would cover for them.”
”After meeting Sheriff Crawford, I figured it could happen.”
She flicked him a glance. ”I wonder if one of the brothers is the blond man.”
Ben sighed. ”In a way I hope he is. In another way...”
”In another way, you don't want to wish that on Molly.”
He didn't answer, but she knew it was what he was thinking.
She merged her little SUV in with the traffic and headed north, out of the city.
”That last dream you had...” Ben said. ”I've been thinking a lot about it.”
”So have I.”
”Sarah was pregnant.”
”That's right.”
”She was young, you said. No more than fifteen.”
”That would be my guess.”
”So he's sleeping with her and she's only a kid.”
”We don't know for certain the baby is his.”
”But you believe that's the way it is. You figure he's sleeping with Rachael, too.”
Autumn didn't reply. She thought exactly that. ”There's something else, something that's been nagging me. Rachael said they only had a little time left. She said, You want to look pretty for him, don't you? You want to please him?'”
”So?”
”I keep seeing the dress Molly was wearing.” She chanced a quick look at Ben. ”You told me her birthday is August first. That's only a couple of days away.”
Ben straightened in his seat. ”Go on.”
”Molly is going to be twelve years old. In some places that's old enough to be married.” She didn't want to say the rest out loud. She knew what it would do to Ben. But time was running out. ”It looked like a wedding dress, Ben.”
”What?”
”Not the modern kind, but an old-fas.h.i.+oned dress like women wore in the past...like a lot of women in the church seem to wear.”
Ben's face went bone white. ”Jesus,” he said. ”Jesus.”
”If he's planning to marry her on her birthday, we've still got time to stop it. All we have to do is get his name and then we can find him. And I think the Beecher brothers may very well know the answers to both of those questions.”
Ben made no reply but his features looked etched in stone. Autumn drove a little too fast all the way to the off-ramp then pulled onto the two-lane road heading east. The Warren County seat was in the small town of Warren, a ways south of Route 20, about fifteen miles east off Interstate 5.
As they pulled into town, she spotted the county courthouse, one of those old-fas.h.i.+oned buildings with a rotunda, sitting in the middle of a nice gra.s.sy square. The police station was next door, a modern structure that seemed out of place in the quaint old logging community.
Autumn pulled up in front of the station and turned off the engine. ”Well, did you figure out how to convince the police to let us talk to the men?”
Ben's mouth barely curved. ”No, I didn't. I cheated. I called someone who could convince them for me.”
One of her eyebrows arched up. ”Who's that?”
”Burt Riker at the FBI. I told him our sources had led us to the kidnapping of a young girl in Idaho, which led us to the scene of the Vreeland murder. I told him we needed to talk to the brothers who had been arrested for the crime, that we believe they have knowledge that might prove useful in finding my daughter.”
”And he went for it?”
”I think he's intrigued. He made the call to Warren, at any rate. Since kidnapping's a federal offense, if we come up with anything, the feds will jump in. The police are letting us speak to Jed Beecher. Apparently, he's confessed to the murder and willing to talk about it. His brother, Joseph, has lawyered up.”
The police station hummed with activity, though the brothers' arrest for the murder had not yet been released. It soon would be. Autumn hoped she and Ben were long gone by the time the little town was overrun by the media.
Ben checked in with the stocky sergeant behind the front desk, who steered them to a police lieutenant named Frazier. It was obvious the man wasn't happy the FBI was sticking its nose into his investigation.
”Apparently you've got friends in high places, McKenzie,” said Frazier. He was tall, dark and not the least bit handsome. ”Follow me and make it brief. You've got fifteen minutes.”
Autumn followed the lieutenant, Ben right behind her, toward the rear of the station into a building adjoining the main structure, through a barred entrance that slid open to admit them then closed with an unnerving clang. Lieutenant Frazier led them into a grim room furnished only with a table and chairs. There was a mirror on one wall, one-way gla.s.s, Autumn was sure.
”Like I said, fifteen minutes.”