The Summit (26 page)

 

The long drive to Idaho through the middle of the towering Cascade Mountain Range, across the wide swath of agricultural land in the center of the state, to the cow town-turned-city of Spokane and on up to Sandpoint might have been pleasant if thoughts of Molly and little Ginny hadn't been so heavy on their minds.

Ben took the 90 Freeway east, the fastest route. Still, the over three-hundred-mile journey left them exhausted by the time they reached the quaint little town of Sandpoint just fifty miles south of the Canadian border.

It was one of those all-American towns being rapidly discovered by tourists thanks to a world-class ski resort at the edge of the town. It boasted a main street lined with old-fashioned buildings, many of them converted to charming restaurants and cozy boutiques, and a beautiful lake as a backdrop.

Ben got a room at the Best Western, which wasn't fancy but had a gorgeous view of Lake Pend Oreille and the surrounding mountains. Tired from the drive, they ate at the restaurant in the motel and went to bed shortly thereafter.

Autumn didn't dream that night, or if she did she didn't recall. She should have been comforted, but instead she was worried. What if she didn't receive any more information? What if something had happened to Molly?

She didn't say anything to Ben, but she was sure he was wondering that same thing. Over coffee and pastries in the restaurant off the lobby, he asked about it.

“You slept straight through last night.”

“It happens, you know. I don't always dream.”

“No, but you usually do when you're with me.”

She sighed, raked back her hair. “I know. Maybe I was just so tired I didn't wake up.”

“I suppose that could be it.”

They finished the light breakfast and headed off to their ten o'clock meeting with the Purcells. Their house sat on Pine Street in an older downtown residential neighborhood lined with trees. It was an old, white, wood-frame house with a big covered porch out in front. Like the house where Molly was abducted, it wasn't far from the grammar school and Autumn wondered if that had somehow factored into the abduction.

“Well, this is it.” Ben rang the bell and a minute later, Mr. Purcell answered the door. Jack, he said to call him, was a man maybe thirty years old with a bad complexion and sandy hair, stepped back and invited them inside.

“Long drive all the way from Seattle,” Jack said as they walked into the living room.

“Pretty, though,” Ben said, “if you like incredible scenery, which I do.” Introductions were made and they went into the kitchen and sat down at a round oak table. Laura Purcell stood at the counter next to the stove when they walked in. She was somewhere near Autumn's age, late twenties, with blond hair. She was way too thin and her hand trembled as she set mugs of coffee in front of them on the table.

“I'm Autumn and this is Ben,” Autumn said, hoping to put the woman a little more at ease.

“I'm Laura. It's nice to meet you.”

The kitchen was simple, like the rest of the house, with Formica countertops and linoleum floors. As they had passed through the dining area, Autumn had noticed the old-style, built-in leaded-glass cupboards. She figured the place was at least sixty years old, but well cared for and immaculately clean.

“Do either of you take cream or sugar?” Laura asked. “I've got some Coffeemate in the cupboard.”

“That would be great.” Autumn watched the woman moving woodenly around the kitchen, as if she were barely holding herself together. Autumn could only imagine what Laura Purcell had been suffering: the horror of losing her little girl, the terror of imagining what might have happened to her and what the child might be enduring even now. Laura finally took a seat next to her husband.

“I know what you're going through,” Ben said, speaking gently to both of them. “I lost my daughter, Molly, six years ago. She was a year younger than your little girl, Ginny, at the time.”

Jack Purcell's long fingers gripped his coffee mug. “I'm afraid I still don't understand why you're here. You mentioned your daughter on the phone. What does your child's disappearance six years ago have to do with mine?”

Autumn reached for the manila folder she had set down on the table. She flipped the file open and shoved the sketch of the blond man toward Jack Purcell.

“I wish the drawing were better. I wish it could be in color, but this is the best we could do. The man is blond, average in height and build. He has light-blue eyes.”

Ben pointed to the sketch. “This man spoke to my ex-wife a few days before my daughter went missing. We need to know if he looks familiar…if this is someone you or your wife might have seen before your daughter disappeared.”

The couple glanced at each other, then began to study the sketch, passing it back and forth between them.

“We believe this man may have had something to do with both girls' abductions,” Ben added. “He might even be the man responsible. Is there any chance either of you have seen him?”

Laura Purcell looked at her husband. “I—I can't be sure. There's really nothing about him that stands out, but…”

Autumn leaned forward. “But what, Mrs. Purcell?”

“But I think this might be the man who helped us chase a bear away from our campground up at the lake. It was a Girl Scout overnight trip—Brownies. It was two weekends before Ginny disappeared.” Her eyes welled with tears. “He seemed like such a nice man.”

“Let's talk about that day,” Ben said, trying to keep Laura focused. “Who else was there?”

She inhaled a shaky breath. “Well, there were two adult troop leaders and six girls. We were just about to have breakfast when a black bear wandered into camp. The girls were yelling, throwing things, trying to scare the bear away. The man ran over from the camp next to ours waving his shirt and shouting at the bear. When the animal saw him, it turned and ran away.”

“Did this man talk to you or any of the girls?”

“Not really. He just said that from now on we should be sure to bundle up any food and haul it up in the trees, but we told him we were leaving right after breakfast. He said that he was just glad he could help.” She frowned.

“What is it?” Autumn asked.

“I just…I remember he pointed at Ginny and asked if she was my daughter and I said yes. He said he could tell because both of us were so pretty.” She started crying then and her husband settled an arm across her shoulders.

“I hope you understand…my wife has been through a great deal in the last two months. Both of us have.”

“Believe me, I understand.”

“Is there anything else you need?” Jack asked.

“I just need to know if there is anything more you can tell me about this man or where we might find him.”

Laura looked up, blew her nose on a tissue her husband handed her. “He was just a camper, you know? Someone enjoying the outdoors, just like we were. I think he was there by himself. I—I do remember seeing him earlier that morning. I remember thinking he must be extremely athletic. He was jogging, you see, running up and down these very steep hills. I remember he had his shirt off and there wasn't an ounce of fat on his body. He looked extremely fit.”

Ben glanced over at Autumn. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No, I…that's all I recall.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Purcell,” Autumn said, rising from her chair. “You've been extremely helpful.”

To Jack, Ben said, “I need the names and addresses of the people on the camping trip, the other leader and the girls.”

“You really think this might be the guy who took Ginny?” Jack asked.

“I think there's a chance. So far we don't have enough evidence to prove it. We need to see if the rest of the people who saw him think he's the man in the sketch.”

Purcell disappeared and came back with a list of the members of the local Brownie troop and their addresses. He put a check in front of the people who went on the overnight trip.

“Thank you,” Ben said, accepting the list as Jack Purcell walked them to the door.

Laura Purcell came up beside her husband. “Please…if you find out anything, anything at all…”

Ben nodded. “I'll let you know, I promise.”

The door closed behind them. Autumn took a deep breath. “You really think he was the guy at the campground?”

“I'll have Rossi get up here and interview the rest of the people on Jack Purcell's list. We'll see what the others have to say. Personally, I think it was him. I think he spots a certain little girl and his predatory urge kicks in. Maybe it doesn't happen for years, but then something triggers it. Or maybe now that Molly's older, he was on the prowl. All of the girls are blond and blue-eyed. All of them pretty. He spots his victim, carefully makes a plan to abduct her and so far he hasn't come close to getting caught.”

“He's smart and athletic. That fits with his interest in the outdoors.”

“I'd say so.”

“Smart people still make mistakes.”

Ben's jaw clenched. “Let's hope he's made one this time.”

 

They started the long drive back to Seattle. Autumn tried to relax and enjoy the scenery, but it wasn't that easy to do. Ben was as tense as she was. During a pit stop, he called Pete Rossi on his cell.

“How's the search going?” Ben asked.

Pete must not have found anything because Ben said, “That's too bad. Listen, I've got a job for you. I need you to head up to Sandpoint.” He went on to explain what they had found out when they talked to the Purcells and that he wanted Pete to try to verify Laura Purcell's ID of the man in the sketch.

“We get it confirmed, we'll have something to take to the police besides the face of a man in a dream.”

Ben hung up and leaned his head back against the headrest. “Rossi thinks we should pursue the
Missing
TV angle. I told him to go ahead and call this guy, Grayson, and set things in motion.”

“Even if the producers go for it, it'll take a while to do the show.”

“Which will give me time to handle my family.” He kept his eyes on the road, and didn't seem to notice the pine-covered mountains that lined the highway leading south, back to the turnoff onto the 90 Freeway.

“I feel sorry for the Purcells,” he said. “I know what they're going through. I wish I could have given them at least a little hope.”

“There's no way you could, not yet. It might just make things worse for them in the long run.”

That was the truth. If they never found the girls, false hope only made the pain more severe. Autumn gazed out the window as the car moved along the highway, pulled around a slow-moving truck on an uphill grade, then settled back into the sparse traffic.

In the mirror, Ben's gaze met hers. “What does she look like…Molly, I mean? Now that she's so much older.”

Autumn's heart twisted. She knew how terrible this was for Ben, searching for his daughter all over again, terrified he wouldn't find her.

“Well, she's twelve now, no longer a little girl, so her features are more grown up.”

“Not quite twelve,” Ben corrected. “Not till August first.”

“That's right, I forgot.” She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the image she had seen so many times in her dreams.

“She still looks a lot like Katie. Her lips are a little fuller, her cheekbones a little more pronounced. She's on her way to becoming a teenager, so she's lost the babyish appearance of a child. I think you would recognize her as your daughter, though. You wouldn't have any doubt.”

The muscles in Ben's throat moved up and down. “God, I want to bring her home.”

“We're getting closer, Ben. Closer all the time.”

But they still had no more idea where to look for her than they'd had before.

Autumn knew it and so did Ben.

A
utumn was sleeping in Ben's big bed. It was amazingly comfortable: the mattress deep and luxurious, the expensive cotton sheets as smooth as silk. Still, as roomy as it was, they both slept on the same side, Ben's muscular body pressing against her, one of his hair-roughened legs thrown over hers. She caught the faint scent of cologne and man, turned her head toward him and burrowed a little deeper into the pillow.

She wasn't sure how he had managed to convince her to stay at his condo when they got back to the city instead of going back to her place, but she was there, content from his lovemaking, drowsy and on the edge of sleep.

She shouldn't have stayed, she knew. It was just plain stupid to get so deeply involved with a man like Ben. He was a wealthy playboy who attracted the most glamorous women. For now, he needed her. She was crucial to finding his daughter. For the moment their lives were entwined, but eventually—one way or another—that would end. She told herself when the time came she could handle it. She was a survivor. She always had been.

She listened to the rhythm of Ben's deep breathing and her eyelids grew heavy. She drifted into a bottomless, trance-like sleep. Sometime in the late hours of the night, she started to dream.

In her sleep, she frowned as the images took shape in her mind, different than any she had seen before. Even the house was different, though she could still see mountains somewhere in the distance. She was in the living room. There was an overstuffed sofa and chair, both covered with fringed, brown-flowered throws, a cross-stitched sampler hung on the wall and an antique armoire set in the corner. She could see the dining room. A Duncan Fyfe mahogany table was covered with a lacy white crocheted tablecloth. There were six matching chairs.

Sounds began to reach her, voices, though she couldn't make out what they were saying. Furniture moved upstairs, scraped across the floor. A lamp smashed into an upstairs wall. Then a woman screamed, her tone high-pitched and frightened, nearly hysterical.

A shiver ran through Autumn's body as the screams grew louder, more intense. Then somehow she was there in the upstairs bedroom. Two men wearing ski masks stood over the terrified woman who lay sprawled on the bed. She was injured, clutching her chest, oozing bright red blood onto the sheets. Autumn could see drops of scarlet on the butcher knife in one of the hooded men's hands.

Autumn twisted on the mattress, biting back a scream herself, suddenly thinking of Molly, terrified that she was the young woman on the bed, that she was the one being attacked. Then she saw the woman's face. She had blond hair but her eyes were dark.

Not Molly. Not Molly.
Not any of the women in the house of her dreams. Autumn wanted to weep with relief. She felt the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, but there was still the terrified woman facing her attackers and Autumn did not awaken. The man with the knife moved toward the bed and the woman let out another piercing scream. He lunged toward her, drove the knife into her a final time, dragged it upward. And then all went still.

No…!
Autumn whimpered in horror as the men backed away from the bed. In her mind she saw a young woman in her early twenties in a short, blue nightgown, her eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, her mouth agape, frozen in a final soundless scream.

Autumn twisted on the bed, fighting to wake up, moving her head from side to side. “No…
No…
” Her heart was pounding, her body clammy with sweat. As the men turned and started for the door, she couldn't see their faces, but in the holes exposing their mouths, she saw them smile.

Autumn's eyes flew open and she started to scream.

 

“Autumn! Autumn for God's sake wake up!” Ben caught her shoulders, roughly shook her. “It's a dream, Autumn! That's all! It's just another dream!”

She turned toward him, looked up at him with glazed, tear-filled eyes and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh God, Ben, oh, God, oh God.”

His chest constricted. She'd been dreaming and she was terrified. His hands started shaking. He didn't want to know what she had seen. “Was it…was it Molly? Did…did something happen to Molly?”

Autumn hurriedly shook her head. “No, no, not Molly. Oh, God, Ben, they killed her. I saw it. I saw them kill her with a butcher knife.”

“Take it easy.” He took a breath himself, drew on his control. “You said it wasn't Molly. If it wasn't her, who was it? Who did you see get killed?”

“I don't know. I've never seen her before.”

“Was it the blond man who did it?”

“I couldn't tell. There were two of them and they were wearing ski masks. They were…they were in a different house, not the house where Molly lives…somewhere else.”

“All right, just calm down.” Advice he was trying to take himself. “Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.” She did as he instructed. “Better?”

She nodded.

“All right…now tell me exactly what happened in the dream.” He wished he had the tape recorder but the one he'd bought sat on the bedside table at Autumn's.

“They stabbed her.” She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, but tears leaked from beneath her lashes. “Twice, I think.” She looked up at him and teardrops rolled down her cheeks. “They were…they were smiling, Ben. They murdered her and left her there and they were smiling.”

Ben drew her closer, held her till her trembling body finally stopped shaking.

He smoothed back strands of her hair. “Maybe it was just a dream. You didn't know the people. You said nothing was the same. Maybe this wasn't anything to do with Molly or the rest of your dreams.”

“I saw mountains…through the window in the living room. It wasn't where Molly lives but I think it was somewhere near.”

He eased her a little away, then reached down and grabbed his robe off the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her naked shoulders. “Start at the beginning. Take it very, very slow.”

For the next few minutes, he listened patiently as Autumn described the brutal murder of a helpless young woman and the two men who had committed the crime. The woman was blonde and there were mountains in the distance.

Coincidence? He prayed that it was, prayed that this had nothing to do with their search for Molly, but it was impossible to convince himself.

They were both too wide-awake to sleep. He needed to make notes, to get everything down on paper, so they went into the kitchen. Autumn was still wearing his robe, which dragged along on the floor and completely engulfed her small frame.

Ben tried to clear his head and keep his thoughts focused. Autumn's dreams seemed to involve both the past and present—and in the case of the teenagers fifteen years ago, the future. If there had been a murder the story would be in the newspapers or eventually would be.

Sitting at the table in the kitchen, he made careful notes of what she said, wrote down the date and time the dream had occurred and the other information she gave him. There wasn't all that much. It occurred to him that in the past she had dreamed the same dream over and over and prayed this time it wouldn't happen, that she wouldn't have to suffer the brutal murder again and again.

They went back to bed just as the sun was beginning to crest the mountains east of the city. Both of them were exhausted. There was no way to know if the dream was real and nothing they could do about it, even if it was.

It was Sunday morning. He was scheduled to pick up Katie that afternoon. They were going to the movies. He intended to keep his plans and hoped he could convince Autumn to go with them. He would choose a romantic comedy, something as far from the horrors she had witnessed in the night as he could possibly find.

He held her until she finally fell asleep, then closed his eyes and tried to follow her into slumber. He tried not to let his mind stray to dark thoughts of murder and young blond women and what it could mean to his lost little girl.

 

They slept until nearly noon. Autumn showered while Ben made coffee. He carried a cup in to her when she was drying off. She still had the overnight bag she had taken to Sandpoint so she slipped into her jeans and a clean, light blue, short-sleeved blouse.

She felt sluggish and tired even though she'd slept far later than usual. She tried not to think of the nightmare she'd had but it haunted her. As soon as Ben brought in the newspaper, she searched it front to back, looking for any mention of a young woman who had been murdered.

“There's nothing in there,” she told him. “Maybe it hasn't happened yet.”

“Maybe it isn't going to. Maybe the dream was a result of being under so much stress. That's one of the reasons people dream, you know. To help deal with the problems in their lives.”

“Yeah, like watching someone murdered is going to relieve my stress.”

His mouth edged up. “That's not exactly what I meant.”

She sighed. “I know. Maybe it was just my imagination. If I don't have the dream again, I'll be more inclined to believe it.”

“Let's hope you don't.” He dragged part of the paper away from her, across the kitchen table where they sat drinking coffee and looking out at the view. He flipped to the theater section and began searching for a movie. “I'm taking Katie to the show this afternoon. I want you to come with us.”

“Not today, Ben.”

He caught her hand. “You had a rough night, baby. You need something to do besides sit around and worry. We'll pick a comedy, something fun to watch that will take your mind off last night.”

She shook her head. “I need a little time to myself. You and Katie go on. I need to go home, be by myself for a while.”

Ben looked at her hard. “I'm staying with you tonight—in case you dream about the murder.”

“I've got your tape recorder. I'll make sure I use it. I'm hoping this was a one-time thing, that it wasn't really real.”

“I'm hoping that too.” He got up from his chair, walked over and settled his hands on her shoulders. “Tell you what, I'll check in with you later, okay? See how you're feeling.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“In the meantime, I'll drive you home on my way to pick up Katie.”

She bit her lip, still feeling restless and tense. “I'd rather walk. I need the fresh air.”

She could see he wasn't pleased. She stood up, made her way back to his bedroom to get her overnight bag, then grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

“I'll talk to you later,” she said.

Ben walked up behind her, turned her into his arms and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Try to get some rest. I'll call you.”

She left him standing in the foyer. Tall and dark and so handsome it made her heart hurt just to look at him. In that moment, she realized she was more than half in love with him and terror filled her.

Dear God, somehow she had to stop herself from falling any deeper. Had to put an end to what was meant to be a brief affair, a fling.

She rubbed her arms as she walked along the sidewalk back to her apartment. It occurred to her that she'd only been gone twenty minutes and already she was missing Ben.

 

She wandered the streets for a while, went down to the Pike Street market and bought some fish for supper, a few fresh vegetables and a mixed bouquet of bright-yellow flowers. Her arms were full when she got home. She set her overnight bag and shopping bags down by the front door and began to dig into her purse for her house key when she realized the phone was ringing.

By the time she got the door open, the ringing had stopped. An instant later, her cell phone started to jingle. She pulled it out of her purse and flipped it open.

“Turn on your TV,” Ben said. “Hurry.”

Still holding the phone, she raced for the remote and pressed the power button. “What channel?”

“CBS. They've interrupted the scheduled programming for breaking news. I saw it a few minutes ago. I'm on my way over.” Ben hung up and Autumn fixed her attention on the screen.

Her insides were churning. As soon as she saw the house and the mountains in the distance behind it, she knew what the report would be about. Her legs turned to rubber and she sank down onto the sofa.

“Earlier this morning a young woman's body was found in the upstairs bedroom of this small house in Ash Grove, Washington.” The camera zoomed past the young reporter to a house in the distance. “Sometime around midnight, the victim was brutally attacked and after a valiant attempt to fight off her assailant, died of multiple stab wounds. Her name has not yet been released, but authorities say her husband, an insurance agent, was away from home on business when the murder took place. At this time, no suspect has been apprehended and so far authorities have found no motive for the crime.”

Autumn fought to catch her breath and bring her pounding heart under control. Her head was still spinning when Ben began to hammer on the door.

“Autumn! Let me in!”