The Summit

“But I teach classes at the climbing gym,” she said quickly. “I’m also a member of the club. I’m there almost every day of the week.”

“Fine.” He fixed his eyes on Jenn, who was glaring at Autumn Sommers like a she-wolf protecting her cub. “See that she has access to the building, but not to any of the offices above the second floor.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jenn said. “Come with me, Ms. Sommers.”

“I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I wanted to talk to you or your wife—”

Ben’s temper snapped. “Joanne and I have been divorced for nearly four years. You call her, you bother my family in any way, I’ll get a restraining order against you. Now get out!”

The woman said no more, just cast him a pitying glance and walked ahead of Jenn toward the elevator. Ben didn’t release the breath he had been holding till the elevator door slid closed and Autumn Sommers disappeared.

He didn’t know how long he stood there staring into space. Long enough for Jenn to return from her trip to the lobby.

“You all right, boss?” She had always been protective.

“I’m fine. I just…the woman’s some kind of nutcase. Or maybe she was trying to extort money from me or something. I don’t think she’ll show up here again.”

At least he hoped not. His brief encounter with Autumn Summers—Sommers with an O, he mentally corrected—had his stomach churning with acid. He’d have to pop a Pepcid before he’d be able to eat.

“You want me to have her checked out?” Jenn asked.

“Let it go for now. Like I said, I don’t think she’ll be back.” The woman was gone, but the memories were stirring. They were hovering in his head, threatening to come to life. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.

The best solution was to put his mind on something else…something that had nothing to do with his family or the past or involved his emotions.

Ben walked back into his office, sat down at his desk, opened the file on the Issaquah store, picked up the phone and went to work.

Five

Autumn trembled as she walked the few blocks to her apartment. She had known her meeting with Ben McKenzie wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t expected to be tossed out of the man’s office into the street!

The jerk wouldn’t even talk to her, wouldn’t give her the least chance to explain. She remembered the article she had uncovered about Gerald Meeks, a pedophile and serial killer who had been active in the Seattle area. He had been arrested and eventually convicted.

First thing in the morning, she was going back to the library to run Meeks’s name. Maybe she would find a reference to Molly, something that would explain Ben McKenzie’s belief that Meeks had killed her.

If she found proof that Molly was dead, she would drop the whole thing. She would take a sleeping pill every night until she stopped dreaming about the girl. Even if it took the rest of her life.

The following morning she dressed and headed for the gym. She would have to wait until afternoon to go back to the newspaper files. She worked out, then began her climbing class. In the last session, they had talked about getting the body in shape and discussed proper nutrition, then she’d spent the rest of the lesson getting her students familiar with the climbing wall.

Today she discussed proper clothing and equipment then demonstrated some climbing techniques. Throughout the class, Autumn was careful to keep her mind focused on her students and helping them learn the best and safest methods for addressing the climb. She didn’t allow her mind to stray toward little Molly McKenzie and what might have happened to her at the hands of Gerald Meeks.

Autumn suppressed a shudder, but the thought remained in the back of her head. As soon as class was over, she changed into street clothes and left for the library.

Running through the microfilm, she approached the search as she had before. Dozens of articles on Meeks surfaced in the newspaper files, from his arrest, all the way through his long, drawn-out trial. In the end, he had been sentenced to life in prison.

Autumn paused as Molly McKenzie’s name popped up in one of the articles. It appeared again in several more.

Though Meeks has only confessed to the murders of the two children whose bodies were found in what appeared to be his dumping ground at the bottom of a ravine, it is believed he is also responsible for the death of six-year-old Molly McKenzie, who also went missing in the area around that time.

Apparently Meeks never admitted to the crime, but he never denied it either. One article mentioned that the description of the man given to police by witness only vaguely matched that of Gerald Meeks, but the age of the witnesses, all of whom were children under the age of seven, and the disparity of the descriptions were a factor in concluding that Meeks was the man responsible for Molly’s abduction and murder.

In a later paper, Autumn saw again that efforts were made to get Meeks to give up information about the location of Molly’s body. Though he seemed to be the man responsible, Meeks never confessed and he never gave the police the location of the victim’s grave.

Because he didn’t kill her!

The thought arose and wouldn’t go away. The photos of Gerald Meeks convinced Autumn further. Though as near as she could guess, he was about the same height as the man in her dreams, he was thinner and had brown hair, a gaunt man with the sunken eyes of a predator, not the warm, friendly eyes of the man in her dream.

Also, according to the information, Meeks had used chloroform to render his victims helpless before dragging them into his car.

Not like Molly, who, according to her dream, had been lured away by a man with a puppy.

More determined than ever, Autumn vowed to convince Ben McKenzie to at least hear her out.

But how to reach him?

She was no longer welcome in his office. She could try to speak to his ex-wife, but that might involve their younger daughter, Katie. It wouldn’t be fair to a child who must have already suffered a very great deal. And Autumn believed that if she approached the family, McKenzie would go after that restraining order.

Besides, Autumn was convinced Ben McKenzie was the link. She had never seen or met his ex-wife and she had only started dreaming about Molly after she had noticed Ben at the gym.

What to do?

It wouldn’t be easy but maybe if she tried again, McKenzie would at least hear her out.

Since the gym was the most likely place to find him, she headed there first thing the following morning. She didn’t usually work out on weekends, but she needed information and made a beeline straight for the sign-in desk.

To get into the gym, you had to flash a tag with a bar code over a lighted glass plate. The bar code reader analyzed the code and checked to see if your membership was paid up and active. Autumn knew Mike Logan, one of the staff guys who worked behind the desk. He was sitting a few feet away, inputting something into his computer.

“Hi, Mike.”

Mike looked her way, saw her and smiled. “Hey, sweet cheeks.” He jogged over to the counter in his white shirt and shorts, his dark hair neatly combed. The uniform was a requirement. All the guys on the staff looked like they just came off the tennis court at Wimbledon. The women dressed the same, in a white knit shirt and shorts with Pike’s Gym embroidered in black letters on the pocket. The climbing instructors were the exception. To attack the wall, they needed to wear more flexible clothes.

“Listen, Mike, I’ve got a problem. I was hoping you might be able to help me.”

“Name it.”

She pointed to the bar code reader. “That machine keeps track of everyone who goes in and out, right?”

“Right.”

“I presume the information goes into a computer. Can you pull up a person by name, see what times he checks in each day?”

“Sure.”

“I need to know the days and times for Ben McKenzie.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute, Autumn. Ben’s our landlord. I don’t think he’d appreciate someone nosing into his business.”

“It’s no big deal,” she lied. Again. “I just want to talk to him. It’s about his daughter.” Not the live one. The one he thinks is dead.