A Cold Dark Place (33 page)

"He should. Think fava beans and a nice Chianti."

"Hannibal Lecter?"

"Yeah, the original. He was convicted in the thirties.
Killed a dozen or more boys and ate them"

"Lovely."

She looked over Christopher's shoulder. "I ought to be on
Wheel of Fortune or something. I've got yours done"

"Thanks for nothing," he said. "Who's this gem?"

"John Wayne Gacy."

"Jesus, everyone's favorite clown, that one"

He was right. At least every psycho's favorite clown.
Gacy was the suburban Chicago serial killer who had raped
and murdered thirty-three young men and boys. While he
was hobnobbing with the Jaycees and donning his clown costume he wore to visit sick children, he was burying body
after body in his crawl space.

"Seems like Bonnie was the creative type," Emily said.

Christopher scooped up the slips of paper. "More like deranged ""

Emily searched Christopher's dark eyes. If she was looking for comfort, she found it. Understanding, too. But she
also felt something just then that she hadn't counted on. For
the first time, she saw him as man, not a coworker. A supporter, not a colleague helping her because he'd been paid to
do so. She knew the rest of the world viewed law enforcement as one big club bound forever in blue, but that wasn't
always so. As in any profession, insecurities, competitiveness, and jealousies play a role in how those with a badge
treat one another.

After the Kristi Cooper debacle, Emily Kenyon had learned
how frail support and loyalty really could be. It was like a
thin string, stretched and snapped. Several of her friends
made derisive comments about her during the investigation,
which ultimately exonerated her. In a way she learned how
hard it was for a defendant to recover his or her good name
after an acquittal. Once the bell has rung, it can never be
completely silenced. Even David made cruel remarks about
how she'd let the heat of it all steal her wits, how she shouldn't
have done what she did.

But never Christopher. He was true blue from the moment Reynard Tuttle was shot, to the dreadful discovery of
Kristi Cooper's body by those boys out with their BB gun, to
the departmental investigation by her supposed friends and
colleagues.

"What is it about you?" she asked. "Why did you stick up
for me?"

Christopher set his hand on her shoulder. "Look, what
happened to you could have happened to me. To anyone. You
were doing your job. You have always been a million times
better than that one incident. What happened never defined
you for a second. Not to me. Not to anyone who really knows
you."

But to David, it was the crack that grew to a chasm.

Without saying a word, her eyes now cast downward, Emily
started to sob. She didn't want to cry in front of Collier just
then, but her emotions were so jagged, she just let go.

Christopher put his other hand on her opposite shoulder
and gently turned her to make her face him dead on. "Don't
do this," he said. "Don't beat yourself up again."

She shook her head slightly. "I don't know." She knew
she couldn't change what had happened to Kristi, but she
wondered how much that played into Jenna and Nick's disappearance. She was thinking of her daughter just then, not
Kristi.

"What if we don't find Jenna?" she asked.

Christopher wrapped his strong arms around her. He didn't
hold her too long, or too tightly. "We will," he said softly in
her ear. "We're going to get her and bring her home"

A voice called out into the darkness. It was indifferent.
Barely louder than a whisper. A voice of ice. Just words strung
together. "Hey. You. Hey?"

It came from a slit of light, across the blackened space.

Is this God? Am I dead?

In an instant the light was snuffed out with a thunderclap,
like a trapdoor into another world. Darkness consumed the
space. Jenna Kenyon couldn't move. She hurt everywhere.
She wanted to touch the back of her head; she was sure she'd
been injured somehow. The pain was disorienting. The dark ness didn't help. Maybe hit over the head? Blacked out? But
she didn't know. When she went to move, she found her
arms, and then her legs, were paralyzed. She was supine on a
cot or mattress, smelly and damp. She was so unsettled, so
confused, that she had no clue where she was or how she got
there. After the light went out, she felt the presence of another, somewhere in the room, the cave. Wherever she was.

"Hello?" she asked, her voice trembling with fear. She
heard something, but it was behind her and she was unable
to turn. "Hello?" She twisted her body and tried to squirm
into a sitting position, but it was no use. Her limbs were
bound tightly by rope or cording.

Then he spoke. "Jenna?" His voice was recognizable, but
her thoughts were so hazy, Jenna couldn't say who it was just
then. "Are you all right? I'm over here"

She tried to follow the sound with her eyes, searching
through the blackness of the smelly black place. She knew
for sure that she wasn't alone, and she wasn't sure if she
should feel relief or fear. Her memories were hazy and as
she slowly regained consciousness, her terror began to spike.

"Nick?" she asked, barely able to keep from crying. His
name came from her lips with more hope than confidence.
"Are you here?"

A muffled noise. Then an answer.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm over here. I'm tied up with some
tape or something. I can't move. You free?"

Jenna let her tears flow. It wasn't possible to hold them
any longer. Not there in the dark. "No. No, I'm not"

"Can you move?" Nick's voice was stronger just then. He
was being stronger for her.

"I don't think so. I think my legs are broken" She heard
scraping sounds above. Maybe they were in a basement
somewhere and someone above was moving furniture about
the house. "Where are we?"

She could feel him, his breath, his voice as his words
came to comfort her. He was maybe five feet away. Close.
The space wasn't as large as she'd first thought.

"I don't know. I think we're underground somewhere. I
can feel dirt against the palm of my hand"

Jenna was shaking. "I'm cold."

"I know."

"I'm scared, Nick."

"I am, too," he said. "We'll get out of here"

"Who did this to us?"

"I didn't see," he said. "Did you?"

Just then, a brilliant flash of light flooded the space, and
something skidded across the floor. She could see Nick,
though her eyes were burning and she was crying. He was
supine, too, about four feet away. In the same flash, she saw
the walls were concrete for the most part, but bricked over in
sections. It was so fast, like a flashbulb exploding in someone's face and blinding them temporarily, that she couldn't
be sure of what she'd seen. She thought she caught a glimpse
of a bucket, a hammer, and some baling wire. Maybe a ladder and some rope, but it all happened so fast it would be
hard to say for sure.

In the same flash there was the echo of breaking glass.
Someone had thrown something into their prison. Maybe a
bottle shattering on the hard, stony floor? Then a strange
odor. Jenna had smelled that scent. And then nothing. Everything was in the darkest shadow as though a heavy curtain
had been hastily thrown over the entire space. The light was
gone. The air was still.

Not far from Nick and Jenna, there was more scraping,
followed by the rapid thud of hurried footsteps, and then absolute silence.

A pinprick of light like a tiny star came from the doorway. Jenna lay still and stared at it for the longest time, her
mind trying to focus on where she was and how she got there.
She felt woozy and nauseous. Look at that pretty little star,
she thought. Twinkling. A nursery rhyme streamed through
her consciousness, but she shut it out of her mind. She tried
to concentrate on what she last remembered. But it was all
foggy, drowsy.

"Jenna? You awake?"

It was Nick's voice, huskier and raw.

"Yeah. What happened?" Her voice was a whisper.

"Someone chucked something in here. We passed out.
Are you okay?"

"I'm sick," she said. "I feel like puking."

"Me, too. I've been awake for a while. Whoever put us
here hasn't been back"

"Who is it? Where are we?"

Thinking, Nick hesitated. Then his voice pierced the darkness. "I don't know. I'm totally messed up on remembering. Last thing I knew we were at Bonnie Jeffries'."

Jenna dug through her memory, but between whatever
made her sick and the fear that wrapped around her, she
could recall very little. "Yes, in her living room talking. She
went to the back door, the kitchen door."

"Yeah," Nick said. "I can't put it all together. Anything
after that?"

"No:

"Me, neither. We have to get out of here. and I've been
working on that. I might be able to cut this tape. I've found
something sharp, a nail or something, and I'm kind of rubbing through it. I think it's working."

Jenna couldn't move at all. "We have to get out of here."
She shivered in the cold, damp air. She could not have been
more frightened or more grateful that she wasn't alone. Nick
was there.

"We will. And we're going to kill whoever did this to us ""

Another wave of nausea hit her. "I feel sick. Going to
close my eyes." When she did, nightmares of the mining
shack and the rats, the tornado, the bloody scene that Nick
had seen back home came at her in a seamless reel, over and
over. Blood. Gunshot. Bonnie. Angel's Nest. Dani's pregnancy. It rolled on through her strange, almost drug-polluted
subconscious. It was a storm. Each memory shaking her,
scaring her.

A flash of light. It jolted her. Her eyes snapped open.
Then she slammed them shut. She was so scared. She just
wanted to sleep.

Dylan Walker's house was one of those grand-styled Victorians with a large bay window that at one time overlooked
Tacoma's Commencement Bay. Trees and buildings had risen to block the water views in the decades since it was
first built. It had a broad front porch that had been painted
gray. The rest of the house was gray, too. But not by design.
Years of neglect had allowed the dirt and grime of the city to
steal the luster of the oyster-white paint. Flakes fell like snow
onto the front porch. The place had been carved into apartments, a further indignity to what had been a fine, old home.

Emily parked the Accord around the corner, a half block
away from the house. She looked at her watch. She thought
that she might be early, but, in fact, Christopher Collier was
late. Must be some trouble with the judge. She turned on talk
radio and listened to some blabbermouth host yak about the
rising price of gas and how the middle class would never recover from what the current administration had put it through.
If she had been with someone she would have rolled her
eyes. If she had been with someone she trusted, like Christopher, she'd have threatened to call in to the show.

Who cares about the price of gas when our lives in general are so screwed up? Who cares about anything when
your daughter is missing?

Refusing to wait with her daughter's safety on the line,
Emily knocked on the door marked with a black plastic label-
703'/2-and held her breath. She'd never seen Dylan Walker
except in photographs. It had been a long, long time. Prison
years were like dog years-times seven or ten. She doubted
he'd still live up to his nickname: Dash.

"Are you looking for Dan?" A voice came from a graying
man with rounded shoulders, a bright pink nose, and wireframed glasses that gave him the distinct countenance of a
skinny Santa. He was cutting grass.

"Dan?" Emily looked puzzled.

"Yup. Dan Walker. He's not there"

Dylan Daniel Walker. She processed the information. It
would be a violation of his parole if Walker had taken on an other name to hide who he was. But using his middle name
was fair game.

"He's been gone for a while. Lost his job at the hospital a
week or so back. Maybe he's out looking for work. Hope so.
I'm his landlord, I can take a message"

"No message" Emily showed her detective's badge and
the old man acknowledged it. "Just waiting for another officer to arrive."

"Let me know." He didn't ask any questions, which surprised her. Instead he brushed his sweaty brow, nodded, and
went back to his yard work. "Might rain soon," he said.

Emily was about to take a seat on the railing by the front
door when her cell phone rang. She flipped it open. The
voice wasn't familiar at first, but her words were.

"Can I put you on the air?"

It was Candace Kane, the reporter from the Spokane
radio station.

"No, you cannot," Emily said, wondering how the reporter got her hands on her cell number. The number she always gave out went through dispatch-a landline. "I'm in
the middle of something here"

"I know. I heard about Bonnie Jeffries. You found her,"
she said. "That's why I'm calling."

Emily felt some relief. The call hadn't been about denna.
"Candace, I know you're just doing your job, so I know that
you'll understand that I'm just doing mine. I can't comment
on the investigation. For one thing, it's not my place to do
so-this is a Seattle case"

"Yes," Candace said, "I understand that. But you're over
there in Seattle because of a connection between the Martins
and Angel's Nest. Bonnie Jeffries worked for Angel's Nest.
Right?"

"Look," Emily said, her patience rapidly evaporating, "you
apparently already have better sources than me"

She noticed Christopher parking out front, and very
abruptly the phone call was over.

"Sorry, I'm late," he said, coming to her. "Got the warrant, here."

"He's not here," she said. "Landlord's over there. He'll let
us in."