A Cold Dark Place (34 page)

On seeing them talking about him, the landlord ambled
over.

"Now there are two of you," he said, squinting into the
sun. He looked at Christopher only-one of those men who
are blind to a female cop when there's a choice between a
man and woman with a badge. "What can I do you for?"

"We have a warrant to search this apartment," Christopher said, holding out the folded papers.

He waved the warrant away. "No need. I follow the law.
When you've lived in this neighborhood you see a fair amount
of those. Of course it wasn't always that way. We're supposedly a neighborhood in transition. To what I ask?"

"Sir, I can only imagine," Emily said as he fished in his
front pocket for his keys.

"Found 'em," he said. "What's Dan done to get all this
fuss?"

Christopher started to answer. "We can't say-"

He cut off Christopher with a quick, "yeah, yeah ... I
know the drill. I'll wait outside. Leave the place as you
found it please. Otherwise the wife and I will have to clean it
up. We can't afford to call in any more help, you know. Fixed
income."

"All right," Emily said. She put on her rubber gloves.
Christopher did the same.

"You won't find anything nasty in there," the landlord
said. "Dan is the neatest fellow you'll ever meet"

Christopher held the door and the pair retreated inside.
The apartment was in perfect, almost boot-camp-barracks order. Nothing suggested that Dylan Walker was anything
but the neatest tenant since Felix Unger. Shoes by the front
door were matched and in perfect alignment with the baseboards. A stack of magazines mostly automotive, aerospace,
and, oddly, gardening-were set with such precision one
would have thought the place was being previewed by a real
estate listing agent.

The furnishings were simple, not expensive and not upholstered.

"You'd think he'd have a pillow around here. Jesus, who
could watch television on that?" Christopher pointed to an
old mahogany church pew that Dylan Walker used for his
sofa. A small TV sat on an antique wire-and-wood egg crate
on the other side of the room.

Emily agreed. "Not exactly the cozy type, that's for sure.
Maybe those years in New Jersey gave him a taste for a spartan lifestyle." She let her eyes wander over the room, noting
that there was not a single photograph or picture on the
walls. The sole bit of wall art was a hardware store calendar
with a small picture of an apple orchard. Emily went over to
a Formica desk and opened the drawers. The first two were
empty, save for a couple of pencils and some legal-sized envelopes. The third and bottom drawer held a shoebox of
photos. Emily sifted through its contents, hoping to find
some images of Bonnie, Tina, someone whose face she'd
recognize.

Any ties to the case? To Nick? And by extension, Jenna.

Instead, the photos were all of Dylan Walker, albeit an
older and decidedly tired version of the man that had prison
groupies hearts atwitter so many years ago. Most had him
wearing a T-shirt or a chambray shirt. A small tuft of gray
hair poked from the V of the collar. His face was still quite
handsome, his features still chiseled, though somewhat softened by the passage of time. Maybe sun in the prison yard? Despite that, his eyes remained a pair of lasers to the camera
lens. On the back was his signature: Love, Dylan.

"This guy thinks he's got game. Even in prison," Emily
said. "He must have kept a stash of photos to send out to the
lovelorn who wrote to him."

"Jersey said his fans faded after some time," Christopher
called from the other side of the room. "Got up to a hundred
letters a week in the beginning. By the end, only Jeffries was
a regular."

"She visited him?" Emily asked, slightly miffed that the
information hadn't been disclosed until that moment.

"A time or two," he answered. "Not much. He was pretty
much done with her"

She put the photos in a plastic bag. She couldn't let it go.
"What else do you know that you haven't told me?"

Christopher looked over at her, not answering, just staring. "I'm not holding out on you. Why would you even think
that?"

"Sorry." She didn't say anything more. Emily moved into
the kitchen and opened the cupboard doors. The shelving
had been marked with permanent marker in the shapes of
cups, glasses, and plates, a guide to exactly where every object should be set. She'd seen this on a pegboard tool storage
system in a basement workshop, but never in a kitchen. She
opened the drawer next to a wall phone. It was the proverbial
junk drawer. But in this apartment there was nothing junky
about it.

"Check this out," she said, pointing with her index finger
at the form of a pair of scissors portrayed on the particleboard bottom of the drawer.

Christopher peered over her shoulder. "Neat freak, all
right."

"No it isn't that, but you're right. What I was getting at is
that if this guy's so neat then where are his scissors?" She looked at Christopher and he shrugged. "And what do you
suppose this is?" She indicated a circle drawn in the bottom
of the drawer. It was about the size of a softball.

"You got me" Christopher touched his gloved fingertip to
the drawer bottom. The latex adhered slightly. "My guess is
a roll of strapping tape. Something sticky, anyway."

The bedroom was next. It was stark in every way. With
the sole exception of a small gilt cross next to the window,
the walls were white and empty. The bed was queen-size, but
lacked a comforter or spread. Instead it was covered with an
army blanket and a turned-back white top sheet. Two pillows
in perfect, pristine condition sat next to the wall. No headboard. No nightstand. Christopher opened the closet. Dylan
Walker's clothes hung in perfect, color-coded order.

"Was Dylan in the military?" Emily asked, poking her
head inside.

"Nope, just prison."

"We'll he sure learned how to keep things in order there,"
she said. "Let's get out of here. There's nothing here"

"That we can see. I'm going to have the tech guys come
down here and take a look."

"What about his vehicle?"

He nodded. "DMV says Walker drives an old Chrysler
sedan. We've got an APB out on it now."

The cool basement apartment belied the hot hour of the
afternoon. Going outside in search of the landlord brought a
furnace blast to Emily Kenyon's face. A jasmine vine pumped
perfume into the air, now further scented with fresh cut grass.
It was heady and sickly sweet. She went around to the side of
the old Victorian where she'd heard lawn equipment buzzing
while she and Christopher were inside conducting a search.
She found the old man on one knee bent down and rolling up
the Day-Glo orange cord to his electric edger in the front
yard.

"Another day, another dollar," he said, this time smiling.
"Find what you're looking for?"

"As you know, we're looking for Dylan, I mean Daniel.
Any ideas where he might be?"

He got up, brushed at the grass stains, grousing that his
wife was going to kill him. "He's usually pretty good about
telling me where he's going. Yeah, I know he's an ex-con. I
know about his troubles with the IRS"

Emily shook her head. "Sir, I'm not with the IRS. But I
do need to find him."

"He's a good tenant. Why are you people hassling him?"

She brought out her badge again. "I told you this is a police matter and I don't want to bring you in for hindering our
investigation. Understood?"

He folded his burly arms around his sweaty chest, his genial nature now gone. He was irritated and angry. "He has a
cousin who has some beach property. He goes there once in
a while. Not often. But given the weather, I'd say he's there.
Probably working his ass off painting or doing yard work if I
know Dan"

You don't know him, sir. But that's another story.

"Do you know where it is?" she asked. "Exactly? "

He turned and started for his front door. "Sure. My wife
keeps all the addresses of everyone she's ever known. Tenants become like family, you know. I'll get it. Wait here"

If he's not back in two minutes, I'm going inside.

She heard the voices of the landlord and a woman, presumably his wife.

"God, I hope we don't have to re-rent that unit," the woman
said, "it's so hard getting decent folks."

If you only knew who you had rented to, Emily thought.
Your wife wouldn't have had a decent night's sleep in months.

A few minutes later, a smile on his face, the landlord returned. By then, Christopher had come over.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

With a nod, Emily indicated the returning landlord. "He's
coming now with the address of Dylan's relative's vacation
place. Says there's a good bet he's there"

"Nice"

"Here it is," the landlord said. "Told you she'd have it in
her book"

He pressed a small white card into Emily's hand.

4444 Copper Beach Rd. Copper Beach, WA

She felt a wave of recognition and dread. "Where did you
get this?"

"From my wife. She keeps everybody's address in her
book"

"No, not the address. The card. Where did you get the
card?"

The man shrugged. "It's just old photography paper I cut
up. I went digital and closed out my old darkroom a year
ago. I have boxes of the stuff I stupidly bought in bulk from
some guy who was smart enough to unload it on me because
he went digital. Cut it all down into index cards"

Emily looked at the address. It was familiar, too. Deadly
familiar.

"You all right?" The landlord was staring at Emily. "You
look like you've seen a ghost or something."

Emily handed the card to Christopher.

"I guess you could say that," she said, trying to avoid revealing too much of what she was feeling. She looked into
Christopher's eyes, now full of an awareness of their own.

"Yeah," he said. "We know the address"

Reynard Tuttle had breathed his final breath there.

"I'm not sure what's going on," Emily said, as they walked
to their respective cars. "But I'm going there right now." She fumbled for her keys. "There's something I haven't told you.
I don't know what it means. But I think I'll find Jenna at the
cabin."

Christopher stopped and looked at her. "What are you
talking about, Emily?"

"I think Jenna and Nick are in serious trouble." She felt
awful just then, knowing that she'd withheld information
from a man who had been nothing but kind to her. Interested
in her Cared about her. "They were at Bonnie's."

"At Bonnie's?" He was stunned by the disclosure.

"Yeah," she said, her voice ready to shatter. "I found this."
She pulled out the purse. It was tiny, pink, and sweet. "It's
Jenna's. It was by the desk. She left it there"

"Why didn't you tell me? And wait a minute, this could
be anyone's."

Emily shook her head. "No. It's hers. I'm certain. Her dad
bought it for her. Even though she'd long since outgrown it
she kept it because it was from him."

"What were they doing there? I mean, how?"

"They'd been researching Dylan Walker, Angel's Nest.
Don't you, see? Nick Martin was an Angel's Nest kid. Bonnie put him in the Martin home. They're all connected."

Emily got behind the wheel and turned the ignition. "We're
going to find him, and then we can find Jenna. Walker's playing some sick game. He's using Kristi Cooper's case to mess
with me. I don't know why. But I do know this-I'm not
going to let him hurt Jenna. Not one hair."

"I'm right behind you," Christopher said. "I'll call the
desk and tell them what's up. But let's get going."

Jenna woke up, shivering. her hands and legs were still
bound together. Dried tears had formed a gluelike crust on
her eyes. She rubbed her face against the fabric on which she
lay. She tried to lift her head and breathed in. Good. The sickly
sweet smell that had left her dizzy, then asleep in the darkness, had abated. The air was damp and heavy, but it did not
have that strange odor. To her left the crack of light had narrowed to the thinnest of slits. Where was she?

She called over to Nick. "Can you hear me?"

There was no response, so she tried again, saying his
name in a louder voice, though still a whisper.

But again, nothing. She worried that he was still overcome by the fumes of what had been tossed into the dark
space. She rolled over on her right side. As she did so, the
mattress beneath her buckled on its rusted frame. For the
first time, she realized she was on a bed of some kind. It had
springs and batting. She wriggled her torso to get on her side
so she could see Nick. He'd almost been free when she passed out. He'll get us out of there. He was cutting the tape
that bound him.

"Wake up," she said, urgency rising. "Nick, I need you"
She could feel the ligature around her wrists. Was it her
imagination? It seemed looser than it had been before the
curtain of utter blackness fell. Before the sound of the crashing, breaking glass. The smell. It was all in her memory as
she twisted her body. In shifting her position, she'd been able
to reduce the tension of the binding. It no longer cut into her
flesh. Instead she felt she could move her wrists. They hurt.
The raw edges of her sliced skin stung. She did not cry. Instead, she could feel something else rise within her. Resolve.
Hope. Courage.

I'm going to get out of here, she thought. Nick and I are
going home. Please wake up.

Olga Morris-Cerrino knew she wasn't on the case anymore. She knew that she'd long since exchanged her love for
the law for the joy she'd found tilling the soil and making
fruit leathers from her own apricots and her husband's prized
golden raspberries. But when she heard that Bonnie Jeffries
had been murdered, Jenna Kenyon was missing, and Dylan
Walker had been released from prison, she went into Seattle
and sought out the one person she thought might have some
answers.