A Cold Dark Place (36 page)

On her stomach, feeling the hard, muddy floor, she slithered in the direction where she had last heard Nick's voice.
Groping. Reaching. She put her hands out, touching a damp,
soiled blanket. Her fingers were extended like claws. She was Helen Keller, probing with her fingertips to find something. To find Nick.

"Where are you? God, Nick, where are you?"

But once more, no answer. Jenna could feel her heart
pounding deep inside her chest. It was thumping hard. But
there was nothing to answer it back. No call for her to be
calm. "Where are you?" She spun around and called in every
direction, but nothing.

Jenna Kenyon was completely alone.

Olga Morris-Cerrino returned to her farmhouse, fed Felix,
and put the teakettle on. She'd dialed Emily three times, but
kept getting "customer out of service area" She turned on
her computer and let the old PC rumble to a live screen. She
logged on and the dial-up connection choked and coughed
before she could log on to the archived files of the Retired
Police Officers Association of the Northwest and put in her
password.

She found Reynard Tuttle and started printing. Olga
never doubted that Dylan Walker was a killer, despite her
failure to have him put away for the rest of his life. It hadn't
been her failure alone. The police in Seattle, Tacoma, and
Nampa, Idaho, had also come up with nothing. Even the FBI
had been unable to do what was needed to catch a killer. But
no one, not a single law enforcement organization, had thought
that the Reynard Tuttle/Kristi Cooper case had been related
to Dylan Walker. In many ways, it didn't really seem to fit.
None of the victims had been held captive anyplace-at
least not that they were aware. When Olga pondered the
Idaho case of Steffi Miller, she wondered if the girl hadn't
been found because she'd been hidden somewhere. Somewhere besides a grave. Kristi had likely been disregarded be cause she'd been so young. But Olga knew that Walker was a
cross-generational killer. He killed women of all ages.

She began seeping the Tuttle printouts. Now it was her
turn to see photographs of Emily Kenyon when she was
younger, before her downfall. There was no mention of
Walker, of course, but there was a very small detail that leapt
off the laser-printed page. The address of the McDonald's
where Kristi Cooper had last been seen: 513 Winchester Avenue. Olga almost did a double take and then immediately
went to the phone.

"Answer. Answer," she said, as Emily's phone rang and
went to voice mail. "Damn it."

She waited for Emily's greeting to give way to the beep.
At least she could leave a message, all staccato and full of
excitement. "Emily, Olga. I've been poking around some.
Got some interesting info from our favorite society gal, Tina
Esposito. Bonnie had three kids, at least that's what Tina
says. Three by Walker. Ugh. Anyway, call me. Also, found
something interesting about Walker and your Cooper case.
He lived a block from the restaurant .. ."

Olga wanted to say more, but the phone connection failed.
Cheap piece of garbage, she thought. Hope she got all of
that.

It had started raining early in the day and hadn't let up.
Couldn't let up. The sky was a pewter lid smacked down
over the ocean and the coast. Dunes with cockscombs of sea
grasses held off the foamy surf. Rain pelted the windshield
with relentless force as Emily followed the two-lane seaside
road to the address on the card. She turned on her wipers to
maximum speed, but she could barely see. The defroster was
blowing at full bore, but it couldn't keep up with the damp
air that circulated through the soggy Accord. Emily opened
the driver's-side window to suck out the warm, moist air, but
it just sent needles of rain against her left cheek. With her
eyes fixed on the road, she leaned over and pulled some tissues from the glove box and started to wipe. Better. A sign
flashed by the window: WELCOME TO WASHINGTON'S COAST.
She looked in the rearview mirror and squinted at the bright
headlights that had trailed her since she left Seattle.

I'll need to tell Christopher to get those lights adjusted.

Whenever Emily thought of Kristi Cooper, she thought of
Reynard Tuttle. That was long before she had any inkling
that Dylan Walker could have been involved. So sure was
she of Tuttle's guilt that she completely dismissed the Tuttle's
family's feeble protestations that he was innocent. Reynard
Tuttle's sister and ex-wife were united in their insistence that
Tuttle, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic when he was
twenty-two, was innocent of the Cooper kidnapping. "He's
not capable of hurting an innocent little girl," Delilah Tuttle
Lewis, his sister, told a TV reporter not long after the shooting. "He was crazy, but a gentle crazy."

Tuttle's background had suggested as much. He'd been
arrested only once for loitering in front of the King County
courthouse. With the ACLU by his side, the charges were
dismissed. His lawyers said that since he usually was seen
holding a placard espousing hatred for the police whom he
accused of conspiring against him, he'd been unfairly and
unjustly singled out for prosecution. The day they picked
him up was the only day anyone could recall in which Tuttle
had been without his little sign. Tuttle had never been violent
in his life. He'd never hurt a soul. Crazy, his family said, didn't
make him a kidnapper and a killer.

There was no wrongful-death suit from the Tuttles, however. The reason for that was cruel and simple. Tuttle, as a
mentally ill man, had no worth. The loss of his life could not
be equated to future earnings of any kind. It was as if he didn't
exist.

After she'd killed him, Emily Kenyon never allowed herself to think for one second that he'd been anything but a
killer.

Crazy or not, he did it. Because if he didn't, then that
meant his blood was indelibly on her own hands.

But that was before. Now she had doubts that gnawed at
her soul.

Emily turned off the highway toward the Pacific, and the
tourist community of Copper Beach. The sun had dipped
into the ocean, but even at high noon, it would still have the
dark gloom that makes the water and sky a seamless wall.
Copper Beach had been platted in the 1980s as Washington's
great answer to the coastal communities that brought retirees
with fat pensions. Two golf courses were built. Tribal land
nearby also factored into the plans. In Washington, gambling
was illegal. But Native American tribes who owned vast
stretches of the state operated as sovereign nations. Tribal
casinos would soon spring up. It was the yin and yang developers had long dreamed about: Wonder bread communities
on the coast with the naughty fun of the bad-influenceneighbor just down the road.

One problem. The weather. Washington wasn't California, or even Oregon. Rain kept the place from really taking
off. As Emily drove though the town, motels and saltwater
taffy shops competed with moped rentals and sad old horses
that had never seen better days-Sea Nags-hired out for
beach rides. Alongside the road beach houses were draped in
necklaces of fishing floats and flanked by chainsaw effigies
of New England fisherman wearing yellow slickers and
spinning ship's wheels. Sand dunes threatened the roadway.
Despite the ocean's waves crashing against driftwood, the
world outside her car seemed so silent. So lonely. Emily
Kenyon thanked God that Christopher Collier was right behind her. Following her. How familiar it all felt.

She remembered the heavy tangle of driftwood that lined
the beachhead and protected the road, wooden limbs clawing
into the damp marine air. The stream of light from her perpetually-on high-beam headlights brought the snags and
roots to life.

A last turn, and Emily was almost there. Adrenaline, the
drug of working cops, skydivers, and mothers in search of
their endangered children, pulsed. It nearly flooded her system when she saw it. A black mailbox carried the number on
its silvery weathered driftwood post: 4444 COPPER BEACH
ROAD. She pulled over and kept the car idling until Christopher opened the passenger door and slid onto the seat.

"You drive like a maniac," he said. "I could barely keep
up with you"

Emily faked a smile. "That's because you drive like
someone's grandpa"

Christopher shrugged and allowed her the upper hand. He
cracked the window. The car was warm inside. "You ready to
do this?" he asked.

"What about backup? Did you call the local blues?"

"Nope. We don't need them. We're just doing a little surveillance."

"What if we're wrong and she-they aren't here? What
if Walker's playing some kind of mind game?"

"There's no what if on that one. He is. He's got to be ""

Emily opened the door; the soft ping of the warning
sound faded into the stormy air. "Let's go"

The cabin had been remodeled in the years since they'd
both been there. People with money had taken the place with
the idea they'd be able to turn it into a bed and breakfast.
They'd had intermittent success. During his drive from
Tacoma, Christopher had contacted the owners, now living
in Seattle and the place was vacant. It was not owned by
Walker's cousin after all.

"Worst investment we ever made," the gruff-voiced man
said. "The place is cursed. Can't keep it booked more than half the season. Go ahead. Have a look around. If you like it,
I'll make you a deal on a rental."

That would never happen, of course. The Seattle detective
could think of nothing more unlikely than vacationing at the
scene of the Tuttle shooting.

"Key's under the gull by the front door," the man had
said.

When Emily and Christopher got within ten yards of the
cabin's front door, a porch light-a floodlight, no less-went
off like a paparazzo's camera. Flash! They blinked back the
sudden, silent explosion of brightness. Who was that? Their
eyes had barely adjusted to the flash when a figure, the silhouette of a man, appeared in the doorway, then disappeared.

"Come on in," a voice called out from somewhere in the
pool of light. "I've been expecting you"

It was a familiar voice: the voice of a thousand cheap
documentaries with prison interviews over which he presided
whenever a pretty producer would call. It was Dylan Walker.

"Put your hands where we can see them, Walker." Christopher used his don't-mess-with-me voice. It was a far cry
from the tough voice he'd use on a garden-variety suspect.

For a cop, Dylan Walker was the unholy grail.

"Why should I?"

Walker lingered for a beat before turning his back and
sauntering farther into the cabin, out of view. It was as if he hadn't a care in the world and loved the attention of two guns
pointed at him. "You arrest me," he called out. "You shoot me
in the back. Either way, you'll never see your daughter again."

Both guns pitched in front of them, the two went up the
steps. Emily knew that if Jenna wasn't there-and she knew
that possibility was next to nil-then only one person would
know where Jenna was. The man who would be king of the
serial killers was the only one who could save her daughter.

Dylan Walker was a man without compassion.

Emily, just behind Chris, whispered, "We're going in."

The wind howled behind them. Chris gave a slight nod, as
if to say everything would be fine.

"Stay close," he said.

She wouldn't have it any other way. He always could read
my mind, she thought.

The pair stepped out of the windy night and through the
open door. Sand moved under their feet like fine grit sandpaper.
A carving of a seagull on a piling crouched in the space next
to the doorway. Dead houseplants lined the entryway, a kind
of graveyard of neglect that indicated no one lived in the
cabin full-time. Neither could see Dylan Walker just then.
Flames crackled through the driftwood logs in the river rock
fireplace that went from the floor to the ceiling like a stone
temple, hollowed by fire. It was a cozy scene.

Cozy for a serial killer.

Walker appeared, coming out of what Emily was certain
was the rental's tiny kitchen. She'd been there. She knew.
Dylan Walker held a beer and a gun.

"Thirsty?" he asked. "I have some Doritos, too"

Christopher almost shook his head at the remark. "Maybe
you're blind and you don't see the guns here? Drop yours
now."

Dylan shrugged at Christopher, but addressed Emily.
"Maybe you don't know how to have a good time? Do you, Emily? I mean, you haven't had a good time since Reynard
Tuttle went down. Since Kristi Cooper." He set the beer on a
lamp table and grinned. "Didn't you shoot Tuttle right here?"

Emily stayed mute. She wanted to speak, but she was
fighting the memories he was callously flinging at her. Walker
pointed to a spot on the worn pine floorboards. "Still stained."

Emily glanced at Chris who kept his weapon punched toward Dylan. Then, almost reluctantly, she cast her gaze downward. The wood floor was scuffed and scratched, but its color
was golden, a perfect Swedish finish. There were no stains.
No blood. By the time she looked over at Walker, she knew
he'd gotten what he'd wanted. His self-satisfied grin told her
everything.

"Made you look," he said.

"You're a real piece of work, Walker," said Christopher.

"Oh, you really scare me"

"I mean to "" Christopher's mouth was a straight line of
anger.

Dylan laughed and patted his firearm. He backed into a
chair, stretching out his sinewy legs to meet a tattered, upholstered ottoman.

Emily tried to gather her wits. She willed her heart to
slow its rapid pace. Where is all of this going? The scene
was surreal with the three of them, guns drawn at each other
in a bizarre stalemate. She and Chris both knew that if Jenna
and Nick weren't in the cabin with Walker, they could be
anywhere. The man with the perfect body and piercing, cold
eyes was the only one who knew just where that could be.