A Cold Dark Place (7 page)

"I didn't call you to argue," he said, his voice icy. "I wanted
to tell you that I've been talking with Jenna and she wants to
live with me for the summer. The hospital PR department says she could help out on the Web site. It would be a good
opportunity."

Emily was stunned, but she tried to keep cool. Why would
Jenna collude with her father? Wasn't she happy? "She said
so?" she asked, before she thought better of it, and laid the
blame at David. "Or is this something you've cooked up?"

"I'm her dad. She needs her dad. Studies say that girls
grow into stronger, more self-actualized women if they have
close relationships with their fathers" He was superior, cool,
and oddly detached; it was as if he was reading his words out
of some journal that Dani probably nabbed off the Internet.

"Really? That would have been nice to know when we
were all still living together, wouldn't it?"

"Okay. This call is going nowhere"

"Right" Like our marriage, Emily thought, though she
held it in. "Good-bye, David. I'll have my lawyer call yours"

As she moved the phone from her ear she heard him say,
"When are you going to tell him? Tonight in bed-"

It was a cheap shot and Emily snapped her flip phone
shut. An argument with David always ended with a calculated abruptness. Even though it was a pattern that had been
repeated ad nauseum during the more difficult times of their
marriage, Emily never got used to it. Her face felt hot with
anger. Her pulse raced. It was true, Cary McConnell had
been her divorce lawyer. She and Cary hadn't so much as
shared a meal until after the divorce was final. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The phrase out of the frying pan came to her
mind.

Emily got out of her car in the Cherrystone High School
parking lot. A girl sat in her big brother's blue Nova and
smoked a More cigarette. She looked over at Emily, pulled
the brown stick from her mouth, and waved. It was a girl
who'd visited the house a few times when they first returned
to Cherrystone. Emily smiled back. The girl turned her head to exhale a steady stream of smoke. A couple of teenage
boys sat on a curb in front of the totem pole that marked the
school's entrance. Both wore holey jeans, wallet chains, and
sweatshirts that had seen better days or at least had been
distressed enough to appear so. One was a faux vintage shirt
for the band Poison. The other boy had a pair of gold earrings-thick and pretty enough that Emily thought they must
have cost a bundle if they were real gold.

"You here about Nick?" the one with the Poison shirt
asked.

The question caught Emily off guard. She thought for a
moment before answering. It shouldn't have surprised her
much. The Spokane TV news had already broadcast the discovery of the three bodies.

"Do you know him?"

"Not really. We hung out a few times. Kind of quiet. But
cool, too"

The earring boy looked up; his dark hooded eyes seemed
empty when he probably meant to cop a menacing affect.

"Nick Martin was screwed up. Always has been. His
whole family was f d up ""

She narrowed her gaze. "That's quite an endorsement.
What do you mean?"

Golden earrings shrugged, but the other boy answered.

"Kyle says everyone is screwed up ""

"Yeah, I guess I do," Kyle said, nodding in a slow and exaggerated manner, before adding, "I barely knew the guy."

Emily thanked them, and handed each a card.

"Whoa," Poison said, "you've got a business card. Cool."

She didn't know if it was sarcasm or if he was truly impressed by the ivory and black sheriff's department card, but
she smiled nonetheless.

"Call me if you can think of something that will be helpful, okay?"

With that, she pitched her coffee cup into a trash can by
the front door and made her way to the front office. A wave
of silence seemed to follow her. There would be no need for
introductions. There was no need to say why she was there.
The school was abuzz with the news.

"Dr. Randazzo is waiting for you," said the secretary, a
cheerful lady with an apricot chignon that looked like it had
been spun from sugar at the county fair. "Go right on in."

It didn't add up. Anyone could see it. How could she rebuff him? Deny him? Deny herself? He thought about those
things as he tried to fit the tiny pieces of his life together. She
had been all he'd ever wanted. She had been the one who
made him whole. She was all he dreamed about. When he
was eating a meal, it was she he was consuming. Sweet. Tender. Juicy. When he was masturbating, it was her soft hand
stroking his penis. Faster, slower, down his hard shaft. Only
she knew how to touch him. When the wind blew softly over
his ears, it was her voice whispering for him to try harder.
She loved him. He alone understood her. As she alone understood him.

The memory faded. His face grew hot. He could feel his
disappointment, then anger and rage well up in his throat. It
tightened and burned. He wanted to scream at her for ruining everything by choosing the wrong man. And what a stupid choice. She could never be to the other man what she could be to him. He alone could love her. He could cherish
every goddamn inch of her body.

Stupid bitch, he thought as he tore up one of the copies of
the letters that he'd saved. It had once been so precious. But
no more. Shards of paper fell like confetti, all over the floor.
He looked down at the mess. It seemed so perfect in its destruction. She'd cost him everything.

He started to weep and it made him hate her more. Even
then, after all that he'd done for her, after she'd unceremoniously dumped him when he told her how he felt, his feelings
were conflicted. Mixed. A jumble.

Miranda Collins parked her Silver BMW sedan in front
of her expansive redbrick home. The house overlooked the
pale green waters of Des Moines's lazy Raccoon River. That
quiet Sunday, when the chill of winter had been decidedly
chased away with the promise of an early spring, she doubted
there was a prettier place in the world. The sun's rays wove
their way through the leafy overhang of the only elms in all
of Iowa to survive the Dutch Elm disaster of the 1930s. It
was among the most desirable neighborhoods in the city.
Droplets of light fell over the lawn and cobblestone walkway
to the ten-foot leaded-glass doors that led inside the turn-ofthe-century Tudor-style home that Miranda shared with her
husband, Karl, and their son, Aaron. She threw her Coach
bag over her shoulder and hooked her fingers into the loops
of plastic grocery bags holding the ingredients for tonight's
dinner chicken, button mushrooms, shallots, and a decent
bottle of Bordeaux. She knew better than to buy the cheap
stuff.

"Cooking wine should never be anything less than what
you'd imbibe from a Baccarat glass," Karl had said a time or
two. He was only half-kidding, and Miranda had learned not
to repeat the remark because it made him seem like such a
snob. And a snob he could be.

He's a proctologist, for goodness sake, she thought. He's
a success, of course, but bottom line he's no neurosurgeon.
What he knows of wine he's learned from the pages of Wine
Spectator or what I've told him.

An attractive woman with symmetrical features and dark
brown hair that had been artfully streaked gray by nature,
Miranda balanced the sacks of groceries on her hip as she
reached with her key for the doorknob. Her charm bracelet
with its collection of miniatures revealing a happy life dangled from her wrist. A baby carriage. A typewriter. Books.
Miniature maps of Washington and California. A tiny Space
Needle replica had been placed next to the Eiffel Tower and
the St. Louis Arch. She considered each memento a keystone in her life.

The measly pressure of her inserting the key made the
door move inward. It wasn't locked. It wasn't even shut. It
only alarmed her for a second that DJ, the cocker spaniel that
had been an unwelcome birthday gift from her son, might
have gotten outside. If he hadn't, he'd have been at the door
like a rocket to greet her. The dog saw every shadow through
the glass as an opportunity for escape.

"Karl? Aaron? DJ got out!" she called from the foyer. Her
heels clacked against the marble flooring as she moved from
stone to carpet.

No one answered.

In turning to go down the hall toward the kitchen, Miranda noticed several reddish spots on the surface of the oriental rug that she'd purchased from a street vendor in Iran
before the shah lost power. Miranda had been a correspon dent for a network affiliate and the carpet, with its intricate
pattern of green, cream, and pink, was the one souvenir
she'd allowed herself.

"What?" she said softly. It looked like the dog had gotten
into something. She set the groceries on the floor and touched
the red spot with her fingertips. Wet. She rubbed the stain
between her fingers.

"Karl!" she screamed. "Aaron!" She stared at her hand.
The red liquid wasn't dye. It wasn't tomato sauce. She knew
in an instant that it had to be blood. "Guys! Where are you?"

Miranda started for the kitchen. Her heart threatened to
burst through her chest. She knew she was hyperventilating,
but in her horror and worry she did not know how to stop
herself. Slow down. Get a grip. The phrases meant to give
her strength and composure only got in the way of her real
thoughts. Her sense of smell picked up the odor of something that had burned. It was a wisp of a scent.

"What happened here?" she asked aloud. "Where are you?"

She turned in to the kitchen and gasped.

Then, as if a curtain had hurriedly been closed by the
cruelest of unseen hands, everything went completely dark.

The blood had dried on his hands by the time daylight
came through the Krueger-like slashes in the old roof over
the smelly nylon plaid couch in the abandoned mining office
where he'd spent a restless night. Or had it been longer than
a single night? Maybe two? In a second of frazzled introspection, he struggled to knit together all that had really happened. He gripped his hands tightly, and opened them to
reveal his lifelines, clear, clean. He almost smiled at the
irony. The blood had turned to powder. He faced his palms
downward and the fine dark particles snowed to his chest.
Blood had stiffened his T-shirt, the taut fabric now more
brown than green. He shuddered as he shifted his weight. If
he had always felt somewhat alone, somewhat alien, he felt it
no more so than then. His mouth was dry. His body ached.
And all he could think of was her. She alone would understand.

But how could he get to her? To find her, to talk to her, would be to risk everything. He sat up. God, he hurt. His
dark hooded eyes followed a rat as it skittered across the debris that blanketed the floor. It stood on its haunches and
started to climb a power cord to a broken vending machine.
As he watched the rodent, its scaly tail coiling around the
cord like a snake, made its way to its source of food as
hunger propelled him. He could feel tears push to the edge
of his eyelids, but he flatly refused to allow any to fall. He
knew he could be stronger. He had nothing left to lose.

No time for crying, he thought.

"Isn't this unbelievable, Detective?"

Dr. Sal Randazzo, the Cherrystone High School principal, was a small man with dark, flinty eyes and rounded
shoulders that sloped to such an unfortunate degree that he
looked more like an oversized bowling pin than a man. His
bald head didn't exactly assuage the visual connection. Neither did his pasty white complexion, which belied his Italian
heritage. Emily had never liked him much; he seemed high
strung and pompous.

She greeted him warmly and took a seat in one of two
metal-framed visitors' chairs across from his desk-a desk
that seemed to be nothing more than a platform for an array
of time-wasting toys. There was a collection of wind-up
plastic cars and a miniature Slinky. A pendulum with six
steel ball bearings was still swinging to and fro and softly
clacking from his last play session. He also had a Chia Pet in
the form of a man with a pate in the same hairless condition
as his own. A few half-dead alfalfa sprouts bent toward the sunlight that streamed from a pair of floor-to-ceiling office
windows.

Randazzo smiled sheepishly when he caught her looking
at the Chia Pet. "That's me, I guess"

"I think it's sweet and a little funny," Emily said, though
she really didn't. She changed the subject. "I guess you realize I'm here about Nick Martin."

"Yes, I thought so. Coffee?"

"No thanks. I had the world's worst mocha on the way
over here"

Randazzo tugged at the knees of his pants as he bent down
to sit. He wore a gray flannel suit, probably from JCPenney.

"We're hearing all sorts of things," he said. His eyes fixed
on her. "Do you think he killed his family?"

"We really don't know what happened"

"But you can tell me what you think, can't you?"

Emily kept her eyes riveted to the principal. "You know I
can't"

"Interesting how the police never want to share information with us and anytime our kids breathe on the wrong side
of the road, you're here in riot gear and tasers ."

"Sorry. I know it seems unfair. I'll take that coffee after
all."

Randazzo frowned and buzzed his secretary and she instantly appeared, smiled thinly, and deposited a badly stained
plastic mug of tar-colored coffee.

"What can I tell you?" Randazzo gripped a file folder and
drummed his fingertips lightly on it. "I probably can't tell
you what you want to know. Brianna's Law, you know."