A Cold Dark Place (13 page)

Worst of all, Jenna was still gone. Emily had finally talked
to David. She'd got her old friends in the Seattle PD to check
it all out. And she was now convinced that David had been
telling the truth. Jenna was on her own. Or worse. She was
helping someone, she'd said. Emily knew it had to be Nicholas
Martin.

Despite every effort of the sheriff, and of law enforcement all over the state, there was no clue where they were.

Emily had been adamant. She didn't want the public to
know that her daughter was with Nick. That would make her
personal involvement in the case a liability. It might tempt
him to hurt her. So while there was a concerted effort to find
Nick and ask him about his dead family, no one in Cherrystone except Shali and a few kids at school knew with certainty that Jenna was missing. Instead Emily had explained
she was with her dad for a while.

When Randazzo's office at Cherrystone High demanded
to know if Jenna was coming back, Emily said she would let
them know what the situation was when she knew, that the
family was working through some issues, and that her investigation of the Martin homicides had made the situation even
more difficult. Randazzo had had the decency to back off.

So there Emily sat in her office, fishing through messages
from the media, amid fermenting latte cups in the trash, and
a legal pad headed with "Call Today" on her desk. She tapped
her pen against the paper. She felt empty, depressed, and heartbroken. On some level the Martin case would have been a
detective's dream-a puzzler that required both wits and work,
but she was short on both just then. Her litany of reasons to
hate her life was topped off with the deep hurt she felt that
Jenna had called David instead of her.

She had been a good mother. She was sure of it. She
thought she and Jenna had been exceptionally close, a kind
of personification of the old Helen Reddy chestnut, "You and Me Against the World" She wondered how she could be so
wrong with her assessment. So blind. What had been going
on between them? How could she have missed any warning
signs that things were awry? She remembered all the times
she'd passed by Jenna's bedroom and saw her typing away on
her Mac. Emily had thought Jenna was doing her homework.
Was she chatting with Batboy? Why hadn't Jenna told her
about him?

She wrote on the pad in front of her: school, friends,
teachers, neighbors. Who held the key? Who knew?

There was nothing in Nick Martin's background to indicate he'd be capable of killing his entire family. As Emily
now worked her way through the rest of the rather thin green
school district file, a reasonably positive picture of the missing teenager came into focus. His grade in Speech Communications was his lowest, a C+. He'd had mostly As and Bs.
There were no teacher comments, but to Emily's way of
thinking, Nick Martin was probably shy, uncomfortable in
front of a group. Most kids were. As Jenna had told her, Nick
was artistic; high marks in four different art classes bore witness to the idea that he was one of those creative types that
are often ostracized in the high school culture that praised
athletes over artists. In fact, nowhere on his transcript could
she find that he'd been involved in sports. He wasn't a
Columbine kid-one of those disenfranchised malcontents
that stormed around the high school campus in a black
trench coat bemoaning the world that had kicked him to the
curb.

Emily's stomach growled and she pressed the palm of her
hand against her abdomen to stifle a noise she was sure Kip
could hear in the office down the hall. She'd had nothing but
coffee all day. She thought of what Peg Martin's sister, Marina, had said about the problems that had seemed to be
brewing between father and son. What was going on at home that caused both Nick and Mark Martin to leave school and
work? Had a confrontation between father and son escalated
to such a degree that escalated into a bloodbath that wiped
out the entire family?

Except one. Except Nicholas Martin, the missing.

The only thing that kept Emily from sinking into the floor
in utter despair as she worked on the threadbare case was the
phone call Jenna had made to David. That alone allowed her
to sharpen her focus after Kip had suggested she drop the
case because of "personal" reasons. Emily understood where
the sheriff was coming from, but Kip had underestimated
her-or what she wanted to be. Indeed, what she had been
before returning to Cherrystone.

They talked after Marina Wilbur left the office to complete funeral arrangements for her sister, nephew, and brotherin-law.

"Look," he said, folding his big mitts on her desk, "I don't
think Jason's ready for this by a long shot, but I don't know
that you can take on what needs to be done here. I might
need to, you know, elevate his role here."

"Jason?" Emily could scarcely believe her ears. "He's
only a deputy and he's barely out of diapers," she shot back,
knowing at once that she'd been on the borderline of insubordination. It was more of an overreaction to demonstrate as
clearly as possible that she was capable of doing her job. It
was the one thing about which she felt confident at that moment, now that "wife" and "mother" seemed no longer in play.

"I've thought about turning it over to Spokane for an assist," he said. "We're not staffed for this kind of event here"

Kind of event? He was talking media-speak and it irritated her that much more. Her face grew hot.

"How can you say that? I have more experience than any
of those grandstanders from Spokane. You know that. Jesus"

"Chill. Deep breath, Emily. Can't you acknowledge that you're under an inordinate degree of stress? Maybe so much
that you really can't perform your duties?"

Emily bit her lip. What she wanted to say right then could
get her fired and she knew it. She counted to three.

"Brian," she said, using his first name, a technique she
employed while cozying up to a suspect she wanted to win
over, "I admit I'm under stress. Okay? I concede that point.
But I know I can do my job. Jason's not ready and since
when did we ever want to get Spokane involved in our affairs? And-" She hesitated, realizing that she was on dangerous ground again. "I'm sorry. Give me a break, Okay?"

Kip groped for a pack of cigarettes in his jacket, and put
an unlit cigarette in his mouth. It dangled from his lip as he
started to speak, "I will. You deserve it. I'm going outside to
puff and think. Let's talk about the case when I get back"

Emily turned her attention back to her notes and the file.
"All right. I'll be ready." She knew a few moments cooling
off were a gift and she was going to take advantage of it. She
opened her case notebook and looked at her notes when
the phone rang.

It was a reporter from a Spokane radio station.

"We've had a couple of sightings of the Martin boy," the
young woman, with the unfortunate name, Candace Kane,
said. "Care to comment? I'm recording now. Okay?"

"No, not okay," Emily said. "I don't know what you're
talking about and I don't comment on anything I don't know
about"

Candace barely took a breath, and then started chirping
again. "But I need a quote for the news. Here's what we
know. We got a call from a couple listeners who saw him
shopping at the Riverside Mall at the Nordstrom"

Emily wanted desperately for it to be true but she didn't
even attempt to hide her skepticism. "I doubt it's Nick Mar tin," she said. "Frankly, he doesn't impress me as the Nordstrom type"

There was silence from the other end of the line.

"Ms. Kane, are you still there?"

"Sorry. Yes. I was writing that down. Old school, since
you won't let me record your comments for our air. Anyhow,
that's what I thought about the Martin boy, too. The photo
they ran of him in the paper made him look like a real space
case. More grungy Mervyns than Nordstrom"

Emily didn't know that a photo had made it into the
media. "Spokane paper?" she asked.

"Yeah, you can see it online. Pull it up on your computer.
Just go to www dot-"

"Thanks," Emily said, but she was already tapping the
keyboard as Candace Kane offered a minitutorial on how to
access the station's Web site. She pulled down her "favorites"
menu on her toolbar and clicked on the Spokane paper. An
image of Nick in what obviously was a yearbook photo, the
same thing that had appeared on Good Morning America
when the sheriff stammered his way through that interview,
popped into view. The portrait had a "painterly" background
and the harsh flash of a photographer working on an assembly line. Nick's skin looked so pale, his hair nearly black.
Emily leaned closer to the screen. Was he wearing eyeliner?
Didn't Jenna and Shali call it guyliner? The quality of the
image was pretty good, but she couldn't be sure. Her eyes
progressed to the headline: SEARCH IS ON FOR KILLER. But
then something else caught her eye. There was a sidebar to
the main article: WHEN A BOY KILLS HIS FAMILY.

"You still there?" It was the voice of the radio reporter who
interrupted Emily's immersion in the article. Her eyes continued to scan the content flickering on her computer screen.

"Yes, but I have to go," she said. "If I can make a statement later, I'll make it on your air first."

She didn't wait for the reporter to answer. She hung up
the phone and looked back at the screen. It wasn't the main
story that intrigued her-it was a mishmash of what neighbors had to say about how "things like that don't happen
around Cherrystone" and some reminiscences about how
kind Peg Martin had been to so many people. It fit what
Emily knew to be true, not one of those post-death do-overs
of someone's character. Emily didn't know Peg raised champion Russian Blues. Mark was a watercolorist. Donny had
been named Cub Scout of the month by his pack, three
times. None of that riveted her like the accompanying story.
The editors had packaged the Nick Martin story with a
broader theme: Boys Who Are Bad. They highlighted a case
in Des Moines, Iowa, where, a month prior, a boy named
Aaron Collins had shot and killed his parents before raising
the barrel of a gun to his own temple. Emily remembered the
story. There had been great controversy about the Collins
case because school officials had seen some warning signs,
but apparently disregarded them.

"That kid never fit in," the boy's maternal grandfather
was quoted as saying. "He was so preoccupied with finding
his birth parents in Seattle that he scarcely gave my daughter
and her husband the time of day. He actually ran away a
month before the murders. They should have let him run"

Adopted? The word hung in Emily's memory. She glanced
at the clock; it was after six. Ordinarily she'd be hurrying for
the door by then. Hoping that whatever she'd planned for dinner would still come together quickly for Jenna. She wondered
if she'd put too much on Jenna. Too much responsibility. Too
much of a need to excel and hold it together when her own
life had crumbled.

The last face she expected, wanted to see, appeared in the
doorway just then. It was Cary McConnell. He was a handsome man, with piercing blue eyes and wavy dark hair, the kind of coloring that had made Emily's heart beat faster even
in high school. He had that handsome lawyerly look that
made him the star of the courtroom. Nice suits cut by a Korean tailor in a time where almost everyone bought off the
rack also distinguished him in style and attitude. Cary
owned the ground he walked on. He was a control freak,
sure. But a very handsome one.

"You haven't called me back," he said, inviting himself
into a seat across from her desk. "I've been worried."

"Look," Emily said, "I've been through a lot. It wasn't
personal." She lied, and Cary was too stuck on himself to
sense it.

"I know," he lied right back to her. "Any news on Jenna?"
He leaned back.

He was getting comfortable. Damn.

"She called David. She's helping a friend." Emily started
pulling files together. She opened her briefcase. She was getting ready to leave, each cue was meant to tell Cary to back
off. Go home.

"You want to get a drink and talk?" When Emily didn't
respond right away, Cary pressed again. "Just a drink. Nothing
more."

Emily didn't want to go home alone. She didn't exactly
want to go off with Cary McConnell either. Kip had invited
her to have dinner with him and his wife, but she felt that he
just wanted to "observe" her to see if she was too messed up
to carry on with the Martin investigation.

"All right," she finally said.

Cary McConnell flashed his faultless smile. "Good. Just
friends"

Later that night, after a couple of salt-rimmed margaritas
and dinner at Rosario's Cantina, Emily Kenyon wondered how
she'd been so weak, so foolish. Cary's stealthy charm and undeniably practiced compassion had worked on her frayed emotions. It was like sleeping with the enemy; a betrayal of
what was really going on in her life. She buried her face
against his lightly hairy chest and took in a deep breath. Her
cheeks were damp from silent tears that predictably went unnoticed. Cary smelled of Calvin Klein's Obsession cologne.
She found herself wishing that she actually loved him, but
the thought was transitory. As the digital clock spun into the
late hours, she had only one thing that was on her mind: Jenna.

Where are you, baby? Come home. Come home.

Spring and summer in Ogden, Utah, are hotter than hell,
but few of those living there would ever deign to use such a
vulgar metaphor when describing what they knew to be the
Promised Land. Ogden was a burgeoning Mormon enclave
of pristinely maintained homes set behind sidewalks that
had never seen a chalk mark since the day Mexican workers
poured them. Lawns were green and weed-free. Sprinklers
on timers sprayed their staccato blast of water only at night.
Everything was perfectly ordered and ordered perfectly.