A Cold Dark Place (12 page)

Emily set each of the sheets of paper across her desk.
Muzak filtered in from the hallway and footsteps came and
went, but never once did she look up. So much of what is
routinely learned about what happened to each victim was
quite literally gone with the wind. The tornado had swept
away any trace evidence-fibers, hairs, even shell casings
that had been left behind by the killer. Why had Mrs. Martin
been found nude? Labs for the presence of semen came back
negative. She hadn't been sexually active that morning, and
unless the killer had used a condom, she likely hadn't been
raped. The nudity was puzzling, however. Emily just couldn't
wrap her brain around what had taken place. Maybe she'd
just gotten out of the shower? Or was in her robe? She'd
been bound the only one of the three. From what Emily
knew, Peg had called the schools and Mark's office with the
urgent message to get home. Had the killer used Peg to lure
Mark upstairs after he'd placed that call to Mark's office?
There was no way of knowing.

But at least one person probably had an inkling, if not a hand in it. Nicholas Martin. And Emily had only two questions to ask him: Why had he done this? And what did her
daughter have to do with any of it?

Reluctantly Emily went home to the empty house on Orchard Avenue, full of memories, but missing the one spark of
life that was her daughter.

God, where is she?

When Marina Wilbur turned to greet Emily Kenyon, it
was like seeing a ghost from an unsettled grave. The look of
horror on the pretty detective's face could not have been
more disconcerting-and tragically obvious.

"I'm sorry," Marina said, standing to acknowledge Emily
as she entered her office. "I guess I should have told your
boss to warn you. Peg and I are .. ." She caught herself and
the tears she had held in check since the ride from the
Spokane airport began to rain down her cheeks. "Were," she
corrected herself as she fought to regain her shattered composure, "we were identical twins."

Emily, still caught off guard, set down her paperwork and
lamely offered coffee. She was carrying her own from the
coffee stand and felt awkward drinking in front of her.

"It's not bad for cop coffee," Emily said, looking around
for a tissue and hoping that Shali Patterson hadn't used the
last of them.

Like her sister just like her sister-Marina Wilbur was a thin and shapely woman with honey-blond hair and, given
a much happier time, mischievous green eyes. Emily thought
of the school carnival and how Peg had given a kid an extra
cookie. Her green eyes literally twinkled. But Marina's eyes
weren't all that mischievous now. They were wrought with
worry, dread, and unimaginable sadness. She had flown from
Dayton, Ohio, to face the worst possible scenario of any family-multiple murders at the hands of one of its own.

And now, sitting in Emily Kenyon's office, Marina was
clearly losing her battle to maintain any semblance of control. She had started to sob softly. Maybe the first time, since
Jenna's vanishing, Emily realized that others were suffering,
deeper, irrevocable losses.

"I'm sorry, so very sorry," Emily said. "It is almost impossible to come up with any words that provide comfort at
a time like this. I know it from losing my own parents not
long ago. I liked your sister very much. She was a wonderful
woman. This must be so hard for you."

Marina nodded. "Thank you. I heard about your daughter, and I'm sorry for what you're going through, too"

It was a kind gesture, but Emily found herself bristling
slightly. Jenna is not dead like your sister and your family.
Jenna is with her dad and will come home. But she said
nothing.

"I appreciate that. Thank you" She lingered for a second,
but there was nothing more to say. "Let's talk about your sister and her family, all right?" She pushed the Kleenex box,
toward Marina. "Do you need a moment?"

Marina crumpled a tissue and blotted her face. Her resolve was clear. She was as ready as she could ever be. The
bodies of her sister, her sister's husband, and her youngest
nephew were already in caskets, lined up for burial.

"I'm okay. I mean, considering everything that has happened this week. Has it even been a week? It was such an un believable shock. First, the tornado-which we watched on
the news. When we couldn't reach Peg and Mark after the
storm, we figured that the power and phone lines were damaged. We kept trying and trying, but never got through. I
called Mark's office and they said he'd missed a day of work,
which was odd for him, but I still didn't think. . "

"How could you? I mean, really, no one could have,"
Emily said.

"I told myself that on the way over here. But you know it
will take a lot of soul searching to figure out if I could have
prevented this."

The remark was startling. Emily set down her coffee. The
woman across from her wasn't there just to find out what
happened to her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. She was
there for another reason. She felt guilty.

"How so?" Emily asked.

"Mark," she began, "had been troubled lately." She caught
herself and stopped. Her words had come out all wrong. "I
mean not to the extent that he'd do this .. " She paused, and
finally said, "I don't know."

Emily could feel her pulse race. "But you must know
something," she finally offered.

Marina Wilbur looked out the window, across the parking
lot of pickup trucks and late model cars. All needed a good
wash. Cherrystone was not a wealthy town. She wondered
why her sister would want to live in a place like Cherrystone
anyway. She knew Peg loved Mark and always said that
Cherrystone was "out of the way" and a "great place" to
raise kids. What a crock that seemed now. She couldn't think
of the last time an entire family had been murdered in Dayton, a far larger city than Cherrystone could ever hope to be.

"They were having trouble. Peg told me. Mark was upset
about something. Work maybe, I'm not sure. That was the
impression I got. She didn't say so, but I'm her twin. We don't need to spell out every little thing, you know. Peg said
that he'd been under a lot of stress and it was causing trouble
with the boys, both Donny and Nick."

"What kind of trouble?"

"She was vague about it. Said that there was a lot of arguing going on between Mark and the boys, particularly Mark
and Nick. I don't like to pry and my sister's pretty private-"
She caught herself, leaving the present-tense reference to her
sister to hang in the air for a beat, but neglected to amend her
words. "There had been some kind of knock-down drag-out,
I guess, a couple weeks ago"

"No clue about what it was about?"

Marina reached for another tissue. The first one had been
wadded to the size of a peach pit. She looked around for a
trash container, but when she didn't see one, set the paper
ball on the corner of the desk.

"This is very upsetting. And very private. But I guess I
can tell you, I mean my sister's not going to get mad at me,
you know." Her tears returned. "I think it had something to
do with Nick's adoption."

"I didn't know until recently that he was adopted," the detective said.

"Of course not. Why would anyone need to know? He
was their son in every way."

"Was Donny adopted, too?"

Marina dismissed the question with the shake of her
head. "Isn't that always the way? They'd tried having one of
their own for ten years fertility clinics, counseling, you
name it, they did it. They adopted Nick. They were so happy
with a son to love. And bam, a couple years later, Marina
calls up and tells me she's pregnant. On their own. No help
from anyone. Donovan, Peg always said, was .... Her words
stumbled from her lips, "was their miracle baby."

Emily opened her notebook and started writing, all the while keeping her eyes riveted to Marina Wilbur and her
sodden tissue. She was unsure what this information meant
for the Martin case, and what, if anything it meant for the
subject that had most of her attention-her missing daughter.

She was going to get in touch with David and demand to
talk to her daughter. Just what kind of relationship had she
had with Nick anyway? Could she get in touch with him?
Bring him in? Did David realize how vulnerable she was?
He had to be warned that Jenna might be mixed up in something very, very dangerous.

The shack had been silent for almost two hours. Jenna
Kenyon had sat quietly, alone in the shadowy building. Wind
scraped the roofline and she pulled the cords on her hooded
pale blue sweatshirt taut. How much longer would he be
gone? She'd tried the doorknob, but it had been locked from
the outside. The windows were too high up, and ultimately
too small, even if she'd been able to hoist herself up there
somehow. Her knee still throbbed. But more than pain, she
felt a strange kind of uneasiness. It was fear. It was justified.
She was alone in a strange place. Just waiting. Just wondering.

She heard the doorknob twist and she spun around; a bolt
of light from the outside blasted its way inside. The silhouette of a figure stood in the doorway, stark and foreboding.
Jenna put her hand to her mouth to muffle her involuntary
cry.

"Sorry it took so long," he said, "but I had a hard time
getting that beater going."

Nick Martin held a bag of food and a newspaper in one
hand. He was pale and sweaty, but he tried to suck up enough
courage so that he could at least appear to be calm. Jenna de served that consideration. He didn't want her scared any
more than she already was. Fear breeds like a virus in a small,
confined space.

Jenna got up to meet him. "I don't like being left here
alone," she said, taking the bag of food. "I won't be left alone
like that again. Trapped like an animal." She indicated the
lock on the door.

"I had to do that," he said. "I didn't want anyone else finding you"

Jenna fished through the paper bag, found an apple fritter,
and started eating. Nick took the other. He unrolled the
paper and set it on the ratty sofa.

"Made the paper," he said. He indicated the front page of
the Warwick Times. The town was about ten miles from
Cherrystone. A headline ran just above the fold:

BOY MISSING AFTER
FAMILY MURDERED

The article was accompanied by a color photo of the
Martins' flattened house-though it would be difficult for
anyone to comprehend that the debris scattered on the image
had once been a house. Jenna's eyes widened. It looked like
it had been bulldozed. A few telltale pieces that indicated
that the material had once been fashioned into a home, but
not much. She started reading and almost at once, her mother's
name jumped off the page. The story said that Emily Kenyon
had gone out to the residence after the tornado, only to find
that three family members had been shot and the fourth,
Nick Martin, was nowhere to be found.

"I can't believe your mother would say that," he said.

"What?" Jenna hadn't made it that far into the article.

"That!" He punched at the newspaper.

"Hey! Knock it off!" Jenna yelled back. "I can't read it if you rip it up" She traced the columns of type with her now
greasy finger.

"Of course, we don't know what happened, but we're concerned about Nick.
We want to find him before any more
harm comes to him or someone else."

"See right there," he said. "She thinks I'm the one" His
face was red and rage pooled in every fiber of his being.
"Goddamn her!"

"Chill, all right?" Jenna reached her arm around his shoulders, now slumped and shaking. "This isn't good for you.
You've been through so much. We just have to tell her what
happened"

Nick extricated himself from Jenna's arm. "Your mom
will never understand. No one would. This is such a lame
mistake, Jenna. All of this is bullshit. My family didn't understand me. Your mom isn't going to, either."

"I'm here," she said. "I get it. I understand"

Nick got up and walked toward the fissure of light around
the casing of the door.

"Stop. I'm here for you," she said.

He turned around. He was more handsome than menacing, with dark eyes that sucked the life force out of the room.
His hair was curly, dark, almost black, though he'd cajoled
his mother, Peg, into using one of those home highlighting
kits. The highlights were supposed to be golden, though they
looked more like brass. He wore blue jeans low on his hips,
revealing the black band of Joe Boxer briefs against his very
white skin. A vintage Metallica T-shirt and scruffy black
Doc Martens completed the look. A closer examination
would reveal twin pinprick scars through his eyebrows; the
only reminder of a piercing look that he didn't think was cool anymore. Through the tears on his pallid face, he managed a smile.

"I know. Now and forever," he said. "You're the only one
I can count on ""

Jenna pulled him closer. It was tentative. Not in the way
that a woman pulls a man closer, but as a girl comforts a
brother.

"I have to talk to my mother," she said.

Nick pulled away, and took a step backward. His eyes followed Jenna as she slumped back down on the dirty sofa. "I
don't trust your mother. You know what she thinks about me.
Everyone thinks that about me"

Jenna Kenyon knew that Nick was right. She wondered
how she had gotten herself into such a mess, but more urgently, she worried if she was going to be able to get out of it
in time.

Emily Kenyon hadn't eaten much in almost a week. Her
last real meal had been the pasta that Jenna had made the
night before she disappeared. Emily's clothes no longer flattered her figure; they draped limply. Her shoulders were wire
hangers now. Aware of this, she smoothed out the wrinkles in
the cotton blend skirt she'd put on that morning. But it was
more than the forlorn fabric of the outfit that made her such
a mess. It was her entire life. Her forever-marriage had been
torpedoed by a husband who insisted his needs weren't
being met-and found a way to rally in the arms of another,
a younger, woman. She'd thought that living in Cherrystone
among old friends and familiar surroundings would be a
tonic for her troubles. But she was wrong about that, too.
Even living in the family home, as lovely and as steeped in
cherished memories as it was, had been somewhat of a mistake. Old homes take a lot of new money, and a detective's
salary and the child support of a doctor-ex didn't add up to
nearly enough.