A Cold Dark Place

Chapter Eleven

Wednesday, 9:15 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington

It was midmorning the day after Jenna Kenyon went missing. She hadn't been seen anywhere. Not at the school. Not Java the Hut. Not the arcade on Main Street. Nowhere. Just a day after it all started, Emily Kenyon dug into her own life and remembered how she'd barely given another mother's worry a second thought after a similar passage of time. She had worked missing persons before in Seattle and her own words echoed in her head like mantra that was meant to stall and placate.

"Sorry," she had once told a mother facing similar circumstances, "but your son's barely a missing person. He was only classified as a missing a few hours ago."

"That's why I'm here," the mother had said. "You told me to go home yesterday."

I realize that, but really, kids today, you know, they are different than we were"

The woman shook her head, sending a spatter of tears across Emily's desk. Emily pretended not to notice.

"But my son isn't like that. He's an honor student"

"He'll turn up," she said, sending the woman away.

The end of the story, Emily never forgot, was that he was a dead honor student. He'd been found two days later in weedy vacant lot less than a mile from their house. A week or so later, two boys were arrested for murder. The reason? A girl one of them liked had said she thought the honor student was "cute" Being cute got the honor student killed with a tree branch club and the broken end of a beer bottle.

The police, of course, jumped on Jenna's disappearance right away-something they likely would not have done if it had been a girl or boy outside the family of law enforcement. There had been endless phone calls. And the sheriff had called in a computer specialist from Spokane who was trying to figure out just who Batboy88 was, and if he could possibly be Nicholas Martin.

No media attention, though. Emily had not wanted to rally the media-not just yet. It seemed as if it would be more a distraction than a help. After all Jenna was a good girl.

An honor student.

Emily and Shali had driven all over Cherrystone, but no one knew a thing. The worst part of it was that the town wasn't so big that she'd be missed if she was anywhere. She thought of Elizabeth Smart and Polly Klaas-the two girls who had made the country wake up and take notice that the worst possible things can happen in the bedroom down the hall. That tucking in your daughter and kissing her good night did not guarantee that she'd be there in the morning. All the ugliest scenarios in the world came back to her like an avalanche, yet she did her best to dismiss them. One by one. As she sat in her office and saw the worried faces of those who knew her best, each with anxiety and concern etched over all their features, she prayed.

Her cell phone rang. It was her ex-husband.

"David," she said, doing her best to remain calm, "have you heard anything? Has your mom gotten a call from Jenna?"

"No. Not a word. Anything there? Should we really be alarmed?"

"You know something? I don't know why you even bothered calling. Or maybe you dialed me by mistake. FYI, your daughter is missing. You know, the cute little girl you left behind when you went off with what's her name?"

"Do you really want to go there?" David was ice. It was a practiced affect. He used to be a different kind of man, gentle, caring, even loving.

"Go where? I just want to find out where Jenna is."

"She's my daughter, too" David kept his answer curt. "And I love her."

Emily softened a little. She hated herself for badgering him. After all he didn't take her. He didn't know a thing about her whereabouts. It sputtered through her mind that he might know, but she set the idea aside as beyond cruel. Even for David. Ultimately, Emily didn't think he'd stoop so low as to conspire with Jenna to get her back to Seattle.

"I know," she said. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes hurt from crying.

Sheriff Kiplinger appeared in the doorway. He motioned to Emily that he needed to speak with her. He mouthed the words: "It's important."

"I have to go," Emily said into the phone. "Call me if you hear anything. I'll do the same" She looked up, clutching her cell phone tightly against her breast.

"What is it?" she said, almost daring the sheriff to tell her. She could barely read the man. She had no clue what was coming.

"There's someone here to see you"

It passed though her mind that Jenna was there. Thank God! I'll read her the riot act, but thank sweet Jesus that she's all right. But as the sheriff motioned around the corner, another young girl appeared in the doorway.

It was Shali Patterson. She'd obviously been crying. Her usually somewhat heavy-handed makeup had left a pair of mascara tributaries down her cheeks. Kiplinger ushered her into Emily's office.

Emily stood up, and then froze, reading Shah's face like a search warrant. "What's going on? What is it? Have you heard from Jenna?"

Kiplinger backed off toward the doorway, removing his hand from Shah's shoulder, now visibly shaking. The teen shook her head in an exaggerated "no" indicating that she wasn't bringing any news. She looked like a ten-year-old, not the reckless driver who terrorized the neighborhood with a too-fast VW bug.

"Mrs. Kenyon, I've been thinking a lot." Tears had already fallen, but her big eyes threatened a deluge. "And I think I remember one thing about Nick and Jenna"

Emily moved closer. "What was it, Shah?"

"It's about Nick Martin." She hesitated.

"What about Nick?"

"I know that he'd talked a lot about like finding his real dad. That he and his adopted dad weren't that close. His dad was an engineer and he was, you know, artsy. His dad just didn't get him, you know."

"No, I didn't." Emily wondered if the scenario that had played out before the tornado held something even darker than she could imagine.

"Did his father hurt him?" she asked.

The question seemed to stun Shali. She shook her head. "No, not that I know of."

"Then what? Was it worse?"

"No. Not that. It was just that he wanted to find his real dad"

"Was he actively looking?"

The girl nodded. "He registered on one of those Web sites." She reached for a tissue box, and Emily pulled one out and passed it to her. Shali was pulling herself together. There was guilt there, of some kind, but it wasn't so sinister as Emily had imagined.

Emily prodded her. "And?"

Shali wiped her eyes. Her tissue was black. "Not that I know about, but it really wasn't my thing. Jenna was helping him because she felt bad about her dad"

"Her dad?" Emily had no idea where this was going, or if Shali was even paying attention to her best friend's status. "She wasn't adopted"

"I know that, Mrs. Kenyon. What I mean is that Jenna was mad at her dad and didn't think she could be that close to him after what he did to you and her. You know. Like the new girlfriend, Dani."

Emily winced. It seemed like this teenager that peppered her entire speech pattern with extraneous "likes" was getting a little personal. The conversation wasn't going in that direction. Not even an inch.

"All right." Better just to acknowledge what she said and move on.

"She and Nick kind of bonded over that. I think once she got to know him, you know, once she got to see that there was a reason for him acting all sad and artistic, you know."

None of this was tracking. None of it was making sense. What did Jenna's disappearance have to do with Nick not knowing his biological father?

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't understand, honey."

The word "honey" seemed to help. Shali found her footing.

"Well, that she could help him. Get to know him. Maybe once she got to know him, she could like him. You know, like, hook up"

It was a shot to the heart. No mother likes to hear that they've been excluded from their child's life in some small way. Emily had no idea about Nick and Jenna. No clue whatsoever that there'd even been a potential boyfriend lurking somewhere in the background. Hooking up? Never. Jenna would have told her. She and Jenna were close.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Jenna was missing and Shali had held out information. Emily knew by reading Shali's face more was about to come.

She was right.

"Mrs. Kenyon, I'm sorry. I lied to you about something else." She started crying so hard, that whatever she tried to convey, was lost in her sobs. "Sorry. . ."

"It's all right," Emily said. "Take your time. What do you know? Where is Jenna? Do you know where she is?"

"No. That's not it," she said. "I don't know where she is now."

Emily pulled back a little, looking into her eyes, her face calm. Her daughter was gone and Shali Patterson was about to actually be helpful. This was good. Unexpected. Joyful. But good.

Shali held out a wrinkled piece of copier paper folded in quarters.

"I let her use my computer before the storm. I found this a day or so later, but with the storm and everything I just didn't ask her about it. I don't know why she'd write this kind of a message. If it was for English class, I missed the assignment."

"Let me see," Emily said, her eyes still riveted on Shali. Shali pressed the paper into her outstretched palm, and she carefully unfolded it.

The detective looked down and read:

Do you think it is possible that someone could really possess another? Do you think that a love could be so powerful as to be sick? So good it could become bad? Tell me how you feel? How you want to possess me as I want to possess you. Never be lonely again. Never.

She looked up at Shali, her disbelieving eyes now full of even greater worry than she'd ever felt possible.

"I don't think she wrote this either," she said. "Who do you think did? Who do you think it came from?"

Sniffing for a second tissue, Shali nodded. She pulled her feet up to her chair and tucked them under. She looked small and scared.

"Batboy88," Emily answered for her. "Do you know who this is?"

"I think it's Nick Martin," she said. "He liked Jenna "

Emily started for the door. "Stay right here. Don't move a muscle." She hurried down the hallway, her heels clacking like gunfire on the linoleum. She held the paper like it was a telegram and she was rushing it to the recipient. But that wasn't true. Her daughter had been the recipient. The tone was scary. It was as if Nick Martin had a fixation on Jenna. Images of the Martins, Nick, the tornado debris ran through Emily mind. Now a twisted e-mail spoke of good and evil, of love and possessing another.

Why, .Jenna? Why were you nice to him? Didn't you see the danger? What happened to you? I want you home. Now! Jenna!

She turned in to Kiplinger's office and planted the note on his desk.

The sheriff slid his glasses down the bridge of his nose and set down a newspaper. He'd been scanning USA Today for mention of Cherrystone and the Martin murders or the tornado. But the town was no longer national news. So fast had the media dropped them from page one. A few days before, Diane Sawyer's people were banging down the door for an interview and now nothing. Zip. He looked at Emily. She was wound tighter than he'd ever seen. There was good reason for it, of course. But he knew that whatever Shali Patterson had told his best and only-detective it was going to be big. USA Today was merely a diversion as he waited. Emily's face was red and her eyes bulged. She panted for breath, not because of the hurried gait down the hall, but because of the heartbeat ramming inside her chest.

"A killer's got my daughter," she said.

Wednesday morning, exact time unknown, at the abandoned mine

Morning light came throuh the rusty slits in the roof, the same openings that had ensured that the indoor environment was acrid and damp. Jenna lay very still on the stinky sofa, her eyes scanning the ceiling for a clue as to the size of the room that had provided shelter. It had been a moonless night when he brought her there, after hours of walking and hiding. She repositioned herself and rubbed her right knee. She remembered how she'd hurt it from crouching in a weedy ditch as a car went by. Was it her mother?

At that moment things could have been different. She could have called out. She could have ended everything right then and there. But she didn't. She just crouched low and waited until the headlights became two red eyes fading into oblivion.

She felt a breeze blow through the drafty building and she pulled herself together. She was a potato bug. Curled up. Protected from whatever dangers might befall her. Was this a dream? She started to shake. What am I doing here? She saw a rat and let out a scream.

"Shhhhh! It's all right. I'm not going to let anything happen to you!"

It was him. It wasn't a dream.

"It's a rat!"

"Big mouse," he said, trying to calm her. "Think a very, very big mouse"