A Cold Dark Place

Chapter Twenty-eight

Sunday, 2:10 n.M., Seattle

Emily felt her pocket. The little pink change purse. Jenna and Nick had been at Bonnie Jeffries's house. They'd probably found her in the phone book or in some Google search at the library. What had they seen? What had they done?

The "Watching the Detectives" ringtone sounded. Emily reached for her cell. The number was local, but unfamiliar. She answered.

"Emily? It's Christopher Collier. We're wrapping up the scene. Pending notification, this is going to make some news. The media will probably want to talk to you"

Her heart sank. It would take two seconds for even the worst Seattle reporter to make a connection with her name and past news items.

"Can't you leave me out of this? I've got my own problems right now."

"You know I can't. You found the vic. That's the first question anyone is going to ask about"

"How much time do I have?" she asked.

Christopher hesitated. "I don't know. We're trying to track down her family."

"All right."

"You know where they're at?"

Emily turned the Accord onto the freeway headed west toward the hospital. "I didn't know she had any kids."

"The pictures in the hall. The baby pictures."

Emily remembered. A trio of black-and-whites of a newborn were framed among a montage of other photographs. Some of Bonnie. Some of her pets. They hung in a row of cheap drugstore frames, the golden finish tarnished and flaking.

"Sorry," she said. "Can't help you" Her mind throbbed with worry for her daughter and what might have happened to her. It was all that she could process just then. His next words snapped her back into the moment.

"Drinks tonight? Like we talked about?" he asked, almost hopefully.

Emily caught the vibe. And her own response surprised her.

"Sure," she said. "Love to. I have some things to do"

"Jenna will turn up," he said.

"I'm going to see David."

"Right. I'd tell you to say hi, but I know how that would go over."

Emily disregarded the comment. There was no point in going there.

"See you tonight," she said.

She called David and begged him to meet her at his office.

"I don't know where Jenna is," he said. "Dani and I are busy today, anyway."

"Be there. I need you"

Her message must have come through. She didn't think she was pleading. She didn't think his heart could open to her anymore. But for a second, the walls came down. "Okay, I'll be there"

Sunday, 3:30 P.M.

"After what you said to Dani, I should never speak to you again without a lawyer." David Kenyon was as angry as Emily had ever seen him. His face was red and his eyes were narrowed so tightly they threatened to merge into a single lens.

"You can hate me all you want," she said, knowing full well she'd crossed the line. Hell, jumped over it. She'd come to his office prepared to eat a bucket of dirt because what she was about to do went against everything she knew her bythe-book ex-husband stood for. She wanted him to break the law. "But this isn't about me right now, David. It's about our daughter."

David didn't soften one bit, at least outwardly. His anger was deep and invoking Jenna's name wouldn't fix it. Even so, he knew that he had to help.

"I don't want to be like Rick Cooper," he said. It was a cheap shot-a reference to her freefall from grace-but Emily let it roll off her. She didn't offer a retort that punished him for something that he'd done.

Like screwing Dani and getting her pregnant when we're trying to raise a daughter into a decent young woman.

She held her tongue.

Just then, David's assistant Lindsay McKee entered the office. She was young, single, pretty-a deadly combination for any doctor.

"Working on a Sunday?" Emily gave David a knowing glance.

He ignored it.

"Doctor, I had some things to do," Lindsay said, shashaying into the room, in a short skirt and three-inch heels. "Some problems with the insurance on your Tuesday surgery." Lindsay rolled her big green eyes and David smiled.

"All right," David said, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "Did any of us think insurance companies would run our lives when we were back in med school?'

Lindsay laughed. "God knows they run this hospital!" She nodded at Emily and waited a beat to see if Dr. Kenyon would introduce them, but he stayed mum. As soon as the girl left, Emily came around the desk to face the computer screen. David started typing his password: Dani2l.

It wasn't hard to see the keys he was hitting, especially the last two.

"Is that her age?" Emily's words were drenched in sarcasm.

David made a face, but said nothing.

"Kidding

David hit the Enter key and the system flashed into life. A blue-and-white screen displayed various fields for names, socials, addresses, and insurance information.

"Okay, to search the database is pretty easy," he said, looking at Emily. "If I can do it, you can do it."

"Okay. Remember you're talking to a woman who still thinks blackberry is a pie filling."

"I remember." He softened a little. "Records from all Seattle hospitals are held on separate servers that share the same interface and same security protocol. The only hitch here is that I'm a surgeon, not a records clerk. I have access, but it will log that I've looked at records that I probably have no need to review. It will send a report up to the IT people and I'll have some explaining to do"

"You'll think of something," Emily said. "You can be a good liar when you want to be" She hated herself for saying that, but the words just slipped out. David was doing some thing that she needed done. Desperately. A court order would take too long.

Jenna won't be another Kristi Cooper.

"Where's your printer?" Emily asked.

"You didn't say anything about making copies. I could get in deep shit for this. No copies."

"You want me to be here all day? Do you want me to get to the bottom of this?"

David eyed his office door. He wasn't entirely convinced, but he was willing to consider what Emily was saying. His assistant Lindsay dropped off some correspondence. She smiled at David. It was a slightly flirtatious smile, not quite come hither, but far past cordial.

The look for a single doctor. Emily figured she didn't know that Dani was at home, pregnant and destined to be the doctor's wife.

After she left, David spoke.

"Okay, the printer is next to Lindsay's workstation. I'll tell her you are printing out some tax stuff for us, and to keep people clear of the printer. She'll listen."

"Yeah, she's in love with you."

David blushed slightly, but he didn't deny it. "Just do what you need to do. For Jenna" He left his expansive office, letting the door shut slowly behind him.

Emily stared at the screen and began to type: Angel's Nest + Agency. The system's hourglass timer began to spin as the computer worked through the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of records. Emily looked around and noticed for the first time a photo of Jenna and David taken at the Grand Canyon. She was missing from the shot. Not because she'd held the camera-as she did on most of their travels but because he'd cropped her out. She could still see the shadowy form of her arm over Jenna's shoulder. Emily shook her head. The computer kept grinding. Through the frosted glass panels alongside his office door, Emily could see Lindsay's silhouette moving around her cubicle.

The search screen popped up.

What the-?

It was packed with entries for Angel's Nest. Bonnie Jeffries's name leapt off a few of the citations. There must have been more than a hundred. Emily started scanning them when Lindsay decided she needed to come in with a mug of stale hospital coffee.

"Want some? Dr. Kenyon told me you're his ex-wife," she said, though there was no reason except the medical assistant's apparent need to confirm what her boss had told her.

"I'm fine," Emily said. "I'm printing out some private tax records"

"David told me," she said.

David? Hmmm. Poor Dani. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

"I'll get those pages for you"

"No," Emily said firmly. "I'll get them. They are, after all, private."

"Oh that's okay," the assistant said with a smile. "David trusts me with all of his private affairs."

"But I don't." Emily got up, pushed past the dumbstruck young woman and went to the printer. She guarded it as page after page rolled out. Finally, a moment or two passed, and the machine stopped. She retrieved the stack and started for the elevator.

Lindsay stood there with her hands on her hips. She was talking to another medical staff member. Emily could read just one word on her lips.

"Bitch."

You don't know the meaning of the word, Emily thought. But Dani will teach you.