A Cold Dark Place

Chapter Thirty-five

Monday, 8:35 EM., on the Pacific coast of Washington

It had started raining early in the day and hadn't let up. Couldn't let up. The sky was a pewter lid smacked down over the ocean and the coast. Dunes with cockscombs of sea grasses held off the foamy surf. Rain pelted the windshield with relentless force as Emily followed the two-lane seaside road to the address on the card. She turned on her wipers to maximum speed, but she could barely see. The defroster was blowing at full bore, but it couldn't keep up with the damp air that circulated through the soggy Accord. Emily opened the driver's-side window to suck out the warm, moist air, but it just sent needles of rain against her left cheek. With her eyes fixed on the road, she leaned over and pulled some tissues from the glove box and started to wipe. Better. A sign flashed by the window: WELCOME TO WASHINGTON'S COAST. She looked in the rearview mirror and squinted at the bright headlights that had trailed her since she left Seattle.

I'll need to tell Christopher to get those lights adjusted.

Whenever Emily thought of Kristi Cooper, she thought of Reynard Tuttle. That was long before she had any inkling that Dylan Walker could have been involved. So sure was she of Tuttle's guilt that she completely dismissed the Tuttle's family's feeble protestations that he was innocent. Reynard Tuttle's sister and ex-wife were united in their insistence that Tuttle, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic when he was twenty-two, was innocent of the Cooper kidnapping. "He's not capable of hurting an innocent little girl," Delilah Tuttle Lewis, his sister, told a TV reporter not long after the shooting. "He was crazy, but a gentle crazy."

Tuttle's background had suggested as much. He'd been arrested only once for loitering in front of the King County courthouse. With the ACLU by his side, the charges were dismissed. His lawyers said that since he usually was seen holding a placard espousing hatred for the police whom he accused of conspiring against him, he'd been unfairly and unjustly singled out for prosecution. The day they picked him up was the only day anyone could recall in which Tuttle had been without his little sign. Tuttle had never been violent in his life. He'd never hurt a soul. Crazy, his family said, didn't make him a kidnapper and a killer.

There was no wrongful-death suit from the Tuttles, however. The reason for that was cruel and simple. Tuttle, as a mentally ill man, had no worth. The loss of his life could not be equated to future earnings of any kind. It was as if he didn't exist.

After she'd killed him, Emily Kenyon never allowed herself to think for one second that he'd been anything but a killer.

Crazy or not, he did it. Because if he didn't, then that meant his blood was indelibly on her own hands.

But that was before. Now she had doubts that gnawed at her soul.

Emily turned off the highway toward the Pacific, and the tourist community of Copper Beach. The sun had dipped into the ocean, but even at high noon, it would still have the dark gloom that makes the water and sky a seamless wall. Copper Beach had been platted in the 1980s as Washington's great answer to the coastal communities that brought retirees with fat pensions. Two golf courses were built. Tribal land nearby also factored into the plans. In Washington, gambling was illegal. But Native American tribes who owned vast stretches of the state operated as sovereign nations. Tribal casinos would soon spring up. It was the yin and yang developers had long dreamed about: Wonder bread communities on the coast with the naughty fun of the bad-influenceneighbor just down the road.

One problem. The weather. Washington wasn't California, or even Oregon. Rain kept the place from really taking off. As Emily drove though the town, motels and saltwater taffy shops competed with moped rentals and sad old horses that had never seen better days-Sea Nags-hired out for beach rides. Alongside the road beach houses were draped in necklaces of fishing floats and flanked by chainsaw effigies of New England fisherman wearing yellow slickers and spinning ship's wheels. Sand dunes threatened the roadway. Despite the ocean's waves crashing against driftwood, the world outside her car seemed so silent. So lonely. Emily Kenyon thanked God that Christopher Collier was right behind her. Following her. How familiar it all felt.

She remembered the heavy tangle of driftwood that lined the beachhead and protected the road, wooden limbs clawing into the damp marine air. The stream of light from her perpetually-on high-beam headlights brought the snags and roots to life.

A last turn, and Emily was almost there. Adrenaline, the drug of working cops, skydivers, and mothers in search of their endangered children, pulsed. It nearly flooded her system when she saw it. A black mailbox carried the number on its silvery weathered driftwood post: 4444 COPPER BEACH ROAD. She pulled over and kept the car idling until Christopher opened the passenger door and slid onto the seat.

"You drive like a maniac," he said. "I could barely keep up with you"

Emily faked a smile. "That's because you drive like someone's grandpa"

Christopher shrugged and allowed her the upper hand. He cracked the window. The car was warm inside. "You ready to do this?" he asked.

"What about backup? Did you call the local blues?"

"Nope. We don't need them. We're just doing a little surveillance."

"What if we're wrong and she-they aren't here? What if Walker's playing some kind of mind game?"

"There's no what if on that one. He is. He's got to be ""

Emily opened the door; the soft ping of the warning sound faded into the stormy air. "Let's go"

The cabin had been remodeled in the years since they'd both been there. People with money had taken the place with the idea they'd be able to turn it into a bed and breakfast. They'd had intermittent success. During his drive from Tacoma, Christopher had contacted the owners, now living in Seattle and the place was vacant. It was not owned by Walker's cousin after all.

"Worst investment we ever made," the gruff-voiced man said. "The place is cursed. Can't keep it booked more than half the season. Go ahead. Have a look around. If you like it, I'll make you a deal on a rental."

That would never happen, of course. The Seattle detective could think of nothing more unlikely than vacationing at the scene of the Tuttle shooting.

"Key's under the gull by the front door," the man had said.