A Cold Dark Place

Epilogue

Six months later, Cherrystone, Washington

It had been months since The "sexiest killer alive" had been dispatched for eternity in the dark confines of the bunker. Media attention had died down. "He died instantly and thank God for retired Detective Cerrino. Without her intervention we'd have all been on his gristly tote board," Emily said when she talked to People magazine about her daughter's kidnapping and the connection between Dylan Walker and the murders in Utah, Washington, and Iowa.

"Nick Martin told his lawyers that you and the detective purposely let Dylan die. You didn't get him help because you wanted revenge," the magazine reporter said.

Emily sighed. "Poor Nick, he's such a mixed-up kid."

Olga had been over to Cherrystone twice; her friendship with both Emily and Jenna was built on a terrifying night in utter darkness that the three of them shared.

"No one will miss him," she said to Emily over coffee at the kitchen table one afternoon during a visit to the old house on Orchard Avenue.

"Except his Internet fan club," Emily said. "I feel sorry for those people."

Olga's flinty eyes sparkled. She suppressed the urge to smile.

"Dylan got what he deserved"

Emily nodded. "Guess so"

Olga sipped her coffee. "My girls, Lorrie and Shelley, can rest easy now. So can Kristi."

Emily looked over at Jenna who was watching TV in the living room. She swirled some artificial sweetener in her coffee. "We all can"

In many ways, they could.

Nick Martin was in county jail awaiting trial for his role in kidnapping Jenna Kenyon, but mental health advisors said he wasn't sane enough to stand trial, and figured he'd be a shoo-in for an insanity defense. The kid was screwed up. If he was aware of what he was doing-which they implicitly denied-the defense was sure it was the result of a mental breakdown brought on by the murders of his family. He had no hand in the events that brought him to the bunker. He wasn't a murderer. Bonnie and Dylan had cooked it all up.

The rental car from the Spokane Airport tied Bonnie to the locale, though the tornado had swept away any real trace that she'd done it or if Dylan had been with her. The same had been true with the Utah and Iowa murders-a paper trail indicated Bonnie, not Dylan Walker.

Yet Emily knew that Dylan Walker never worked alone. Olga was able to pry some information out of Nick Martin that suggested supposed suicide victim Tyler Ticen had, in fact, been involved in the double homicide of the two college girls from her jurisdiction. But those cases would never be officially solved. The Ticen suicide was a cover, she was sure, a way for Walker to silence his accomplice.

Using schizophrenic Reynard Tuttle had been a master stroke. Handsome, brilliant, and evil: the trifecta of serial killer superstars.

And dead.

The house on Orchard Avenue in Cherrystone had seen its occupants find their way back to a closer, more loving relationship than they had before mother and daughter were held captive by the serial killer's son. It had been a slow climb back to their normal lives. Jenna obsessed about her father's new baby, his betrayal, and the nightmares of the bunker. But she was determined to get over it as was Emily. In many ways, David had become part of her past, just as he started anew with Dani and their daughter, Cassandra. Custody gripes involving Jenna were no longer an issue. David didn't fight for his daughter to visit, and she didn't balk when the time came.

They found balance in forgiveness.

Emily had worked out the loose ends-a phrase that caused her to wince-with the help of Christopher Collier, who'd made a rapid and remarkable recovery from the gunshot wound to the chest. They talked on the phone and even dated a couple of times. Where all of that would lead was beyond the point right then.

"I just want to heal and move on," Emily told him one night late as they were talking on the phone. "But when I do, I want you there"

"Promise?" he asked.

"Promise. Definitely, a promise."

One fall evening, the air crisp as a freshly laundered man's dress shirt, Jenna was in her bedroom, pink keyboard and mouse in hand. On the screen was a chat window with bestfriend-forever Shali Patterson, who by then had a new VW, and was delighted with all the attention her part in the ordeal had brought her. She was the best friend of a kickass girl, one who saved her mom from a serial killer's kid. Nice. The girls chatted about their senior year and who would be crowned homecoming queen later that week. Jenna dared to dream that it would be her. In no small way, she felt she did deserve it. Saving her mom was a bigger deal than being yearbook editor.

With its characteristic chime, her Instant Messenger account announced a name she'd almost forgotten-Batboy88. She could scarcely believe her eyes. A wave of panic hit her.

Batboy88: Hey Jengrrl!

Jenna froze at her keyboard.

Batboy88: You there?

Nick was in county jail. He didn't have access to a PC.

Batboy88: Missed U!

Jenna found her voice. "Mom!"

Emily was in the kitchen soaking a dreadfully dried-on lasagna pan when she heard Jenna's scream from down the hallway. The timbre of her daughter's voice suggested trouble and fear shot through her. There had been screams for her before, night terrors, as she recalled the dark hours in the bunker. The idea that she'd been so close, a hairsbreadth from evil. But this was too early in the evening.

She found her very still, in front of the screen, staring at it with disbelieving eyes.

"Mom, it's an IM from Nick."

Emily's face went pale. "It can't be" She peered over Jenna's shoulder. "This is someone playing a game" Emily gently pushed her daughter aside and sat down. She started typing.

Jengrrl: Who is this?

Batboy88: Who do U think?

Emily looked up at her daughter, her keys tapping slowly. She hit the ENTER button again.

Jengrrl: You aren't Nick. I know that. Who r u?

Batboy88: When I get out, you want to go to r place, u

know, the mining camp?

Without even thinking, Emily reached over and quickly yanked the plug from the outlet. The screen sputtered and went dark. The computer's tiny fan slowed, then whirled to a stop.

Jenna looked horrified. "Mom! Why did you do that?"

Emily stayed quiet for a second, her mind trying to catch up with what she'd done. Finally she spoke and when she did so, the words were more a promise than a statement. "It's over. He's over," she said. She put her arms around her daughter, in the bedroom where she grew up. It was over. Nick Martin was gone from their lives.

And so was Dylan Walker.

Don't miss Gregg Olsen's next mesmerizing thriller .. .

Heart of Ice

Coming from Pinnacle in 2009!

Kappi Chi Fraternity, Chesterfield, Tennessee

He'd been watching her all night. She never paid him a single glance. Her sole focus seemed to be on herself. She'd made several trips with her carbon-copy sisters to the Kappa Chi upstairs bathroom, her purse slung over her shoulder like she was headed into battle. In a way, it was. The frat bathrooms were notoriously filthy. No TP. Just squat, do your business, and flush with a well-placed foot. If not too drunk, of course. When she and the pack returned to the party they were giddier than ever, lips lacquered, hair fluffed up to look messily styled.

Bet she loves the bed-head look, he thought. Bet she's not as hot as she wants everyone to believe. Bet she's cold as ice. Like the others.

Tiffany Jacobs brushed right by him as she made her way to the basement. She could feel the heat of a hundred bodies rise in the dank passage way. She caught the peculiar blend of odors vomit, beer, pot.

Guys are so gross, she thought.

The frat boys were playing boat races with some of the other drunken sorority girls down there. Upturned plastic drinking cups floated on a slimy beer surface on sheet of plywood procured for the game. Drink. Slide the cup. Push it to the edge. Drink. With each heat, a cheer erupted with the kind of enthusiasm that might have greeted the winner of the America's Cup.

But this was the big, blue, plastic beer cup.

The room was crowded and the walls were so hot, they practically wept condensation. Tiffany's rubber flip-flops stuck to the concrete floor from a coating of spilled beer that shined like shellac.

"I'm going to get some air," she told her crew, all teetering woozily on a night of beers. One of her Beta Zeta sisters, an unfortunate girl with brown hair and teeth that had never seen the benefits of orthodontia, started to follow. She was one of the four Lindseys who had pledged that year. Tiffany knew she was a mistake, but they needed another girl to make their quota. Lindsey S. wasn't really ZBM Zeta Beta material-but she had a high grade point average.

"No, Lindsey S. I'll be back. I'm going to call my mom. You stay here"

Lindsey S., drunk and bored, complied and returned to the boat races.

Tiffany shimmied through the tightly woven human mass on her way to the door. Her mom had called earlier in evening-twice.

He was right behind her, just close enough to keep her in his sightline, but not enough to make her feel uncomfortable.

The cool night air blasted her face and sent a welcome chill down her body.

If Satan threw a party, he d have it at Kappa Chi, Tiffany Jacobs thought, as she walked up the concrete steps from the basement to the yard. Bits of broken glass shimmered.

She could hear the sound of a couple making out by a massive oak tree that sheltered much of the yard. She went the other direction, toward the pool, and reached for her cell phone and dialed the speed number for her mother.

"Hi honey," her mom said. "I wondered if you'd call me back tonight."

"I'm sorry, Mom," Tiffany said, sitting next to a leaffilled pool, "I've been studying my butt off tonight."

"That's why you're there, honey."

"I know." Tiffany rolled her eyes.

"I called earlier because I wanted to let you know I can come a day early for Moms Weekend"

"How early, Mom?" Tiffany was annoyed and had no problem letting her mother know. "You know I have a lot of responsibilities."

"I know you do, Tiff."

"Just a minute," she said cutting off her mother. She took her phone from her ear.

"Do I know you?"

Mrs. Jacobs tried to speak to her daughter again, but Tiffany was arguing with someone. She couldn't make out anything that was being said. The tone of it, however, seemed angry, confrontational.

"Tiff? What's going on? Tiffany?"

No answer.

"Tiff?"

Then the phone went dead.

Cherrystone, Washington

Derek Edwards's eyes were two black, bottomless spheres. To look deep into those eyes would be to fall into darkness. Sheriff Emily Kenyon felt the faint hairs on the back of her neck rise. She'd been close to evil too many times to discount the feelings that came to her. It was as if somewhere inside there was a malevolent barometer telling her to be just a little more careful.

But not so careful that you let fear stymie what you need to do.

"I'm surprised at you," she finally said. "You seem. . " she paused to irritate him. "What's the word I'm looking for? Indifferent. That's what I'm feeling from you here"

It was a lie, but a strategic one.

Derek Edwards, however, didn't blink.

"Are you expecting me to cry?" he asked, four feet away, across her desk. The face of her daughter, Jenna, now 22, beamed in her graduation photo from Cascade State University. Nearby, a little pink purse decorated with an eyeless flamingo was filled with pennies and acted as a paperweight.

And as a touchstone to terrible things in the past, things that made Emily and Jenna closer than ever.

"Some emotion would be nice, Derek."

He shrugged. On his lap was a stack of flyers that he'd had made at Kinko's. They were facedown, but through the cheap goldenrod colored paper the photo of a woman was visible. The headline in squat, block letters, was also bold enough that it could be read backward through the paper.

MISSING

Derek kept his papers balanced on his lap. His arms were folded tightly across his chest. The muscles that enveloped his sturdy frame like cables spun around a rigid spool, tensed beneath his vintage Green Day concert T-shirt. He didn't smile. There was nothing about him that seemed vulnerable.

As a man might seem when his pregnant wife vanished.

"Look," Emily said, still sizing him up, "I don't want anything from you but the truth"

Derek clutched his papers and leaned forward then stood up. "Jesus, Sheriff, you know me. You know my family. You know that I didn't do anything to her."

Emily stood so that she could meet his gaze head-on. She noticed how he hadn't yet said Mandy's name. She stayed quiet, hoping that her silence would invite the 30-year-old man with the ever-so-slowly receding hairline and beefy biceps to reveal something of use in the investigation. To spill more. It was a technique that had served her well in all kinds of interrogations as a Seattle cop, then as sheriff's deputy, and finally, the sheriff. On the wall behind the man with the missing wife was a portrait of Brian Kiplinger, her predecessor and a friend she still mourned. Kip's photo was comforting and distracting at the same time.

"You need to be forthcoming." she said. "We understand that things weren't that-and I don't mean to be unkind here that great between you," she said, stopping herself and playing his game of not mentioning his wife's name. "And your wife. You know your marriage was in trouble."

Derek slammed the flyers on Emily's desk, the heavy thud, knocking over Jenna's portrait. It startled her.

"In trouble?" he asked. "We had problems, but not any more than anyone else around Cherrystone or anywhere in this country!"

She picked up the photo and righted it. "Yes, but she was going to leave you"

Edwards' face went completely red. "I'm sick and tired of all the innuendo coming out of your office. I loved my wife."

My wife. As is she were some possession, Emily thought.

Five days earlier, Derek Edwards had called the sheriff's department to report Mandy was missing. He was worried when she didn't return from her scrapbooking group that evening.

"That's not like her," he had said. "Mandy wasn't like that"

The dispatcher had immediately seized on his words. "Mandy wasn't like that"

"He spoke of her in the past tense, Sheriff," she told Emily. "Like she's gone for good. Weird, huh?"

Emily gave a quick nod, but said nothing.

More than weird, she thought as she went back to her office. With her chief deputy, Casey Howard, out sick, Emily had made the first phone calls to other young women in the scrapbooking club and immediately determined that Mandy Edwards had never gotten that far.

"We gave up on her at eight," said one member. "At first we thought she'd needed to stop at the store. It was her night for snack. We made do with coffee and shortbread cookies."

Jesus, she thought. Some friends.

And now there was the husband sitting across from her.

Derek Edwards's cold black eyes stared as Emily opened the folder and like a menu handed it to him. Inside was a photograph of a pretty blonde in a periwinkle sweater over a blouse with a Peter Pan collar. Emily noted that Mandy was apparently a very traditional pregnant lady who had chosen the same look her own mother's generation had sportedpregnant woman as child. Big bows. Babyish prints. None of the trendy hipster black pregnancy wear for her-no bumpclinging spandex tops revealing a thin slice of tummy.

"I know what my wife looks like," he said.

"Say her name"

Edwards shoved the folder back at Emily. "Damn you, Emily. Mandy! Mandy is her name! Was this some kind of a test here? Why are you so willing to let another person die under your watch?"

Emily knew he was baiting her with the old Kristi Cooper case, but she didn't bite. She'd finally made peace with that. To do otherwise, she knew, would have killed her like a slowly bleeding wound.

"Calm down, Derek," Emily said, her voice steady and commanding. "I want to find Mandy, too. I need some help here. Are you sure you've told us everything?"

Edwards turned away from her and headed for the door. "There isn't any more to tell," he said over his shoulder. "You've been to my place. You've interviewed everyone I've ever known. I'll look for her myself. Thanks for nothing"

From the hallway, Emily watched Derek Edwards's retreating figure. It was more than a hunch. She knew it in her bones. Derek was holding back. Crime statistics indicated that Mandy was dead and that her husband had killed her. But there was no evidence. No blood.

"There's a reason for that," she told Casey Howard, her deputy.

"Yeah, he didn't kill her.'

"But you saw the plastic bleach bottle in the trash"

"Yeah, but if you went to my house you'd find two bottles in our trash. Bleach kills germs. I've got two germy kids."

Emily smiled. "I don't know. Something's with this guy."

"Yeah, he's full of himself, for one. His home gym is the biggest room in the house. The baby's room is the size of a closet."

"Not hard to tell his priorities," she said.

"Anyway, Sheriff, just because the dude is a self-absorbed ass doesn't make him a killer."

She smiled.

Patrice Fletcher had left the potato chips in the trunk.

"Watch the boys, Stacy," she told her daughter, a fittingly sullen girl of 14. "I'm going back to the car to get the chips."

"You always leave the boys with me. You ought to pay me, Mom. I'm the live-in sitter around here"

Patrice pretended not to hear Stacy rant about watching her younger brothers, Brandon and Kevin. She'd thought of asking Stacy to get the chips, but she knew she'd complain about that, too.

"You use me like a slave, Mom!"

Patrice and her children had packed up early that morning for a fall picnic at Brier Lake, just to the west of Cherrystone. She knew that cold weather would come in a flash and that day might be the very last day before rain, snow and bundle-up weather. Patrice was 35, with red hair that she wore long, with bangs that made her daughter cringe whenever they were out in public.

"You need a makeover, Mom!" Stacy said. Although mostly teasing, she wouldn't have minded if her mom did change her hair from her decidedly un-chic '80s hairdo.

"Oh, I don't know, I think I look hot"

The response brought an exaggerated gasp.

"No one's mom is hot," Stacy said, with a smile more mean than sweet.

Patrice made her way across the almost deserted field that bordered the parking lot. No more than a half dozen cars huddled by the main pathway down to the lake. Her silver Prius gleamed in the sun, screaming out loud to the world that she loved the earth.

She pressed the trunk key into the lock, and it popped open. She stared into the blackness below and her heart sank.

"What the--? "

The chips were gone. She had left them at home on the kitchen counter.

"This is the kind of day I'm having," she said, closing the lid. "Stacy's going to blame me for this."

As she slammed down the trunk, she heard a scream.

"Mom!"

It was Stacy's voice. She turned around and looked for her daughter.

"Mom! Come here quick!"

Patrice squinted into the late afternoon sun, the light blinding her with the shimmer of gold off the lightly rippled surface of Brier Lake.

Something was wrong.

"Stacy! Kevin! Brandon!" Patrice called out. She started running to the spot where she had left her children, but they weren't there. Instead, about fifty yards away, she saw them huddled at the water's edge. The low sun had wrapped them in a halo of light. Were all three there? She ran as fast as she could, losing a flip-flop in the process.

"What is it? Brandon? Kevin?"

"We're fine, Mom," Stacy called out, her voice breaking, as she turned around to face her mother. "Oh, Mom!" She lunged for Patrice, who gladly held her daughter. At that instant Stacy was no longer a flippant teenager. In the space of the time it took for Patrice to go to the car, Stacy was once more a little girl-a scared little girl. She started to cry and pointed to a lily-pad-tangled spot about ten yards from shore.

Floating among the degraded greenery of a fall patch of aquatic plants was the swollen figure of a child, a teenager. She was facedown, her blonde hair swirling around her in the water. Her skin looked waxy and white. Patrice craned her neck to get a closer view.

No, it wasn't a child, but a woman. She could see a wristwatch and wedding band.

The boys just stood there, their eyes fastened on the floating corpse.

"Want me to poke her with a stick?" It was Kevin, her 8-year-old, who she once caught eating canned dog food off the broken end of a hula hoop-with his older brother Brandon urging him on.

"I'll get a stick for you," Brandon said.

Patrice's heart was racing just then. She shook her head and gently pulled her brood away from the frothy edge of the lake.

"Let's go back to the car," she said. "I need to call the sheriff."

Emily's cell phone vibrated on her desk and she looked down at the small LCD screen. An electronic envelope rotated across the screen. She had a new text message. She snapped open the phone. It was from Jenna. She knew so even before she opened it. No one else sent text messages to her. Certainly no one over 25 could even work the tiny keys and create a message.

One of our BZs drowned last night. At the Kappa Chi house.

Call u tonight. Strange.