Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

you’re okay, because I’ve seen you twice in town, but Jesus, I thought we had something going “
    She pushed the FAST FORWARD button and the tape whirled, making Cary sound like a helium inhaler.
    “And if you think you can ignore me-“
    You really know how to win back a girl, Emily thought, selecting the ERASE button. The machine clicked and shut off. The red eye blinked one final time.
    “Good night, Cary. And good-bye,” she said, softly to herself.
    In her bedroom at the end of the hall, she adjusted her alarm clock to allow three and a half hours’ sleep. She was glad she didn’t have on any makeup because she’d been raised by a mother who thought going to bed with makeup still applied was akin to a mortal sin. Emily put her head on the pillow and thought of Peg Martin and the one vivid memory she could recall. It was the time she’d seen Peg at a school carnival the October before last. They had worked the bakery booth together for two or three nights. Emily brought chocolate chip cookies from Safeway and rewrapped them in home bakeware. Like a gas thief with petroleum breath caught with a gas can and a rubber hose, she confessed.
    “I guess I’m not fooling anyone”
    Peg, older than Emily, by ten years, was gracious. “Some people prefer when it’s store-bought anyway.”
    “Yeah, but yours aren’t. They look too good to be from any store”
    Peg smiled. “I’m not a detective. I’m a homemaker. Ask me to solve a crime and I’ll bring in a DVD of CSI and we can watch it together. That’s about as close as I’d ever get”
    Peg was a lovely woman, the kind who’d always show up with more than what was requested. She gave time to whatever the cause. She’d made the best macaroons outside of a bakery, tall, fluffy, and dipped in dark chocolate. And she always smiled.
    “Take two,” Peg had said that chilly autumn evening to a boy with a crumpled dollar bill, “They’re kind of small.” Then she winked the kind of exaggerated conspiratorial move kids make when they know they are being bad and want everyone else to know they know it, too.
    But they weren’t small, of course. They were like cocoa covered Mount Rainier, Washington’s tallest, grandest peak. Peg was just that type of woman. Now she was dead, under a pile of tornado trash, a gunshot wound in her chest, and her family strewn somewhere out in the darkness that enveloped her property. Emily willed herself to think of something positive, the carnival, the cookies, but the image of the dead bake-sale lady, probably murdered, kept materializing.
    I’ll find out what happened to you, she thought, drifting off to sleep.
    Tuesday, 3:10 A.m., a rural area near Cherrystone
    The moon was slung low in the sky, dipping to the horizon that drew a hard edge from Horse Heaven Hills, a basalt rock formation about twenty miles outside of Cherrystone. An old lead mine had flourished there decades ago. The remnants of the mine camp had been used by teenage partyers proving their prowess with Budweiser since the 1960s. Maybe even earlier. Cans and bottles scattered along the roadway up the hill. Not everyone could wait to get up to the top.
    But he did. He made it up there the night after the storm. It was dark then, with the lantern moon obscured by a ghostly cloud cover. He could barely see ten feet in any direction, but couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. He’d abandoned the pickup when it ran out of gas, and started walking the rest of the way. The miners’ hiring office was nothing more than the most primitive shelter. Windows were smashed out. Graffiti about who’d give who a blow job-male or female were spray painted in an agitated script over the boarded-up old pay window. A nylon plaid couch retrieved from the courtordered ladies’ lounge area was in decent shape, considering how many teens had romped on it over the years.
    None of that mattered. He was so exhausted. It was a bed right then and it was where he’d wait. Animals with tiny claws, mice, maybe squirrels, skittered in the walls. The smell of urine stung his nose. But he curled up. Slept. Waited. Tried to figure out just what he’d do. What had happened before his world literally turned upside down.
    More important, he wondered who he really was.
    Tuesday, 5:40 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington
    Emily was furious. She held her cell phone with a death grip. She ran to the bathroom, phone clamped to her ear, rinsed her mouth with Scope, and skipped the brushing.