Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

though her eyes were burning and she was crying. He was supine, too, about four feet away. In the same flash, she saw the walls were concrete for the most part, but bricked over in sections. It was so fast, like a flashbulb exploding in someone’s face and blinding them temporarily, that she couldn’t be sure of what she’d seen. She thought she caught a glimpse of a bucket, a hammer, and some baling wire. Maybe a ladder and some rope, but it all happened so fast it would be hard to say for sure.
    In the same flash there was the echo of breaking glass. Someone had thrown something into their prison. Maybe a bottle shattering on the hard, stony floor? Then a strange odor. Jenna had smelled that scent. And then nothing. Everything was in the darkest shadow as though a heavy curtain had been hastily thrown over the entire space. The light was gone. The air was still.
    Not far from Nick and Jenna, there was more scraping, followed by the rapid thud of hurried footsteps, and then absolute silence.

Chapter Thirty-three
    Monday, exact time and place unknown
    A pinprick of light like a tiny star came from the doorway. Jenna lay still and stared at it for the longest time, her mind trying to focus on where she was and how she got there. She felt woozy and nauseous. Look at that pretty little star, she thought. Twinkling. A nursery rhyme streamed through her consciousness, but she shut it out of her mind. She tried to concentrate on what she last remembered. But it was all foggy, drowsy.
    “Jenna? You awake?”
    It was Nick’s voice, huskier and raw.
    “Yeah. What happened?” Her voice was a whisper.
    “Someone chucked something in here. We passed out. Are you okay?”
    “I’m sick,” she said. “I feel like puking.”
    “Me, too. I’ve been awake for a while. Whoever put us here hasn’t been back”
    “Who is it? Where are we?”
    Thinking, Nick hesitated. Then his voice pierced the darkness. “I don’t know. I’m totally messed up on remembering. Last thing I knew we were at Bonnie Jeffries’.”
    Jenna dug through her memory, but between whatever made her sick and the fear that wrapped around her, she could recall very little. “Yes, in her living room talking. She went to the back door, the kitchen door.”
    “Yeah,” Nick said. “I can’t put it all together. Anything after that?”
    “No:
    “Me, neither. We have to get out of here. and I’ve been working on that. I might be able to cut this tape. I’ve found something sharp, a nail or something, and I’m kind of rubbing through it. I think it’s working.”
    Jenna couldn’t move at all. “We have to get out of here.” She shivered in the cold, damp air. She could not have been more frightened or more grateful that she wasn’t alone. Nick was there.
    “We will. And we’re going to kill whoever did this to us “
    Another wave of nausea hit her. “I feel sick. Going to close my eyes.” When she did, nightmares of the mining shack and the rats, the tornado, the bloody scene that Nick had seen back home came at her in a seamless reel, over and over. Blood. Gunshot. Bonnie. Angel’s Nest. Dani’s pregnancy. It rolled on through her strange, almost drug-polluted subconscious. It was a storm. Each memory shaking her, scaring her.
    A flash of light. It jolted her. Her eyes snapped open. Then she slammed them shut. She was so scared. She just wanted to sleep.
    Monday, 3:15 EM1, Tacoma, Washington
    Dylan Walker’s house was one of those grand-styled Victorians with a large bay window that at one time overlooked Tacoma’s Commencement Bay. Trees and buildings had risen to block the water views in the decades since it was first built. It had a broad front porch that had been painted gray. The rest of the house was gray, too. But not by design. Years of neglect had allowed the dirt and grime of the city to steal the luster of the oyster-white paint. Flakes fell like snow onto the front porch. The place had been carved into apartments, a further indignity to what had been a fine, old home.
    Emily parked the Accord around the corner, a half block away from the house. She looked at her watch. She thought that she might be early, but, in fact, Christopher Collier was late. Must be some trouble with the judge. She turned on talk radio and listened to some blabbermouth host yak about the rising price of gas and how the middle class would never recover from what the current administration had put it through. If she had been with someone she would