Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

knowing that she’d withheld information from a man who had been nothing but kind to her. Interested in her Cared about her. “They were at Bonnie’s.”
    “At Bonnie’s?” He was stunned by the disclosure.
    “Yeah,” she said, her voice ready to shatter. “I found this.” She pulled out the purse. It was tiny, pink, and sweet. “It’s Jenna’s. It was by the desk. She left it there”
    “Why didn’t you tell me? And wait a minute, this could be anyone’s.”
    Emily shook her head. “No. It’s hers. I’m certain. Her dad bought it for her. Even though she’d long since outgrown it she kept it because it was from him.”
    “What were they doing there? I mean, how?”
    “They’d been researching Dylan Walker, Angel’s Nest. Don’t you, see? Nick Martin was an Angel’s Nest kid. Bonnie put him in the Martin home. They’re all connected.”
    Emily got behind the wheel and turned the ignition. “We’re going to find him, and then we can find Jenna. Walker’s playing some sick game. He’s using Kristi Cooper’s case to mess with me. I don’t know why. But I do know this-I’m not going to let him hurt Jenna. Not one hair.”
    “I’m right behind you,” Christopher said. “I’ll call the desk and tell them what’s up. But let’s get going.”

Chapter Thirty-four
    Monday, exact time and place unknown
    Jenna woke up, shivering. her hands and legs were still bound together. Dried tears had formed a gluelike crust on her eyes. She rubbed her face against the fabric on which she lay. She tried to lift her head and breathed in. Good. The sickly sweet smell that had left her dizzy, then asleep in the darkness, had abated. The air was damp and heavy, but it did not have that strange odor. To her left the crack of light had narrowed to the thinnest of slits. Where was she?
    She called over to Nick. “Can you hear me?”
    There was no response, so she tried again, saying his name in a louder voice, though still a whisper.
    But again, nothing. She worried that he was still overcome by the fumes of what had been tossed into the dark space. She rolled over on her right side. As she did so, the mattress beneath her buckled on its rusted frame. For the first time, she realized she was on a bed of some kind. It had springs and batting. She wriggled her torso to get on her side so she could see Nick. He’d almost been free when she passed out. He’ll get us out of there. He was cutting the tape that bound him.
    “Wake up,” she said, urgency rising. “Nick, I need you” She could feel the ligature around her wrists. Was it her imagination? It seemed looser than it had been before the curtain of utter blackness fell. Before the sound of the crashing, breaking glass. The smell. It was all in her memory as she twisted her body. In shifting her position, she’d been able to reduce the tension of the binding. It no longer cut into her flesh. Instead she felt she could move her wrists. They hurt. The raw edges of her sliced skin stung. She did not cry. Instead, she could feel something else rise within her. Resolve. Hope. Courage.
    I’m going to get out of here, she thought. Nick and I are going home. Please wake up.
    Monday, 4:05 RM., Seattle
    Olga Morris-Cerrino knew she wasn’t on the case anymore. She knew that she’d long since exchanged her love for the law for the joy she’d found tilling the soil and making fruit leathers from her own apricots and her husband’s prized golden raspberries. But when she heard that Bonnie Jeffries had been murdered, Jenna Kenyon was missing, and Dylan Walker had been released from prison, she went into Seattle and sought out the one person she thought might have some answers.
    “Hi Tina,” she said, as she stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling painting, an abstract of a waterfall, at the Winter Gallery, where the former prison-groupie-turned-society-babe volunteered two days a week.
    “Do I know you?” Tina looked blankly right into Olga’s penetrating eyes. She was scanning for recognition. A party perhaps? Probably not, the jewelry’s from Macy ‘s. A patron? No, the shoes are cheap. She tilted her head and looked suitably confused.
    Tina looked as good as though only a few years had passed, not so many more. Olga put on a reasonably warm smile. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. They were in a public place. “We met years ago,” she said, “through a mutual friend, Dylan Walker. I’m Olga Cerrino. I used to be Detective Olga