Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

Certainly no flossing, about which she was nearly obsessive, to the point of working the fiber between her teeth in the car as she waited in traffic back in Seattle. She looked worse than she ever had, but she had a new vigor. She was pissed off. Royally. She listened to Jason and spat out the icy blue liquid and rinsed the sink.
    “Yes, I know I said I was beat. Everyone is. But, Jesus, Jason, why in the hell didn’t you call me?”
    “I did,” the young deputy said. “Sorry, but I did.”
    Emily regarded the same jeans she wore the night before and pulled them from the upholstered chair that functioned more as an open-air closet than a reading place, as she’d intended. They’d do. She was nearly in a frenzy. Things were happening down at the Martin place and that was officially her territory. She didn’t like it one bit that interlopers were there.
    “Peg Martin is my case,” she said. “I should be notified before the lab rats and techies come over from Spokane and work the scene. My scene”
    “You didn’t answer, Emily.”
    “Detective, call me detective. Why don’t you start calling me detective for a goddamn change?” The operative word of her rant was pounded out with a hammer. Jason couldn’t miss her irritation.
    She looked at her phone and the blue face showed two missed calls. She scrolled the phone numbers and ranted some more. Jason had called twice-at 2:45 and 4:30.
    “Maybe if you acted like I was your superior, which I am in every way, you’d know better. I’m not your cousin. Your sister. Your buddy.”
    “Detective,” he said, correcting himself as a he sunk into the mud of the Martins’ ravaged yard. “We found Mr. Martin’s mangled body about an hour after you left. I called the sheriff, and I guess he called Spokane for backup. They showed up at four-thirty.”
    Emily Kenyon felt lousy just then. The kid was flustered. He was doing what the sheriff had told him.
    “Emily, err, Detective, there’s one thing you ought to know,” he said. She was so mad at him, he could feel it. He didn’t wait for her response. “I saw the same wound on Mr. Martin. I think he’s been shot, too. So do the guys from Spokane”
    Emily paused. She hadn’t expected that. Adrenaline pulsed. “Jesus, Jason,” she finally blurted, “what the hell happened out there? Are you sure? And where are the boys? Have you seen any sign of them?”
    “No. Nothing. Backhoe’s on its way. We’re taking video and stills as soon as the light’s a little better here. Then . . ” he caught himself. “When you get here and give us the go ahead we’ll see if we can find them. I remember reading about a kid who survived longer than a week.. “
    She cut him off. “Yes, you told me, in Pakistan.”
    “It was India,” Jason said, slightly glad he could trump her on something. She’d hurt his feelings and it was a tiny payback. It felt just a little bit good.
    Emily Kenyon got that, even on the tiny cell phone.
    “Yes, India,” she said. “I’m on my way. Be there ASAP.”
    She hung up, put on a shirt, and ran a brush through her hair. A rubber band was the only remedy. The ponytail was ridiculous at her age, and Emily knew it. But there was no time for anything like washing and blow-drying, which on a good day was a fifteen-minute chore. Not when there were two bodies west of Cherrystone and two kids missing.
    Need to cut this mess, she thought, thinking of her mother’s advice that a woman should cut her hair when she reaches forty. And, if you ask me, that’s stretching it, Emily, her mother had added.
    She didn’t have the heart to wake Jenna as she passed her room. Leaving her alone again wasn’t right, but Jenna had school. Besides, somebody deserved some rest around there. She wrote a note and stuck it on the refrigerator-the first place Jenna was sure to go.
    “Come home right after school. Serious case. Love, Mom”
    And Emily was out the door.

Chapter Four
    Tuesday, 7:35 A.M, Cherrystone, Washington
    Jenna Kenyon grabbed a Stawberry Pop-Tart and started for the door. There was no time for the toaster to do its thing that morning. She’d have to eat it gummy and cold. Jenna hastily wrote, “See you after school. I love you, too, Mom,” and added a smiley face to the note her mother had left on the fridge.
    It was after seven and Shalimar Patterson, her best friend since she moved to Cherrystone, was never late. Jenna locked the door behind her, and stood in front of the old