Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

combination. She knew I was a mimic. She knew I didn’t care one bit about her or anyone. Nick included. I didn’t care whether any of them took their last breaths. That made her want me even more” The heinous grin returned, but this time it seemed fake. Practiced. Bravado.
    “Where is Jenna Kenyon?” Christopher asked.
    Just then, without warning, a shot pierced the small space of the cabin. Almost on instinct, Emily checked her own gun. Had it gone off? Had she pressed the trigger when she hadn’t meant to? She wondered if that’s what happened years ago with Reynard Tuttle. Had that been a serious misstep or an accident? All of that passed through her mind as the realization came that it was not her gun that had fired and that Dylan Walker had not been shot.
    Dylan was standing, having jumped to his feet, his gun in his hand. Smoke curled from its shiny black barrel. Emily heard the sound of a body falling, a heavy thud. She turned.
    Christopher Collier was on the floor, blood oozing from his chest. His life draining from his body, one red drop at a time. He was so pale; he looked like one of those Elizabethan courtesans, all white with a gash of red for his mouth. The blood was flowing. In the split second of the shot to the realization that Dylan Walker had shot Christopher, Emily Kenyon let her guard down. She could have fired back at Dylan, but she didn’t. She’d been trained to do so. Officer down! Fire back! Stop the shooter! Everything she knew from the police academy failed her. The knowledge was there. The skill, too. But when she learned how to deal with a cop shooter, she hadn’t been a mother.
    She hadn’t needed to know where a serial killer had stashed her daughter. The only link in the chain of evidence to save Jenna was the evil force with the gun pointed at her.
    “What did you do?” She dropped to her knees and held Christopher.
    His breathing was labored. His handsome face, pallid. “I’m going to be all right,” he said. Christopher’s voice was soft, but he tried to show confidence.
    “Of course you are,” Emily answered, not sure who was lying just then. Her? Him? Both of them. She blinked back her tears. “We need to get medical attention here”
    “Not so fast” Dylan Walker now stood by the doorway. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He hesitated. “Someone?”
    Jenna.
    Emily pointed her gun. Walker smiled at her and in doing so, it rushed through her mind that he’d never been handsome in his life. Evil like that never could be. His features were symmetrical, classic, and well proportioned. He’d been likened to a “Greek god” by magazine writers who fantasized for their readers what being with the ultimate bad boy, the King of the Serial Killers, might be like. The sexy mix of danger and good looks. So damned stupid. But just then, he looked hideous, a twisted kind of handsome.
    “I’m going to leave just now. You can call 911. Detective Collier just might live. You might be able to find your daughter. You stop me. Shoot me. Whatever’s going through your mind right now, isn’t going to happen. Because if you stop me, you’ll never find her.”
    Emily knew he was right. She pressed her palm against Collier’s heaving chest. She’d stopped the syrupy red blood flow. For now
    Walker scanned the room, surveying his work. He seemed so satisfied that it repulsed Emily all the more. As he walked toward the door, red clay particles fell from the soles of his shoes.
    “Please,” she said, “where is she?”
    “In the dark,” he said. “Just like Kristi.” His gaze was the dead-eyed stare of a shark. “She’s alive, for now. But remember poor Kristi … she waited for someone to find her.”
    Anger and fear converged. Emily thought she might lose control and just lunge for him. Instead, she pleaded.
    “Please”
    “Jenna Kenyon. Kristi Cooper. Two peas in a pod. Pretty girls. The kind I like to-“
    “Just shut up,” she said, finding her voice, breaking his rhythm. If he had meant to hurt her deeply, he’d done so. The wound was deep. “I want my daughter and Christopher needs a doctor. Now.”
    Dylan stepped backward, once again that dead, cold stare fixed on her like the scope of an assault rifle. “I’m going now. If I stay, your daughter will be just like Kristi, a bag of bones in the dark somewhere. That is, if they ever find her. Remember they’ve never found Steffi or Brit.”
    Emily closed her eyes to shut out Dylan’s words.