Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

When she opened them, she focused on Christopher. She leaned closer. The color of his face was slightly better. She could feel the faint warmth of his breath against her cheek. He wanted to speak, and he fought for it. “Let him go. We’ll find her.” His voice was a rasp. Emily gently squeezed his hand, telegraphing that she believed him; she trusted him. Despite the gunshot, despite the turmoil of the moment, Christopher Collier was what he’d always been-calm and direct. He lived up to every promise he ever made.
    “I hope so,” she said, her voice a soft whisper. She brushed his wavy hair with her fingertips. If there was a better man, a stronger and gentler man, she’d never known him in her life. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tucked her chin down to wipe them from her face.
    When she looked up, the door was open, and Dylan Walker was gone.
    She punched 9-1-1 on her phone’s keypad.
    “We’re going to be all right,” she said as the call went through. “All of us. Walker’s not going to get what he wants”
    Deep down, she wasn’t so sure. She told the dispatcher where she was, and she uttered the words that no cop every wants to say: “There’s an officer down…” She gripped Chris’s hand and told him once more to hang on, help would be there.
    “You’re going to make it, Chris.”
    He nodded.
    The bars on her phone flickered and the call to help was gone. She’d told the dispatcher all she could. Emily Kenyon sat on the floor and cradled his head in her lap. The fire crackled, the overstuffed sofa beckoned. But everything about the scene was wrong for the events consuming her. It was not a romantic getaway for two. It was a crime scene redux. Reynard Tuttle. Christopher Collier. God, please help me. Help me. Help Chris, she thought.
    A whisper from Christopher stopped her prayer.
    “I have an idea where Walker is,” he said.
    Emily wasn’t sure if he was delirious or not. His eyes were hooded and his voice weak. “Closer,” he said.
    She pressed her ear to his warm mouth, nearly grazing it.
    “The red clay. I’ve been there . .
    “Where?”
    “Red-“
    Nothing more came from his lips. Chris slipped into unconsciousness.
    “Where?”
    But nothing.
    Emily felt for his pulse. Nothing. She was panicking and could no longer tell if she was feeling her own heartbeat or his.
    “Chris! Don’t leave me!”
    Again, nothing.
    Emily tried harder. She shook him. Was he breathing? She felt a puff of air flow from his lips. Last breath? God, no! Finally, she felt the thump, thump of his heart. It was weak, but steady. She wanted to cry. It was more than her missing daughter, as if there could be any more. It was also this man, this gentle, smart, and caring man that seemed so vulnerable and so much in danger.
    It passed through her mind and she fought it: Was this all her fault?
    “Don’t leave me,” she said, her words desperate and loud, as if the volume of her concern could snap him out of the darkness. The clock above the fireplace inched later and later.
    Emily heard the roar of a thunderclap and the pounding of gale force winds off the roiling Pacific. But the evenness of the noise indicated something else, something so welcomed. It was the answer to a prayer and proof that the dispatcher had taken down all the information. Emily placed Christopher’s head on the floor and ran toward the door and began to flash a message to the pilot by flipping the switch to the floodlights.
    She didn’t use Morse code. Just a quick succession of light and dark to signal the message that could save Chris Collier: “We’re here!”
    A hospital helicopter landed on the wide beach in front of the cabin and two EMTs and a nurse were on the ground and in the cabin in less than a minute. Within five minutes, Emily and Chris were onboard; she saw their cars parked just down from the cabin, a bright light pouring from the picture window facing the ocean.
    It was silly and she knew it, but Emily wished she’d thought to turn off the lights.
    The helicopter lifted and was sucked up into the black sky.
    “Officer, you need to be belted in,” an EMT, a man of no more than twenty-four, told Emily as she hovered over the sagging frame of a man she cared deeply about, a man who was there in harm’s way for her.
    For her daughter.
    “I’m not letting go of Christopher. You understand?”
    The young man acquiesced. There was no messing with Emily Kenyon right then.
    “All right,” he said,