Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

possible scenario of any family-multiple murders at the hands of one of its own.
    And now, sitting in Emily Kenyon’s office, Marina was clearly losing her battle to maintain any semblance of control. She had started to sob softly. Maybe the first time, since Jenna’s vanishing, Emily realized that others were suffering, deeper, irrevocable losses.
    “I’m sorry, so very sorry,” Emily said. “It is almost impossible to come up with any words that provide comfort at a time like this. I know it from losing my own parents not long ago. I liked your sister very much. She was a wonderful woman. This must be so hard for you.”
    Marina nodded. “Thank you. I heard about your daughter, and I’m sorry for what you’re going through, too”
    It was a kind gesture, but Emily found herself bristling slightly. Jenna is not dead like your sister and your family. Jenna is with her dad and will come home. But she said nothing.
    “I appreciate that. Thank you” She lingered for a second, but there was nothing more to say. “Let’s talk about your sister and her family, all right?” She pushed the Kleenex box, toward Marina. “Do you need a moment?”
    Marina crumpled a tissue and blotted her face. Her resolve was clear. She was as ready as she could ever be. The bodies of her sister, her sister’s husband, and her youngest nephew were already in caskets, lined up for burial.
    “I’m okay. I mean, considering everything that has happened this week. Has it even been a week? It was such an un believable shock. First, the tornado-which we watched on the news. When we couldn’t reach Peg and Mark after the storm, we figured that the power and phone lines were damaged. We kept trying and trying, but never got through. I called Mark’s office and they said he’d missed a day of work, which was odd for him, but I still didn’t think. . “
    “How could you? I mean, really, no one could have,” Emily said.
    “I told myself that on the way over here. But you know it will take a lot of soul searching to figure out if I could have prevented this.”
    The remark was startling. Emily set down her coffee. The woman across from her wasn’t there just to find out what happened to her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. She was there for another reason. She felt guilty.
    “How so?” Emily asked.
    “Mark,” she began, “had been troubled lately.” She caught herself and stopped. Her words had come out all wrong. “I mean not to the extent that he’d do this .. ” She paused, and finally said, “I don’t know.”
    Emily could feel her pulse race. “But you must know something,” she finally offered.
    Marina Wilbur looked out the window, across the parking lot of pickup trucks and late model cars. All needed a good wash. Cherrystone was not a wealthy town. She wondered why her sister would want to live in a place like Cherrystone anyway. She knew Peg loved Mark and always said that Cherrystone was “out of the way” and a “great place” to raise kids. What a crock that seemed now. She couldn’t think of the last time an entire family had been murdered in Dayton, a far larger city than Cherrystone could ever hope to be.
    “They were having trouble. Peg told me. Mark was upset about something. Work maybe, I’m not sure. That was the impression I got. She didn’t say so, but I’m her twin. We don’t need to spell out every little thing, you know. Peg said that he’d been under a lot of stress and it was causing trouble with the boys, both Donny and Nick.”
    “What kind of trouble?”
    “She was vague about it. Said that there was a lot of arguing going on between Mark and the boys, particularly Mark and Nick. I don’t like to pry and my sister’s pretty private-” She caught herself, leaving the present-tense reference to her sister to hang in the air for a beat, but neglected to amend her words. “There had been some kind of knock-down drag-out, I guess, a couple weeks ago”
    “No clue about what it was about?”
    Marina reached for another tissue. The first one had been wadded to the size of a peach pit. She looked around for a trash container, but when she didn’t see one, set the paper ball on the corner of the desk.
    “This is very upsetting. And very private. But I guess I can tell you, I mean my sister’s not going to get mad at me, you know.” Her tears returned. “I think it had something to do with Nick’s adoption.”
    “I didn’t know until recently that he was adopted,” the