Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

but apparently disregarded them.
    “That kid never fit in,” the boy’s maternal grandfather was quoted as saying. “He was so preoccupied with finding his birth parents in Seattle that he scarcely gave my daughter and her husband the time of day. He actually ran away a month before the murders. They should have let him run”
    Adopted? The word hung in Emily’s memory. She glanced at the clock; it was after six. Ordinarily she’d be hurrying for the door by then. Hoping that whatever she’d planned for dinner would still come together quickly for Jenna. She wondered if she’d put too much on Jenna. Too much responsibility. Too much of a need to excel and hold it together when her own life had crumbled.
    The last face she expected, wanted to see, appeared in the doorway just then. It was Cary McConnell. He was a handsome man, with piercing blue eyes and wavy dark hair, the kind of coloring that had made Emily’s heart beat faster even in high school. He had that handsome lawyerly look that made him the star of the courtroom. Nice suits cut by a Korean tailor in a time where almost everyone bought off the rack also distinguished him in style and attitude. Cary owned the ground he walked on. He was a control freak, sure. But a very handsome one.
    “You haven’t called me back,” he said, inviting himself into a seat across from her desk. “I’ve been worried.”
    “Look,” Emily said, “I’ve been through a lot. It wasn’t personal.” She lied, and Cary was too stuck on himself to sense it.
    “I know,” he lied right back to her. “Any news on Jenna?” He leaned back.
    He was getting comfortable. Damn.
    “She called David. She’s helping a friend.” Emily started pulling files together. She opened her briefcase. She was getting ready to leave, each cue was meant to tell Cary to back off. Go home.
    “You want to get a drink and talk?” When Emily didn’t respond right away, Cary pressed again. “Just a drink. Nothing more.”
    Emily didn’t want to go home alone. She didn’t exactly want to go off with Cary McConnell either. Kip had invited her to have dinner with him and his wife, but she felt that he just wanted to “observe” her to see if she was too messed up to carry on with the Martin investigation.
    “All right,” she finally said.
    Cary McConnell flashed his faultless smile. “Good. Just friends”
    Later that night, after a couple of salt-rimmed margaritas and dinner at Rosario’s Cantina, Emily Kenyon wondered how she’d been so weak, so foolish. Cary’s stealthy charm and undeniably practiced compassion had worked on her frayed emotions. It was like sleeping with the enemy; a betrayal of what was really going on in her life. She buried her face against his lightly hairy chest and took in a deep breath. Her cheeks were damp from silent tears that predictably went unnoticed. Cary smelled of Calvin Klein’s Obsession cologne. She found herself wishing that she actually loved him, but the thought was transitory. As the digital clock spun into the late hours, she had only one thing that was on her mind: Jenna.
    Where are you, baby? Come home. Come home.

Chapter Fifteen
    Thursday, 6:45, Ogden, Utah
    Spring and summer in Ogden, Utah, are hotter than hell, but few of those living there would ever deign to use such a vulgar metaphor when describing what they knew to be the Promised Land. Ogden was a burgeoning Mormon enclave of pristinely maintained homes set behind sidewalks that had never seen a chalk mark since the day Mexican workers poured them. Lawns were green and weed-free. Sprinklers on timers sprayed their staccato blast of water only at night. Everything was perfectly ordered and ordered perfectly.
    But something was awry on Foster Avenue. Newspapers had piled up on the steps that set the stage for an imposing double front door. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. The Salt Lake City Tribune was literally loitering on the ideal tableau of a good Mormon home.
    The paperboy-a girl named Tracy Ross-told her mother that she was worried about the Chapmans at 4242 Foster Ave., an especially nice street of upscale homes with swim ming pools and built-in barbecue pits. The girl, fourteen, had an excellent relationship with everyone on her route.
    “They usually tell me when they go out of town,” she said over a family dinner of roast chicken and mashed potatoes.
    “Maybe it slipped Mrs. Chapman’s mind.” Tracy’s mom, Annette, offered.
    “That’s right,” Rod