Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

his father. Nick bent close. He could feel the warmth of his dad’s breath.
    Mark Martin was alive.
    `Dad! What happened? What? I’m getting help now”
    Mark Martin’s eyes weren’t tracking his son, but his lips were moving Blood pooled from his mouth.
    “Nick? “
    Fighting back his tears, Nick wanted to tell his father how sorry he was for everything he d done to disappoint him. He put his hand under his father’s head, cradling him like a baby. He could feel the wetness under his dad’s back that he thought at once had to be blood.
    “I’m getting help. Going right now,” Nick said.
    Mark Martin tried to lift his head, he gurgled out another cry. He wheezed. “Closer … thought Donny was you.” His words disappeared into the agony of his ebbing life.
    Nick was near hysterics by then. He couldn’t hear what his dad was saying. It just didn’t make sense. Donny wasn’t him. Of course, he wasn’t.
    “What, Dad? “
    “Get out … son … go. Not safe. Angel here. Hide. Won’t stop until you’re dead.”
    And with that, Mark Martin’s seemingly dead eyes rolled back into his head. He had taken his last breath to issue his son some kind of a warning. Hide. Not safe. Get out. Nick was in such a state of anguish and fear that he thought he might have dreamt the whole thing.
    How he wished that could be true.
    Nick was crying so hard by then that Jenna knew her words couldn’t console him. Nobody’s words could. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t shot his mother and father and brother. She believed everything Nick said, not because she was some gullible young girl, but because the Nick Martin she knew, the one that she had fallen a little in love with, was the gentlest of boys. He would never hurt anyone. He never had.
    It was as if all the emotion had sputtered out of him. Nick Martin was immobile. He’d relived the images of what he’d seen in his parents’ bedroom. He wasn’t even crying anymore. The lack of emotion was nearly as disturbing as what Jenna had heard him describe. She kept her arms around him, not sure what to say. He was like some kind of bird who had smacked into a window and slumped down to the ground. Stunned. Motionless.
    “I’m all right,” Nick finally said. “My dad saved me. He told me to get out. The killer might have been there. I don’t know. I just got in my truck and drove. I didn’t know where to go. I was so messed up. I came here”
    “I’m so sorry,” Jenna said. “We need to get help. My mom can help. You didn’t do this.”
    He looked more hurt than distraught just then. “Did you think that I did?”
    “No. I didn’t. But Nick, I don’t understand any of this. Who would have killed your family?”
    Nick stood. “Do you think I know? Do you think that I would be sitting in this crap hole if I knew who did this? I want to make them pay! I’ll kill them myself.” His voice was rising with anger and it scared Jenna.
    “Calm down, Nick. I’m here for you. I believe in you.” She didn’t let go, though her heart was pounding. Fear was filling the room. She wasn’t really sure what had happened back at the Martin house, but she could accept that Nick hadn’t played a role in it. “We have to think. We have to figure out what happened.”
    “A couple of weeks ago, my parents told me that my birth mother had wanted to meet me when I turned eighteen next month. She —I guess through a lawyer-contacted my dad through a lawyer here in Cherrystone-Cary McConnell.”
    “I know Cary,” Jenna said, a disgusted look now on her face. “He’s a jerk”
    “You told me about your mom and him hooking up, so I didn’t want to say anything to you. Basically I didn’t want any part of this. I love my mom and dad. Sure I’m not exactly what they wanted, I guess. They are my parents. Not some woman who gave me up for adoption. Some guy who knocked her up and left her. Whatever her lame story is, I don’t care. I told my dad that”
    “Your mom and dad really loved you.”
    “My dad saved me”
    “He called you his angel.”
    Another tear rolled down his cheek. Nick didn’t bother to wipe it. He was lost in his thoughts. His father, mother, brother. All gone.
    “What are we going to do?” he asked.
    “My mom. My mom will help.”
    “She thinks I did this,” he said.
    “I’ll tell her what happened.”
    “I don’t trust her. I don’t know what my dad wanted me to do.”
    “Let’s talk to her. Let me call her.”

Chapter