Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

moment. Another car passed by.
    “Jenna? Are you still there?”
    “I’m here, Mom,” she said. “Oh, Mom, he’s scared. He said his mom and dad and brother … they were all shot”
    Emily wished she could reach through the phone line and put her arms around her daughter.
    “Oh God, honey. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Is Nick all right?”
    “He’s a mess, mom. He’s scared spitless. We’re both scared. Whoever is out there wants to kill him.”
    “Kill him? Why? Why in the world would anyone want to kill his mother and father and little brother, and then him?”
    Jenna paused. She was collecting her thoughts, but Emily felt as if her daughter was sifting out what to tell and what to hold close.
    “Nick thinks it has something to do with the adoption,” Jenna said. “Ask Cary about it.”
    The name was a knife in Emily’s heart right then. Maybe to her back, she wasn’t sure.
    “Cary?” She was incredulous. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
    “I knew that would piss you off, Mom. Glad you dumped him. Nick says that Cary talked with his dad. Made his dad really, really mad. Something about the agency or the birth mother wanting to see Nick, but Nick’s dad didn’t want anything to do with it. Nick and his dad fought about that”
    Emily put her fingers to her lips. It just didn’t compute. “But Cary? I don’t understand how he was involved?”
    A young man’s voice said, “Let’s go”
    It seemed to distract Jenna for a second. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “Nick said something about how Cary and his dad got into it one night, over the adoption. But he doesn’t know.”
    “I’ll find out. Now come home.”
    “No. We can’t. Mom, we saw what you said in the paper. You said Nick’s a killer. Everyone says so. But he didn’t do it. And we aren’t coming back until you know who did. Bye, Mom. I love you”
    The line went silent so fast that Emily didn’t have a second to plead for her daughter to stay put. Help will come. I’ll take back what I said. I love you. Don ‘t do this. Don ‘t be gone. Her hand still frozen on the receiver, the room swelled back to its normal size. Gloria was at the door.
    “Is she okay?” she asked, sticking her head inside.
    Emily set the phone down. She turned to Gloria and nodded. “I think so. Gloria, see if you can get this call traced. Right away.”
    Gloria stood there expecting more conversation, maybe some details that could set her own worried mind at ease, but Emily didn’t offer anything. Instead she scooped up some files, and put them in a drawer. Next she grabbed her purse and coat and started for the door.
    “Where are you going?” Gloria asked, moving aside.
    “I’m off to see a scumbag lawyer,” Emily said, disappearing in the whirlwind of her exit.
    Friday, 1:14 n.M1
    “Where’s Cary?” Emily Kenyon refused to wait for a response from the latest in a long line of front desk girls at McConnell’s over-ferned law office in the Old Mill Building. This one was blond and pretty, like the others. She was also completely out of her league when she tried to stop Emily. The detective would not be denied a meeting. Appointment or not. She kept walking toward McConnell’s corner office in one of those industrial edifices tastefully reimagined by architects and interior designers into office space that said its occupants were hip and cool and cared about the history of their communities.
    Without knocking, Emily pushed the office door open. It smacked into the doorstop with a loud thud. Cary McConnell, who was on the phone staring out the window at the street scene below, swung his burgundy leather chair around at the intrusion.
    “Oh baby,” he said. Seeing it was Emily, he put on a smile. His perfect teeth were blazingly white against his tanned face. “Miss me?”
    “Miss you?” Emily wanted to lunge for him. “I could goddamn kill you”
    Cary told the caller on the phone that “an upset client” had just arrived. “Unannounced. I’ll call you later.” He put the phone down, got up and shut the door behind Emily. She was seething.
    “What’s going on? Why are you angry at me?”
    “Cary, look at my face. This isn’t mad. This is furious. Why didn’t you tell me you had information about the Martin case?” She felt her hands clench. She wasn’t a person who ever thought of hitting anyone, but at that moment Cary McConnell nearly had it coming. If anyone ever did.
    “Look, I can’t