Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

where yellow flashing lights advised drivers to watch for falling rocks. The remaining snow piled on the shoulder was coated in gray sludge and had almost disappeared. She could see the conical yellow and pale green forms of skunk cabbage as it fanned out along the swampy edges of a waterfall-fed bog. The AM radio talk show that had kept her somewhat entertained, out of her own head for almost an hour, began to crackle. The blowhard’s voice faded. She pushed FM and the radio scanned through several Latino stations before landing on Celine Dion singing that song from Titanic.
    Jenna loved that movie when she was a little girl. She thought that Leonardo DiCaprio was the cutest boy ever Cute and artsy. Maybe that’s how she views Nick Martin?
    As Celine worked her vocal chords into an unqualified frenzy, Emily began to wonder once more why Olga MorrisCerrino had changed her mind and would only speak to her in person.
    “Some things are better covered face-to-face,” she had said when Emily had called back that evening. “Come up here. I’ll pull my files. I might even fix you lunch.”
    “Lunch would be good,” she said, before saying goodbye.
    She didn’t know it, but a half hour ahead of her Honda, Shali Patterson’s stolen VW sped down the mountainside, the radio playing the same Celine Dion song.
    Saturday, 10:45 A.M., Mercer Island, Washington
    Mercer Island, Washington, barely felt like an island. It was pinned to Lake Washington by Interstate 90 and a pair of bridges, one of them floating on the surface of Seattle’s Lake Washington on enormous concrete pontoons. The lake was so deep and a suspension bridge so costly, that at the time of its conception a floating bridge seemed a good idea. Mercer Island was named for Asa Mercer, who’d famously brought women from back east to marry the loggers carving out the great forests. It seemed that Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, and Jags were the only cars that exited the interstate to the island’s addresses.
    David Kenyon was a surgeon making big bucks, but not so much that he had been forced to live on the island with Microsoft millionaires, sports stars, and the very few that actually carried a whiff of old money from the lumber and gold of Seattle’s past. His girlfriend, Dani, however, was a social climber of the highest order. She stretched the doctor’s income like a tube top on a stripper-to near breaking. But she got the island house. Not waterfront, but view. And not peak-a-boo view, either. The house was a 1960s rambler that if plunked down somewhere in the Midwest wouldn’t cost more than $150,000. On Mercer Island, it was a cool million dollars.
    It wasn’t all that early in the morning, but Dani was in bed and David was padding around the house when he heard a knock at the door. He found Jenna and Nick, standing outside, looking scared. Instinctively he went to Jenna and wrapped his arms around her.
    “Oh, Jenna,” he said. “You’ve scared the hell out of us.”
    “Dad, I’m sorry. But we needed a place to go,” she said. Tears puddled her eyes.
    “Nick?”
    Jenna nodded and he put his hand out to shake.
    “Who else could it be?” David wanted to ream the kid for getting his daughter involved in this mess. He saw how Jenna looked at Nick and knew that any kind of harsh words, threats, promises to put him away, would only make her defensive. Maybe angry. She was safe now. That was all that mattered.
    “We’re calling your mother,” David said.
    “Dad, please don’t do that just yet. I came here for help. Your help. Nick didn’t do anything wrong.”
    David reached for his phone. “But kidnap you,” he said tersely.
    She grabbed her father’s free hand. “That’s not fair and that’s not the truth. Don’t call.”
    “I didn’t, sir,” Nick said, wishing he hadn’t used the word “sir” but it just slipped out. It seemed so false, though it hadn’t been meant that way.
    David didn’t know if he should call the police or his exwife. Or listen to his daughter and the stranger that accompanied her.
    “Listen, Nick, I don’t really know what happened,” he said. “But I’ll be blunt. Your family is dead and the police are looking for you. I’d put this at the top of anyone’s list when it comes to troubling. Wouldn’t you?”
    David didn’t wait for an answer, which was fine, since it didn’t appear as if Nick was going to say anything. He stood mute, stepping backward toward the door. His eyes were full of fear