Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

Salt Lake City Tribune ran the story on the front page. The article was picked up by the Associated Press and dispatched across the country:
    PARENTS, GIRL, SLAIN BY INTRUDER IN OGDEN
    CNN ran a video version the next day, flashing images of the murder house and the neighborhood. One viewer in Seattle paid particular attention, satisfied that the mission had been accomplished.
    There was Ogden, Des Moines, the Cherrystone screwup, and the last one close to home.
    Armed with their stack of damp microfiche printouts and a genuine need to get away from the Johnny-on-the-spot research librarian, Jenna and Nick retreated from the basement and found a quiet corner and some soft upholstered chairs on the third floor. A trio of engineering students studied for a test nearby. Otherwise, they were alone.
    “What exactly are we looking for?” Jenna whispered.
    Nick divided the copies in half and handed a stack to Jenna. “I’m not the detective’s daughter.”
    “Thanks,” she said, her tone anything but thankful.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Really. I guess we’re just looking for whatever we can find about Angel’s Nest”
    As they worked their way through the material, they learned that the agency had a sterling record for its first decade or so back in the 1960s. Randall Wilson had helped reinvent the whole concept of adoption. At least, according to one article, prior to Wilson agencies were often viewed as shameful dumping grounds for unwanted babies. Wilson’s brilliance was marketing. Through ads on TV he was able to turn that thinking on its ear, and make an unplanned pregnancy something positive and heartwarming. Wilson, a genial fellow of forty, saw adoption as “a golden opportunity to build new families.” Instead of selling the idea of taking in an unwanted baby, he sold hard to the birth mothers, making them feel like cherished heroines instead of shameful losers.
    A photo of Wilson showed him outside the building on Stone Way. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a broad smile on his face. “No child is really unwanted,” says Wilson. “They just need to find their way into the right family. That’s my job.”
    “What’s the big deal?” Nick asked. “I mean, I’m adopted. My parents wanted me”
    Jenna looked up from the papers. “You’re a guy. You wouldn’t get it. But back when our parents were young, getting pregnant out of marriage was the biggest sin of all. Not like today when every movie star has a baby without ever getting a husband. In the 1960s women actually went away and hid out until their babies came”
    “So?” Nick pushed his chair back from the table. “Big deal.”
    The remark surprised Jenna. “So? This was huge. Wilson was one of the first to turn that thinking around, I guess. He helped promote the idea that having a baby and giving it to someone else was a great gift.”
    Nick shook it off. He put his head down and kneaded his eyes with the palms of his hands. He seemed exhausted and hurt. But he wasn’t about to cry in front of Jenna again.
    “When I was a kid, my mom and dad told me I was adopted,” he said. “They said that they had `chosen’ me. I guess that was good enough for me. I never thought of myself as a bastard or anything like that”
    “I’d hope not” Jenna continued scanning the page in front of her. “But what if it wasn’t good enough for your birth mother or father?”
    Riffling through the stacks of news stories quickly, the headlines told the story. By the 1980s, the agency was buying babies from shady operators overseas and selling them to rich, childless couples. There were also hints in the story that they were also buying babies from girls here in the United States and selling them in quickie private adoptions.
    Randall Wilson had been tried and found guilty. The agency had been shut down. And apparently the star witness against him had been an employee of Angel’s Nest, Bonnie Jeffries.
    “I’ve read enough,” said Nick. “We can get the fine print later. You have that calling card?”
    Jenna pulled it from her purse.
    “Let’s call your mom’s boyfriend. He’s the only one who knows anything.”
    “Good idea,” Jenna said. “But he’s not the only one. I’d say one of these two might know something.” She tapped the top page of her stack of clippings with the eraser end of a pencil: first the photo of Randall Wilson, and next the courtroom artist’s image of Bonnie