Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

bitch? You’ve got the view home. You got the surgeon. You can have all of that. Just don’t bring up my daughter’s name like she means a damn thing to you.
    “That’s right,” Emily said, swallowing the bile in her throat, “for Jenna”
    She slipped out of her shoes and made a beeline for the minibar, which to her dismay didn’t have a drop of tequila. She’d had a taste for the Mexican booze all day. She settled for gin and tonic. After talking with Dani Brewer, it just seemed especially good right for the moment. She noticed the light on the hotel phone blinking and she punched in the code for the message center. There were two. Both from Christopher Collier.
    “Hi Emily. Chris here. Dinner tonight? I’ve tried your cell twice. You must be out of range. Call me and let me know if you want to meet up at your hotel.” Drinks had become dinner. That was fine with her. A kind face would be a welcome change.
    The second call was a hang-up.
    She dialed Christopher’s number, this time getting the Seattle Police detective’s voice mail. In a way it was a relief. She felt anxious, foolish, tired. But she was also lonely and in need of company. Maybe even in need of validation that she hadn’t screwed up her entire life or lost her daughter.
    Hadn’t been the victim of bad karma.
    “Chris, dinner tonight sounds lovely. How about eight? See you here at the Westfield.”
    Seeing Christopher, she knew, was something she had to do. She sipped her drink and remembered what until Jenna’s disappearance, had been the worst episode of her life. It was long ago and Christopher had been there.
    Long before the tornado, on the Washington coast
    The summer wind blew cool moist air over the driftwood along the Pacific shore. A few seabirds dove into the surf, and about a hundred yards down the beach, a couple of beach combers looked for their elusive prize-Japanese glass fishing floats. Emily Kenyon was alone; her partner Christopher Collier was searching the area from the south side of the beach. She wore street clothes khakis, open-toed shoes, and white cotton blouse. A heavy woolen sweater concealed her weapon. Sand and beach grit found its way inside and was grinding the soles of Emily’s feet. She cursed the fact that she wore those completely impractical shoes.
    She and Christopher were looking for a little girl named Kristi Cooper. The Northwest had been riveted by the story of the little girl, who had last been seen by her mother in one of those gigantic bins of multicolored plastic balls at a Seattle fast food restaurant. Last seen. It had been a while. Kristi had been missing for almost three weeks. She was blond and pretty. She was also small for her age. In a media-driven world that had embraced the concept of bland American adorable, Kristi fit the bill to a T. Her picture was everywhere-newspapers, flyers, even a billboard along the interstate just north of Olympia. Certainly her face was a key reason that Kristi captivated the hearts and minds of residents around Washington State. But it wasn’t the only reason. She also was the daughter of a wealthy car dealer-one who made his fame by appearing on cheap TV commercials smashing cars with a sledgehammer and screaming that only his insanity could explain the low prices he offered.
    `I’ll smash up this car to make a deal with you!”
    It was a clear case of kidnapping when a $250,000 ransom demand quickly followed. That, of course, made it a federal case handled under the auspices of the FBI, with help from the Seattle Police Department. Seattle PD was stuck in a supporting role, while taking most of the heat from the media as the story unfolded. Rick Cooper, Kristi’s used-carmagnate father, followed the FBI’s request to withhold the ransom while they tracked hundreds of potential leads. None, however, seemed to get any traction. A week after it started, the kidnapper stopped calling.
    Emily, who up until that point had peripheral involvement in the case, volunteered for extra duty the day of the beach search-another low priority follow-up from an anonymous tipster.
    Those days always played in her mind like a bad dream. There were many images that came to mind. The girl, of course. But the one that held the tightest grip was the face of her father. Emily could never forget seeing his bitterness, his deep hurt, his complete and unmitigated rage.
    All of it had been directed toward her.
    “Does she know what she’s done?” Rick Cooper asked a