Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

Christopher. He was true blue from the moment Reynard Tuttle was shot, to the dreadful discovery of Kristi Cooper’s body by those boys out with their BB gun, to the departmental investigation by her supposed friends and colleagues.
    “What is it about you?” she asked. “Why did you stick up for me?”
    Christopher set his hand on her shoulder. “Look, what happened to you could have happened to me. To anyone. You were doing your job. You have always been a million times better than that one incident. What happened never defined you for a second. Not to me. Not to anyone who really knows you.”
    But to David, it was the crack that grew to a chasm.
    Without saying a word, her eyes now cast downward, Emily started to sob. She didn’t want to cry in front of Collier just then, but her emotions were so jagged, she just let go.
    Christopher put his other hand on her opposite shoulder and gently turned her to make her face him dead on. “Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t beat yourself up again.”
    She shook her head slightly. “I don’t know.” She knew she couldn’t change what had happened to Kristi, but she wondered how much that played into Jenna and Nick’s disappearance. She was thinking of her daughter just then, not Kristi.
    “What if we don’t find Jenna?” she asked.
    Christopher wrapped his strong arms around her. He didn’t hold her too long, or too tightly. “We will,” he said softly in her ear. “We’re going to get her and bring her home”
    A voice called out into the darkness. It was indifferent. Barely louder than a whisper. A voice of ice. Just words strung together. “Hey. You. Hey?”
    It came from a slit of light, across the blackened space.
    Is this God? Am I dead?
    In an instant the light was snuffed out with a thunderclap, like a trapdoor into another world. Darkness consumed the space. Jenna Kenyon couldn’t move. She hurt everywhere. She wanted to touch the back of her head; she was sure she’d been injured somehow. The pain was disorienting. The dark ness didn’t help. Maybe hit over the head? Blacked out? But she didn’t know. When she went to move, she found her arms, and then her legs, were paralyzed. She was supine on a cot or mattress, smelly and damp. She was so unsettled, so confused, that she had no clue where she was or how she got there. After the light went out, she felt the presence of another, somewhere in the room, the cave. Wherever she was.
    “Hello?” she asked, her voice trembling with fear. She heard something, but it was behind her and she was unable to turn. “Hello?” She twisted her body and tried to squirm into a sitting position, but it was no use. Her limbs were bound tightly by rope or cording.
    Then he spoke. “Jenna?” His voice was recognizable, but her thoughts were so hazy, Jenna couldn’t say who it was just then. “Are you all right? I’m over here”
    She tried to follow the sound with her eyes, searching through the blackness of the smelly black place. She knew for sure that she wasn’t alone, and she wasn’t sure if she should feel relief or fear. Her memories were hazy and as she slowly regained consciousness, her terror began to spike.
    “Nick?” she asked, barely able to keep from crying. His name came from her lips with more hope than confidence. “Are you here?”
    A muffled noise. Then an answer.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I’m over here. I’m tied up with some tape or something. I can’t move. You free?”
    Jenna let her tears flow. It wasn’t possible to hold them any longer. Not there in the dark. “No. No, I’m not”
    “Can you move?” Nick’s voice was stronger just then. He was being stronger for her.
    “I don’t think so. I think my legs are broken” She heard scraping sounds above. Maybe they were in a basement somewhere and someone above was moving furniture about the house. “Where are we?”
    She could feel him, his breath, his voice as his words came to comfort her. He was maybe five feet away. Close. The space wasn’t as large as she’d first thought.
    “I don’t know. I think we’re underground somewhere. I can feel dirt against the palm of my hand”
    Jenna was shaking. “I’m cold.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m scared, Nick.”
    “I am, too,” he said. “We’ll get out of here”
    “Who did this to us?”
    “I didn’t see,” he said. “Did you?”
    Just then, a brilliant flash of light flooded the space, and something skidded across the floor. She could see Nick,