A Cold Dark Place

by Gregg Olsen

  “They’re all old cases,” Olga continued. “I’m retired, as I said. Now is not the best time, can you give me a few? I have a cat here that if she doesn’t eat she’ll scratch a bloody groove through my leg.”

  Emily laughed. “I know the type. I’ll call you in say, a half hour?”

  “Fine. And what case was it?”

  “Angel’s Nest.”

  There was a long silence and for a second Emily assumed that Olga Morris-Cerrino had hung up.

  “You still there?” she asked.

  Again a short pause.

  “Yes,” Olga answered, sounding a little rattled. “I’m here. Yes, call me. I don’t know how I can help you, but I’m glad that someone is looking into that mess.”

  Olga Morris-Cerrino was still all that she had been years ago. She was still blond without the help of a bottle. She was still tiny, with a trim figure unchanged by childbirth or bad eating habits. Faint lines collected at the corners of each eye, but no one really noticed them. How could they? When her eyes sparkled as they always did, no one saw anything else. She fed the cat and took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator, popped the top, and filled a water glass. She sliced a lime and dropped it in; fizzy pop bloomed over the sides. The call hadn’t really surprised her. She had no idea what case the detective from Cherrystone was working just then, but she never thought Angel’s Nest or any of the people associated with it would just fade into dust.

  The world just doesn’t work that way, she thought. Evil doesn’t really die.

  While she waited for the phone to ring, Olga meandered around the first floor, a space filled with antique furniture and carpets. Over a settee with a pin-point gallery light on timer was her husband’s most prized possession—an original Norman Rockwell portrait. It was a schoolgirl standing outside of a gymnasium as a group of cheerleaders practiced. It was called Dreamer. It was the image of his mother, who had posed for Rockwell when she was a girl in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The painting had been a family heirloom and was worth tens of thousands.

  Olga pushed the pager button for the cordless phone she kept in the den—the one thing she’d done that defied her husband’s wishes, but he was gone and there would be no arguing about being “true to the house.” The phone handset called out to her from a sofa cushion in the living room. She fished it out, put her feet up on an ottoman, and waited for the earthquake that was sure to come when the phone rang again.

  It had been only a matter of time.

  Jenna finished the conversation with her father, cut short by a cheap cell phone they’d stolen from a man at the counter of the minimart. The theft was completely impulsive, but after being called a murderer, a kidnapper, and an “artsy” high school student, just about anything went by then. Jenna looked at Nick with disapproving eyes. His new look would take some getting used to. Nick had shaved his head earlier this morning and a slight rash had developed, making his pasty white scalp look something like a bruised strawberry. He sat glumly on the curb, the light of day eclipsed by the hour.

  “My dad said my mom called about us,” she said.

  “No surprise there. I knew we couldn’t trust her.”

  “She’s my mom. And we can trust her. She called my dad, not the FBI.”

  Nick lit a cigarette, his last one. “As far as you know.”

  That hurt a little and Jenna didn’t try to hide it. “Don’t be like that. Look, both my parents say the same thing. We need to turn ourselves in. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Nick wasn’t buying any of that. He slumped back down on the sofa. The mine building was rancid, creaky, and drafty. His family was gone, his house was gone. His life was over.

  “Nobody’s calling you a killer,” he said.

  Jenna pushed her long dark hair over her shoulder. He had a point. Words were so stupid, so hurtful, and at that time, so useless. They could hurt, but not calm.

  “In her message,” she said, finally, “my mom asked my dad if he knew anything about Angel’s Nest.”

  Nick exhaled and his eyes followed Jenna as she moved closer and sat next to him. He turned his gaze to the grimy floor and searched for words.

  “My dad warned me about that,” he said while patting his irritated scalp. “He said to me . . . before he died . . .” Nick let himself to go back to that upstairs bedroom, back into the depths of the worst memory he’d ever hold.

  “Get out . . . son . . . go. Not safe. Angel here. Hide. You’re in danger. Won’t stop until you’re dead.”

  “Angel?” Jenna asked. “He called you angel?”

  “He never called me that. He called me NickNack, but not Angel. I thought it was some weird comment, you know, like seeing an angel before you die.”

  Jenna couldn’t make the connection. “What do you think he was saying?”

  “I don’t know, but I thought he was warning me about an angel now.”

  “Or Angel’s Nest?”

  Nick nodded, it seemed to make sense. “My dad said that was the name of the adoption agency in Seattle. It was what he and Cary McConnell argued about. We’re going there.”

  “We can’t.” Jenna could feel fear rising in her.

  “I need to know,” he said. “You can stay. You can go back to your mom.” When he said the word “mom,” his voice cracked slightly, almost imperceptibly. “I’m going.”

  Jenna knew then that it was too late for her. She’d lost any choices she could make when she decided to help Nick. She cared about him. She trusted him. She thought that he could even be right about her own mother. Maybe she couldn’t understand. Maybe she wouldn’t really believe them.

  “I know where Shali keeps an extra set of car keys,” Jenna said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Saturday, 6:26 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington

  Early Saturday morning two cars were headed out of Cherrystone. One, a bland Honda Accord driven by the detective in search of her daughter and a killer, and the other, a VW bug with a flapping ragtop driven by the suspected killer and the same daughter. Neither of the drivers or the sole passenger knew the other was on its way to the same destination, for the identical purpose. Getting out of town hadn’t been an easy prospect for either. One had to steal a car; the other had to squirm a little.

  Emily Kenyon didn’t exactly argue with Sheriff Brian Kiplinger to leave the investigation, but he wasn’t thrilled about it. “I know you have personal problems, Emily,” he had said, “but we’re up to our necks in alligators here and we need you to wrestle a few.”

  It was a lame metaphor, but Emily knew what he meant. Her investigation had been stymied by her daughter’s inadvertent involvement, the FBI had offered to step in, and the Spokane police had drawn their line in the sand, too.

  “I get that.” Her dark eyes flashed. “But, look, I think that some of the answers to what happened at the Martin place will be found in Seattle.”

  Kip crossed his burly arms and narrowed his gaze. “And maybe your daughter, too?”

  Emily bristled at the mention and wished she’d just called in sick. “Jenna is not a runaway. She’s not a victim here. I know she’s just trying to help a friend. I believe that. Why is that so hard for you to accept?”

  “Emily, I’m your boss.” Kip shifted his frame in the chrome-accented chair that was the only luxury in his office. He rocked backward and steadied the chair by putting his foot on the leg of his desk. “You’re talking to me like I’m your ex. I don’t know what happened. I’m glad you think Jenna is all right. But I just talked to a woman who buried her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew out at Green View two days ago and she’s none too happy that we haven’t picked up Nick—guilty or not.”

  The dialogue played in her head as she climbed the mountain pass 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 ed
ges 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 Morris-Cerrino 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 good-bye.

  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 ex-wife. 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 and, maybe, David thought, remorse.

  “And somehow, God knows how, you’ve got my little girl involved in this mess—”

  “What’s going on here?”

  It was Dani. The noise of the argument rousted her out of her feather bed. Her blond hair was surprisingly tangle free and she even wore—at least Jenna thought so—a little lip gloss. Her bathrobe was a Vera Wang knockoff, all creamy and flowy. It didn’t conceal much.

  The teenager stood there, her big blue eyes wide.

  “You’re pregnant,” Jenna said. She looked over at her father. “She’s pregnant.”

  Dani pulled on the belt tie of her robe and like some kind of floating cloud, took a seat next to David.

  “I was going to tell you,” he said, his eyes riveted on his daughter. Embarrassment swept over his handsome face.

  “When? When my brother or sister was born?”

  “It was something I wanted to tell you—”

  “We wanted to tell you,” Dani interjected, her hand now caressing her melon-sized abdomen.

  “In person,” David continued, finishing his thought.

  “We want you to be here for the wedding, too.” Dani’s words were meant for Jenna, but she seemed to say them in the direction of her future husband, now sitting on the couch. “I was hoping you’d be in the bridal party. If you don’t think that’s too weird, you know. It would mean a lot for me.”

  Dani was carrying on like she was talking to a wedding planner, not a teen that’d just found out that she was going to be a big sister.

  “You know,” Jenna said, “I thought that I had the worst week ever. Let’s see. A tornado rips up our town, Nick’s family is murdered, I’m sleeping in a shack, my mom is pissed off at me, and now my dad’s girlfriend is knocked up.”

  “Enough!” David stood up. His face was red with anger. He was walking a fine line and he knew it. In front of him was his nearly grown daughter and to the left his pregnant girlfriend. He knew he needed to let her vent, but the “knocked-up” comment was too much.

  “I’m not saying I’m perfect,” he said stiffly, holding his temper.

  Jenna went to Nick, who was standing his hands in his jeans pockets looking around like he wanted to escape. “No Dad, you’re not,” she said, fighting back tears. “Far from it. Some family we are.”

  No one said anything for a few long seconds, when Nick finally broke the ice.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” he asked. “Been a long drive.”

  Dani smiled, though she had fanned the flames of the little altercation, she knew things in her perfect home were not so ideal after all. Regrouping was in order and she pounced on the opportunity

  “Down the hall, Nick. Let’s all get some coffee,” she said, looking at the other two still frozen in their anger.

  Jenna followed her dad and his girlfriend into the kitchen, an enormous room of hanging pots and pans and a gas-fueled fireplace.

  “Does Mom know?” she asked softly, once more feeling the hurt of a secret revealed.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid she does.”

  Dani feigned a preoccupation with brewing coffee, and Jenna summoned the courage to speak her mind. The words came in a rush. “Dad,” she said, “If you call the police and say anything about Nick, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  He clearly didn’t like her attitude. “Don’t push me,” he said.

  “You know, I cried for a week when you moved to Seattle. Make that a month. And all along you probably had her. Like she was waiting in the wings. I thought that your leaving us was something that you needed to do to practice your specialty. Spokane wasn’t big enough.”

  David remained mute. He figured at the very least in some small way, he had it coming.

  “And you know what, Dad? Seattle had everything you wanted,” she said, again thinking of Dani. “But it didn’t have me. It didn�
�t have Mom.”

  “It is more complicated than that. You’ll see when you live your own life.”

  “Complicated? What I’m going through right now is complicated. I need you to be there for me. I need you to help me. Nick and I need your help.”

  Saturday, 11:15 A.M., north of Seattle

  Traffic was uncharacteristically light as Emily Kenyon drove northward from Seattle. Her back ached from the long drive from Cherrystone, and her car smelled of a cinnamon scone she’d picked up from a Starbucks drive-through. She told herself to ignore the exit off the freeway that led to the home she and David had shared when they were first married. It was a classic Craftsman in the University District. It had more built-ins than they had things to stash. David was doing his residency at the University of Washington Medical Center back then. She was finishing up her stint at the police academy south of Seattle. All was good. Too good. Too short. She knew that the fragmentation and ultimate destruction of their marriage had been shared by both, but even so she wished she’d given in more often. For her daughter’s sake, and deep down, she knew, for her own.

  She glanced at the Mapquest printout of directions to Olga Morris-Cerrino’s address and pulled off the freeway onto a two-lane road along the creamy green waters of the Nooksack River. A grove of cell towers flew by the driver’s window. She passed a small dairy farm and wondered how much longer it would be there. New homes were pushing the countryside farther and farther away. It was true of just about every populated part of Western Washington. In time, she knew, there would be no more farms. That would never happen in Cherrystone, of course. As David had pointed out time and time again, “Nobody with half a brain would want to live there.”

  If it was home, you would, she’d thought.

  She passed by an emu farm, its sentinel of birds standing along a wire fence line like prehistoric creatures. All turned their heads in unison as her Accord drove by. Emily thought they were ugly, but considered stopping to snap a photo with her cell phone. Jenna would think they were cute. She thought opossums were adorable. Emily turned right up the long dirt driveway, a tuft of grass separating two parallel grooves. The mailbox: CERRINO.