A Cold Dark Place

by Gregg Olsen

“Me, too. I’ve been awake for a while. Whoever put us here hasn’t been back.”

  “Who is it? Where are we?”

  Thinking, Nick hesitated. Then his voice pierced the darkness. “I don’t know. I’m totally messed up on remembering. Last thing I knew we were at Bonnie Jeffries’.”

  Jenna dug through her memory, but between whatever made her sick and the fear that wrapped around her, she could recall very little. “Yes, in her living room talking. She went to the back door, the kitchen door.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “I can’t put it all together. Anything after that?”

  “No.”

  “Me, neither. We have to get out of here. and I’ve been working on that. I might be able to cut this tape. I’ve found something sharp, a nail or something, and I’m kind of rubbing through it. I think it’s working.”

  Jenna couldn’t move at all. “We have to get out of here.” She shivered in the cold, damp air. She could not have been more frightened or more grateful that she wasn’t alone. Nick was there.

  “We will. And we’re going to kill whoever did this to us.”

  Another wave of nausea hit her. “I feel sick. Going to close my eyes.” When she did, nightmares of the mining shack and the rats, the tornado, the bloody scene that Nick had seen back home came at her in a seamless reel, over and over. Blood. Gunshot. Bonnie. Angel’s Nest. Dani’s pregnancy. It rolled on through her strange, almost drug-polluted subconscious. It was a storm. Each memory shaking her, scaring her.

  A flash of light. It jolted her. Her eyes snapped open. Then she slammed them shut. She was so scared. She just wanted to sleep.

  Monday, 3:15 P.M., Tacoma, Washington

  Dylan Walker’s house was one of those grand-styled Victorians with a large bay window that at one time overlooked Tacoma’s Commencement Bay. Trees and buildings had risen to block the water views in the decades since it was first built. It had a broad front porch that had been painted gray. The rest of the house was gray, too. But not by design. Years of neglect had allowed the dirt and grime of the city to steal the luster of the oyster-white paint. Flakes fell like snow onto the front porch. The place had been carved into apartments, a further indignity to what had been a fine, old home.

  Emily parked the Accord around the corner, a half block away from the house. She looked at her watch. She thought that she might be early, but, in fact, Christopher Collier was late. Must be some trouble with the judge. She turned on talk radio and listened to some blabbermouth host yak about the rising price of gas and how the middle class would never recover from what the current administration had put it through. If she had been with someone she would have rolled her eyes. If she had been with someone she trusted, like Christopher, she’d have threatened to call in to the show.

  Who cares about the price of gas when our lives in general are so screwed up? Who cares about anything when your daughter is missing?

  Refusing to wait with her daughter’s safety on the line, Emily knocked on the door marked with a black plastic label—703½—and held her breath. She’d never seen Dylan Walker except in photographs. It had been a long, long time. Prison years were like dog years—times seven or ten. She doubted he’d still live up to his nickname: Dash.

  “Are you looking for Dan?” A voice came from a graying man with rounded shoulders, a bright pink nose, and wireframed glasses that gave him the distinct countenance of a skinny Santa. He was cutting grass.

  “Dan?” Emily looked puzzled.

  “Yup. Dan Walker. He’s not there.”

  Dylan Daniel Walker. She processed the information. It would be a violation of his parole if Walker had taken on another name—to hide who he was. But using his middle name was fair game.

  “He’s been gone for a while. Lost his job at the hospital a week or so back. Maybe he’s out looking for work. Hope so. I’m his landlord, I can take a message.”

  “No message.” Emily showed her detective’s badge and the old man acknowledged it. “Just waiting for another officer to arrive.”

  “Let me know.” He didn’t ask any questions, which surprised her. Instead he brushed his sweaty brow, nodded, and went back to his yard work. “Might rain soon,” he said.

  Emily was about to take a seat on the railing by the front door when her cell phone rang. She flipped it open. The voice wasn’t familiar at first, but her words were.

  “Can I put you on the air?”

  It was Candace Kane, the reporter from the Spokane radio station.

  “No, you cannot,” Emily said, wondering how the reporter got her hands on her cell number. The number she always gave out went through dispatch—a landline. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

  “I know. I heard about Bonnie Jeffries. You found her,” she said. “That’s why I’m calling.”

  Emily felt some relief. The call hadn’t been about Jenna. “Candace, I know you’re just doing your job, so I know that you’ll understand that I’m just doing mine. I can’t comment on the investigation. For one thing, it’s not my place to do so—this is a Seattle case.”

  “Yes,” Candace said, “I understand that. But you’re over there in Seattle because of a connection between the Martins and Angel’s Nest. Bonnie Jeffries worked for Angel’s Nest. Right?”

  “Look,” Emily said, her patience rapidly evaporating, “you apparently already have better sources than me.”

  She noticed Christopher parking out front, and very abruptly the phone call was over.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” he said, coming to her. “Got the warrant, here.”

  “He’s not here,” she said. “Landlord’s over there. He’ll let us in.”

  On seeing them talking about him, the landlord ambled over.

  “Now there are two of you,” he said, squinting into the sun. He looked at Christopher only—one of those men who are blind to a female cop when there’s a choice between a man and woman with a badge. “What can I do you for?”

  “We have a warrant to search this apartment,” Christopher said, holding out the folded papers.

  He waved the warrant away. “No need. I follow the law. When you’ve lived in this neighborhood you see a fair amount of those. Of course it wasn’t always that way. We’re supposedly a neighborhood in transition. To what I ask?”

  “Sir, I can only imagine,” Emily said as he fished in his front pocket for his keys.

  “Found ’em,” he said. “What’s Dan done to get all this fuss?”

  Christopher started to answer. “We can’t say—”

  He cut off Christopher with a quick, “yeah, yeah . . . I know the drill. I’ll wait outside. Leave the place as you found it please. Otherwise the wife and I will have to clean it up. We can’t afford to call in any more help, you know. Fixed income.”

  “All right,” Emily said. She put on her rubber gloves. Christopher did the same.

  “You won’t find anything nasty in there,” the landlord said. “Dan is the neatest fellow you’ll ever meet.”

  Christopher held the door and the pair retreated inside. The apartment was in perfect, almost boot-camp-barracks order. Nothing suggested that Dylan Walker was anything but the neatest tenant since Felix Unger. Shoes by the front door were matched and in perfect alignment with the baseboards. A stack of magazines—mostly automotive, aerospace, and, oddly, gardening—were set with such precision one would have thought the place was being previewed by a real estate listing agent.

  The furnishings were simple, not expensive and not upholstered.

  “You’d think he’d have a pillow around here. Jesus, who could watch television on that?” Christopher pointed to an old mahogany church pew that Dylan Walker used for his sofa. A small TV sat on an antique wire-and-wood egg crate on the other side of the room.

  Emily agreed. “Not exactly the cozy type, that’s for sure. Maybe those years in New Jersey gave him a taste for a spartan lifestyle.” She let her eyes wander over the room, noting that there was not a single photograph or picture on the wa
lls. The sole bit of wall art was a hardware store calendar with a small picture of an apple orchard. Emily went over to a Formica desk and opened the drawers. The first two were empty, save for a couple of pencils and some legal-sized envelopes. The third and bottom drawer held a shoebox of photos. Emily sifted through its contents, hoping to find some images of Bonnie, Tina, someone whose face she’d recognize.

  Any ties to the case? To Nick? And by extension, Jenna.

  Instead, the photos were all of Dylan Walker, albeit an older and decidedly tired version of the man that had prison groupies hearts atwitter so many years ago. Most had him wearing a T-shirt or a chambray shirt. A small tuft of gray hair poked from the V of the collar. His face was still quite handsome, his features still chiseled, though somewhat softened by the passage of time. Maybe sun in the prison yard? Despite that, his eyes remained a pair of lasers to the camera lens. On the back was his signature: Love, Dylan.

  “This guy thinks he’s got game. Even in prison,” Emily said. “He must have kept a stash of photos to send out to the lovelorn who wrote to him.”

  “Jersey said his fans faded after some time,” Christopher called from the other side of the room. “Got up to a hundred letters a week in the beginning. By the end, only Jeffries was a regular.”

  “She visited him?” Emily asked, slightly miffed that the information hadn’t been disclosed until that moment.

  “A time or two,” he answered. “Not much. He was pretty much done with her.”

  She put the photos in a plastic bag. She couldn’t let it go. “What else do you know that you haven’t told me?”

  Christopher looked over at her, not answering, just staring. “I’m not holding out on you. Why would you even think that?”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t say anything more. Emily moved into the kitchen and opened the cupboard doors. The shelving had been marked with permanent marker in the shapes of cups, glasses, and plates, a guide to exactly where every object should be set. She’d seen this on a pegboard tool storage system in a basement workshop, but never in a kitchen. She opened the drawer next to a wall phone. It was the proverbial junk drawer. But in this apartment there was nothing junky about it.

  “Check this out,” she said, pointing with her index finger at the form of a pair of scissors portrayed on the particleboard bottom of the drawer.

  Christopher peered over her shoulder. “Neat freak, all right.”

  “No it isn’t that, but you’re right. What I was getting at is that if this guy’s so neat then where are his scissors?” She looked at Christopher and he shrugged. “And what do you suppose this is?” She indicated a circle drawn in the bottom of the drawer. It was about the size of a softball.

  “You got me.” Christopher touched his gloved fingertip to the drawer bottom. The latex adhered slightly. “My guess is a roll of strapping tape. Something sticky, anyway.”

  The bedroom was next. It was stark in every way. With the sole exception of a small gilt cross next to the window, the walls were white and empty. The bed was queen-size, but lacked a comforter or spread. Instead it was covered with an army blanket and a turned-back white top sheet. Two pillows in perfect, pristine condition sat next to the wall. No headboard. No nightstand. Christopher opened the closet. Dylan Walker’s clothes hung in perfect, color-coded order.

  “Was Dylan in the military?” Emily asked, poking her head inside.

  “Nope, just prison.”

  “We’ll he sure learned how to keep things in order there,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing here.”

  “That we can see. I’m going to have the tech guys come down here and take a look.”

  “What about his vehicle?”

  He nodded. “DMV says Walker drives an old Chrysler sedan. We’ve got an APB out on it now.”

  The cool basement apartment belied the hot hour of the afternoon. Going outside in search of the landlord brought a furnace blast to Emily Kenyon’s face. A jasmine vine pumped perfume into the air, now further scented with fresh cut grass. It was heady and sickly sweet. She went around to the side of the old Victorian where she’d heard lawn equipment buzzing while she and Christopher were inside conducting a search. She found the old man on one knee bent down and rolling up the Day-Glo orange cord to his electric edger in the front yard.

  “Another day, another dollar,” he said, this time smiling. “Find what you’re looking for?”

  “As you know, we’re looking for Dylan, I mean Daniel. Any ideas where he might be?”

  He got up, brushed at the grass stains, grousing that his wife was going to kill him. “He’s usually pretty good about telling me where he’s going. Yeah, I know he’s an ex-con. I know about his troubles with the IRS.”

  Emily shook her head. “Sir, I’m not with the IRS. But I do need to find him.”

  “He’s a good tenant. Why are you people hassling him?”

  She brought out her badge again. “I told you this is a police matter and I don’t want to bring you in for hindering our investigation. Understood?”

  He folded his burly arms around his sweaty chest, his genial nature now gone. He was irritated and angry. “He has a cousin who has some beach property. He goes there once in a while. Not often. But given the weather, I’d say he’s there. Probably working his ass off painting or doing yard work if I know Dan.”

  You don’t know him, sir. But that’s another story.

  “Do you know where it is?” she asked. “Exactly?”

  He turned and started for his front door. “Sure. My wife keeps all the addresses of everyone she’s ever known. Tenants become like family, you know. I’ll get it. Wait here.”

  If he’s not back in two minutes, I’m going inside.

  She heard the voices of the landlord and a woman, presumably his wife.

  “God, I hope we don’t have to re-rent that unit,” the woman said, “it’s so hard getting decent folks.”

  If you only knew who you had rented to, Emily thought. Your wife wouldn’t have had a decent night’s sleep in months.

  A few minutes later, a smile on his face, the landlord returned. By then, Christopher had come over.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  With a nod, Emily indicated the returning landlord. “He’s coming now with the address of Dylan’s relative’s vacation place. Says there’s a good bet he’s there.”

  “Nice.”

  “Here it is,” the landlord said. “Told you she’d have it in her book.”

  He pressed a small white card into Emily’s hand.

  4444 Copper Beach Rd. Copper Beach, WA

  She felt a wave of recognition and dread. “Where did you get this?”

  “From my wife. She keeps everybody’s address in her book.”

  “No, not the address. The card. Where did you get the card?”

  The man shrugged. “It’s just old photography paper I cut up. I went digital and closed out my old darkroom a year ago. I have boxes of the stuff I stupidly bought in bulk from some guy who was smart enough to unload it on me because he went digital. Cut it all down into index cards.”

  Emily looked at the address. It was familiar, too. Deadly familiar.

  “You all right?” The landlord was staring at Emily. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

  Emily handed the card to Christopher.

  “I guess you could say that,” she said, trying to avoid revealing too much of what she was feeling. She looked into Christopher’s eyes, now full of an awareness of their own.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We know the address.”

  Reynard Tuttle had breathed his final breath there.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on,” Emily said, as they walked to their respective cars. “But I’m going there right now.” She fumbled for her keys. “There’s something I haven’t told you. I don’t know what it means. But I think I’ll find Jenna at the cabin.”

  Christopher stopped and looked at her. “What are you talking ab
out, Emily?”

  “I think Jenna and Nick are in serious trouble.” She felt awful just then, knowing that she’d withheld information from a man who had been nothing but kind to her. Interested in her. Cared about her. “They were at Bonnie’s.”

  “At Bonnie’s?” He was stunned by the disclosure.

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice ready to shatter. “I found this.” She pulled out the purse. It was tiny, pink, and sweet. “It’s Jenna’s. It was by the desk. She left it there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? And wait a minute, this could be anyone’s.”

  Emily shook her head. “No. It’s hers. I’m certain. Her dad bought it for her. Even though she’d long since outgrown it she kept it because it was from him.”

  “What were they doing there? I mean, how?”

  “They’d been researching Dylan Walker, Angel’s Nest. Don’t you, see? Nick Martin was an Angel’s Nest kid. Bonnie put him in the Martin home. They’re all connected.”

  Emily got behind the wheel and turned the ignition. “We’re going to find him, and then we can find Jenna. Walker’s playing some sick game. He’s using Kristi Cooper’s case to mess with me. I don’t know why. But I do know this—I’m not going to let him hurt Jenna. Not one hair.”

  “I’m right behind you,” Christopher said. “I’ll call the desk and tell them what’s up. But let’s get going.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Monday, exact time and place unknown

  Jenna woke up, shivering. her hands and legs were still bound together. Dried tears had formed a gluelike crust on her eyes. She rubbed her face against the fabric on which she lay. She tried to lift her head and breathed in. Good. The sickly sweet smell that had left her dizzy, then asleep in the darkness, had abated. The air was damp and heavy, but it did not have that strange odor. To her left the crack of light had narrowed to the thinnest of slits. Where was she?

  She called over to Nick. “Can you hear me?”

  There was no response, so she tried again, saying his name in a louder voice, though still a whisper.