A Cold Dark Place

by Gregg Olsen

  It was Dylan Walker. He’d been there the whole time, watching as if the whole series of events unfolding were some kind of a performance. A play. A crazy, horrific skit.

  Nick let out a scream. But he was clearly more than startled. He was also hurt. His face was warped with pain and he finished the little scream with a growling moan.

  Dylan Walker leapt across the bunker. But he didn’t really intervene. It was as if whatever was happening was just fine with him.

  Jenna didn’t stop, even after Nick fell to the cement floor, doubled over in pain. There was enough adrenaline pulsing through the teenager’s veins to keep her going. He had sounded weak. She knew she could hurt him more. Hurt him enough so that he couldn’t hurt her or her mom. She closed her eyes and she pounded him with the steel bar, not like some girly girl who’d been featured in ballet recital back in Cherrystone.

  Far from it.

  “You’re a liar,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I hate you. I wish you were dead.” Now, as he crumpled over his stomach, she brought the bar down hard on the back of his skull. Suddenly there was a lot of bright red blood soaking his hair. Jenna remembered hearing her mother talk about head wounds being “big bleeders.” Good. She’d open up that wound even more.

  Nick was a limp heap but Jenna kept waling on him.

  “Jenna, stop it!” Emily struggled to free herself, to stop her daughter from doing what she had done once. There would be no more blood on their hands, no matter the reason. “Honey, stop!”

  Jenna froze in a semicrouch, her bloodied weapon held like a baseball bat, droplets of blood dotting her face like scarlet freckles. She looked at her mother with wide, scared eyes.

  “Stop, Jenna. Now.”

  “But, this is my fault . . .”

  “Now! Drop it!”

  Jenna let the bar fall; its heavy steel clatter echoed. Nick lay still on the dirty cement floor. He was curled up in a fetal position. A rivulet of red ran from his blood-matted hair down onto his pale, white cheek. His breathing was labored and raspy.

  Jenna was sobbing now. “I want to go home, Mom.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Dylan kicked the rebar out of the way and brandished his gun, the gleam of black barrel visible in the dark bunker. “Nice work, kid,” he said to Jenna. “Nick told me you were tough. Tough like your mom.”

  “Dylan, Nick is your son. He needs help.” It was Emily. She knew it was a last-ditch effort to try to wheedle some sympathy from the man. Was there anything in his DNA that tied him to his son? A bond? Any connection whatsoever?

  “You’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit. Nick served his purpose. I don’t care if he lives or dies.”

  It dawned on Emily that Dylan Walker might be one of those serial killers who didn’t like to get his hands dirty. Killing someone only brought a rush when he could manipulate someone else to do it. It was a coward’s way to kill.

  Killing Tuttle had been a manipulation.

  He pointed his gun at Jenna.

  “Leave her alone!” A familiar voice called out.

  Emily looked up and saw a figure backed by a halo of light coming into the bunker.

  “Leave her alone!” the voice repeated.

  The figure was carrying a gas-powered camping lantern. Its fiery mantle hissed in the darkness. As it moved closer, the smaller figure appeared to be woman.

  “We’re over here!” Jenna called out.

  “Shut up,” Dylan said.

  Emily rested a hand on her daughter and tried to feel for the steel bar. How far had he kicked it away? She tilted her head to look into the streaming light.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said.

  To Emily’s relief, the light ran over the startled face and tiny torso of Olga Morris-Cerrino. Her eyes were round and terrified. It was just a quick strobelike image, but Emily could see that Olga’s gun was drawn.

  From near Emily’s feet, Nick moaned.

  Olga lowered the lantern. “Are you okay?”

  “We’re all okay,” Emily said. “But he needs a doctor.”

  Olga stared at the crumpled boy while Dylan moved the gun barrel around the room, unable to see where anyone was.

  “Let us go!” Emily yelled. “Olga, be careful. Dylan has a gun.”

  The lantern was steadier, casting a ghostly light over the bunker. Olga could see the little tableau now. Jenna was crouching down low, crying softly a few steps from Nick, who was on his side curled in the fetal position. His hair was matted with blood. His eyes were slits of white. The light swung again slowly, including Dylan and Emily in the composition.

  Hang on. This isn’t over.

  “You miserable piece of garbage,” she said in a low rasp.

  “Wow, scary,” Dylan answered with his washed-up, has-been, serial killer laugh, underscoring his contempt.

  Emily shifted her attention to Dylan. She meant to distract. “Look what you’ve done. None of this was necessary. What’s the point of it all?”

  “Mom, I’m scared,” Jenna said. “I want to go home.”

  “You’re all going now,” Dylan said, in a still, uncertain voice. “But not home. You messed with my legacy.”

  A cry came from the floor of the bunker. It was Nick.

  “I hate you!” Nick pulled himself up, leaning on his palms, turning a bloodied face to his biological father.

  “You ungrateful kid,” Dylan yelled back.

  “Why did you let her hurt me? You told me you’d protect me if I did what you wanted.”

  “You get your stupidity from your mother’s side of the family,” Dylan said. There was no irony in his statement. Just a cold hard comment.

  Olga dropped the lantern and rolled it toward Emily, spinning light in the cavernous space like a cop’s strobe. Emily aimed the trigger at Dylan’s chest and she fired. No warning. Just three bullets firing in rapid succession.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Dylan slumped down onto the cold floor.

  “You shot me, you bitch!” he said, a gurgling sound coming from his windpipe. Blood trickled from his mouth slowly, like red candle wax. “Three times! You shot me. You didn’t even tell me to drop my weapon!”

  Emily took one step over and kicked the gun away from Walker. Then turned back to Jenna and Olga.

  “Yeah,” she said. “One time for Kristi and”—looking at Olga—“one each for Lorrie and Shelley. I hope you feel each one, you piece of garbage.”

  “Call an ambulance!” Dylan coughed out. “Please!”

  Emily lifted Jenna to her feet, and then when she was steady, she turned to Olga. It was as if Dylan Walker was already gone.

  “Thank God you got here,” Emily said. “How did you? How did you know where we were?”

  Olga smiled. “A smart guy who thinks the world of you told me.”

  Emily smiled back. She knew it had been Chris. He’d always promised to look out for her.

  “Mom, I love you.” Jenna wrapped her arms around her mother. “I knew you would come for me. I’m so sorry. I was so stupid. I shouldn’t have gone off with Nick.”

  None of that mattered. “Honey, we’re all okay. You’re okay.”

  “What about me?” It was Dylan Walker again, weak and pathetic on the cold, hard floor. “I need you to get me help!”

  Olga shrugged. She no longer had a smile on her face. “We’ll call all right,” she said. “After you’ve died.” Olga looked over at Nick Martin, now unconscious. “What about him?”

  Emily shook her head. “He’s a basket case. He’s pretty badly beat up, too. But he’ll live and he’ll go to trial.” She looked at Dylan Walker as he slowly writhed. Life seeped from him. She stared at him. Kristi. Lorrie. Shelley. Jenna. All victims past and yet to be flashed through her mind.

  “Emily?” Olga asked. “You all right?”

  Snapped back into the moment, Emily put her arm around her daughter and pulled her tighter.

  “Yes,” she said. “Let the monster
die.”

  Epilogue

  Six months later, Cherrystone, Washington

  It had been months since The “sexiest killer alive” had been dispatched for eternity in the dark confines of the bunker. Media attention had died down. “He died instantly and thank God for retired Detective Cerrino. Without her intervention we’d have all been on his gristly tote board,” Emily said when she talked to People magazine about her daughter’s kidnapping and the connection between Dylan Walker and the murders in Utah, Washington, and Iowa.

  “Nick Martin told his lawyers that you and the detective purposely let Dylan die. You didn’t get him help because you wanted revenge,” the magazine reporter said.

  Emily sighed. “Poor Nick, he’s such a mixed-up kid.”

  Olga had been over to Cherrystone twice; her friendship with both Emily and Jenna was built on a terrifying night in utter darkness that the three of them shared.

  “No one will miss him,” she said to Emily over coffee at the kitchen table one afternoon during a visit to the old house on Orchard Avenue.

  “Except his Internet fan club,” Emily said. “I feel sorry for those people.”

  Olga’s flinty eyes sparkled. She suppressed the urge to smile.

  “Dylan got what he deserved.”

  Emily nodded. “Guess so.”

  Olga sipped her coffee. “My girls, Lorrie and Shelley, can rest easy now. So can Kristi.”

  Emily looked over at Jenna who was watching TV in the living room. She swirled some artificial sweetener in her coffee. “We all can.”

  In many ways, they could.

  Nick Martin was in county jail awaiting trial for his role in kidnapping Jenna Kenyon, but mental health advisors said he wasn’t sane enough to stand trial, and figured he’d be a shoo-in for an insanity defense. The kid was screwed up. If he was aware of what he was doing—which they implicitly denied—the defense was sure it was the result of a mental breakdown brought on by the murders of his family. He had no hand in the events that brought him to the bunker. He wasn’t a murderer. Bonnie and Dylan had cooked it all up.

  The rental car from the Spokane Airport tied Bonnie to the locale, though the tornado had swept away any real trace that she’d done it or if Dylan had been with her. The same had been true with the Utah and Iowa murders—a paper trail indicated Bonnie, not Dylan Walker.

  Yet Emily knew that Dylan Walker never worked alone. Olga was able to pry some information out of Nick Martin that suggested supposed suicide victim Tyler Ticen had, in fact, been involved in the double homicide of the two college girls from her jurisdiction. But those cases would never be officially solved. The Ticen suicide was a cover, she was sure, a way for Walker to silence his accomplice.

  Using schizophrenic Reynard Tuttle had been a master stroke. Handsome, brilliant, and evil: the trifecta of serial killer superstars.

  And dead.

  The house on Orchard Avenue in Cherrystone had seen its occupants find their way back to a closer, more loving relationship than they had before mother and daughter were held captive by the serial killer’s son. It had been a slow climb back to their normal lives. Jenna obsessed about her father’s new baby, his betrayal, and the nightmares of the bunker. But she was determined to get over it as was Emily. In many ways, David had become part of her past, just as he started anew with Dani and their daughter, Cassandra. Custody gripes involving Jenna were no longer an issue. David didn’t fight for his daughter to visit, and she didn’t balk when the time came.

  They found balance in forgiveness.

  Emily had worked out the loose ends—a phrase that caused her to wince—with the help of Christopher Collier, who’d made a rapid and remarkable recovery from the gunshot wound to the chest. They talked on the phone and even dated a couple of times. Where all of that would lead was beyond the point right then.

  “I just want to heal and move on,” Emily told him one night late as they were talking on the phone. “But when I do, I want you there.”

  “Promise?” he asked.

  “Promise. Definitely, a promise.”

  One fall evening, the air crisp as a freshly laundered man’s dress shirt, Jenna was in her bedroom, pink keyboard and mouse in hand. On the screen was a chat window with best-friend-forever Shali Patterson, who by then had a new VW, and was delighted with all the attention her part in the ordeal had brought her. She was the best friend of a kickass girl, one who saved her mom from a serial killer’s kid. Nice. The girls chatted about their senior year and who would be crowned homecoming queen later that week. Jenna dared to dream that it would be her. In no small way, she felt she did deserve it. Saving her mom was a bigger deal than being yearbook editor.

  With its characteristic chime, her Instant Messenger account announced a name she’d almost forgotten—Batboy88. She could scarcely believe her eyes. A wave of panic hit her.

  Batboy88: Hey Jengrrl!

  Jenna froze at her keyboard.

  Batboy88: You there?

  Nick was in county jail. He didn’t have access to a PC.

  Batboy88: Missed U!

  Jenna found her voice. “Mom!”

  Emily was in the kitchen soaking a dreadfully dried-on lasagna pan when she heard Jenna’s scream from down the hallway. The timbre of her daughter’s voice suggested trouble and fear shot through her. There had been screams for her before, night terrors, as she recalled the dark hours in the bunker. The idea that she’d been so close, a hairsbreadth from evil. But this was too early in the evening.

  She found her very still, in front of the screen, staring at it with disbelieving eyes.

  “Mom, it’s an IM from Nick.”

  Emily’s face went pale. “It can’t be.” She peered over Jenna’s shoulder. “This is someone playing a game.” Emily gently pushed her daughter aside and sat down. She started typing.

  Jengrrl: Who is this?

  Batboy88: Who do U think?

  Emily looked up at her daughter, her keys tapping slowly. She hit the ENTER button again.

  Jengrrl: You aren’t Nick. I know that. Who r u?

  Batboy88: When I get out, you want to go to r place, u know, the mining camp?

  Without even thinking, Emily reached over and quickly yanked the plug from the outlet. The screen sputtered and went dark. The computer’s tiny fan slowed, then whirled to a stop.

  Jenna looked horrified. “Mom! Why did you do that?”

  Emily stayed quiet for a second, her mind trying to catch up with what she’d done. Finally she spoke and when she did so, the words were more a promise than a statement. “It’s over. He’s over,” she said. She put her arms around her daughter, in the bedroom where she grew up. It was over. Nick Martin was gone from their lives.

  And so was Dylan Walker.

  Don’t miss Gregg Olsen’s next mesmerizing thriller . . .

  Heart of Ice

  Coming from Pinnacle in 2009!

  Kappi Chi Fraternity, Chesterfield, Tennessee

  He’d been watching her all night. She never paid him a single glance. Her sole focus seemed to be on herself. She’d made several trips with her carbon-copy sisters to the Kappa Chi upstairs bathroom, her purse slung over her shoulder like she was headed into battle. In a way, it was. The frat bathrooms were notoriously filthy. No TP. Just squat, do your business, and flush with a well-placed foot. If not too drunk, of course. When she and the pack returned to the party they were giddier than ever, lips lacquered, hair fluffed up to look messily styled.

  Bet she loves the bed-head look, he thought. Bet she’s not as hot as she wants everyone to believe. Bet she’s cold as ice.

  Like the others.

  Tiffany Jacobs brushed right by him as she made her way to the basement. She could feel the heat of a hundred bodies rise in the dank passage way. She caught the peculiar blend of odors—vomit, beer, pot.

  Guys are so gross, she thought.

  The frat boys were playing boat races with some of the other drunken sorority girls down there. Upturned plast
ic drinking cups floated on a slimy beer surface on sheet of plywood procured for the game. Drink. Slide the cup. Push it to the edge. Drink. With each heat, a cheer erupted with the kind of enthusiasm that might have greeted the winner of the America’s Cup.

  But this was the big, blue, plastic beer cup.

  The room was crowded and the walls were so hot, they practically wept condensation. Tiffany’s rubber flip-flops stuck to the concrete floor from a coating of spilled beer that shined like shellac.

  “I’m going to get some air,” she told her crew, all teetering woozily on a night of beers. One of her Beta Zeta sisters, an unfortunate girl with brown hair and teeth that had never seen the benefits of orthodontia, started to follow. She was one of the four Lindseys who had pledged that year. Tiffany knew she was a mistake, but they needed another girl to make their quota. Lindsey S. wasn’t really ZBM—Zeta Beta material—but she had a high grade point average.

  “No, Lindsey S. I’ll be back. I’m going to call my mom. You stay here.”

  Lindsey S., drunk and bored, complied and returned to the boat races.

  Tiffany shimmied through the tightly woven human mass on her way to the door. Her mom had called earlier in evening—twice.

  He was right behind her, just close enough to keep her in his sightline, but not enough to make her feel uncomfortable.

  The cool night air blasted her face and sent a welcome chill down her body.

  If Satan threw a party, he’d have it at Kappa Chi, Tiffany Jacobs thought, as she walked up the concrete steps from the basement to the yard. Bits of broken glass shimmered.

  She could hear the sound of a couple making out by a massive oak tree that sheltered much of the yard. She went the other direction, toward the pool, and reached for her cell phone and dialed the speed number for her mother.

  “Hi honey,” her mom said. “I wondered if you’d call me back tonight.”