Emily planted herself on the rough-hewn wooden bench, her heart pounding and sweat dampening her underarms. She was mad and relieved at the same time. Jenna was alive. She wasn't Polly Klaas. Jenna Kenyon was alive!
'Please,' Emily said, 'tell me everything my daughter said.'
Kip exhaled a stream of smoke. 'David told us she called last night about midnight. Said she was calling from a pay phone-the caller ID indicated she used a calling card-I knew you would ask. She was a little shaken. She said she'd be home soon. She was helping a friend in trouble.'
'What friend?'
'She didn't say. David pressed her for more details and she was pretty adamant that none would be coming. She did say one thing for you, though. `Tell mom, I'm doing the right thing.''
Emily flashed to the sheet metal sign that hung in her daughter's bedroom. It was the same sign that she'd displayed when that room was hers. It was made to look like a NO PARKING sign and read:
DO THE RIGHT THING -EVEN IF IT HURTS.
'What else did she say?'
Kip shook his head. 'Nothing. That's all. David said she was on the phone no more than a minute, if that long.'
Distrust won over relief. 'I don't believe him. That bastard's got her. My daughter is not a runaway.' She didn't even care that Kip was right next to her and was going to hear intimate family business.
She flipped open her cell phone and punched the code for David. It rang five times then the recording came on. Jenna must be with him. If she was with anyone else, if that ridiculous story about a mysterious phone call was true, then David would be standing by waiting for another call or even news from Emily in case she had received a similar call. He would pick up right away. Unless he knew where Jenna was safely at his side.
Wednesday, 7:45 RM.
What had happened at the Martin place on the Thursday before the tornado? It was after hours, but there was no going home. There was no reason to. Jenna was gone. The phone was forwarded. And there was the matter of the Martin murders. Emily Kenyon studied the Spokane coroner's autopsy report after it arrived bundled into one of those cheap accordion files. She'd always had a strong stomach and barely winced at the photographs that accompanied such files. But in the case of Mark, Peg, and Donovan Martin, Emily fixed her attention on the coroner's schematics not the photos of their battered, bruised, and bloodied bodies. The schematics, the distillation of reality, were actually more telling. They were impersonal figures, no genitalia, no hair to suggest a woman or man's body. Just delicate black lines in the shape of a human form on a plain white sheet of paper. There were three of them. Mark Martin's wounds were the most severe. His limbs were absent from the schematics. An X drawn by the coroner indicated where he'd been shot in the upper back, probably at relatively close range. Peg Martin was next. Her wounds were beyond comprehension but it was there in black and white. She'd been shot in the chest. There was extensive damage to her torso-postmortem, the coroner noted. Finally there was the youngest, victim, Donovan Martin. Like his dad, Donny had suffered a single gunshot to the back. A big black X marked the spot where the bullet had entered, another where it had exited his frame.
Emily set each of the sheets of paper across her desk. Muzak filtered in from the hallway and footsteps came and went, but never once did she look up. So much of what is routinely learned about what happened to each victim was quite literally gone with the wind. The tornado had swept away any trace evidence-fibers, hairs, even shell casings that had been left behind by the killer. Why had Mrs. Martin been found nude? Labs for the presence of semen came back negative. She hadn't been sexually active that morning, and unless the killer had used a condom, she likely hadn't been raped. The nudity was puzzling, however. Emily just couldn't wrap her brain around what had taken place. Maybe she'd just gotten out of the shower? Or was in her robe? She'd been bound the only one of the three. From what Emily knew, Peg had called the schools and Mark's office with the urgent message to get home. Had the killer used Peg to lure Mark upstairs after he'd placed that call to Mark's office? There was no way of knowing.
But at least one person probably had an inkling, if not a hand in it. Nicholas Martin. And Emily had only two questions to ask him: Why had he done this? And what did her daughter have to do with any of it?
Reluctantly Emily went home to the empty house on Orchard Avenue, full of memories, but missing the one spark of life that was her daughter.
God, where is she?
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday, 8:42 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington
When Marina Wilbur turned to greet Emily Kenyon, it was like seeing a ghost from an unsettled grave. The look of horror on the pretty detective's face could not have been more disconcerting-and tragically obvious.
'I'm sorry,' Marina said, standing to acknowledge Emily as she entered her office. 'I guess I should have told your boss to warn you. Peg and I are .. .' She caught herself and the tears she had held in check since the ride from the Spokane airport began to rain down her cheeks. 'Were,' she corrected herself as she fought to regain her shattered composure, 'we were identical twins.'
Emily, still caught off guard, set down her paperwork and lamely offered coffee. She was carrying her own from the coffee stand and felt awkward drinking in front of her.
'It's not bad for cop coffee,' Emily said, looking around for a tissue and hoping that Shali Patterson hadn't used the last of them.
Like her sister just like her sister-Marina Wilbur was a thin and shapely woman with honey-blond hair and, given a much happier time, mischievous green eyes. Emily thought of the school carnival and how Peg had given a kid an extra cookie. Her green eyes literally twinkled. But Marina's eyes weren't all that mischievous now. They were wrought with worry, dread, and unimaginable sadness. She had flown from Dayton, Ohio, to face the worst possible scenario of any family-multiple murders at the hands of one of its own.
And now, sitting in Emily Kenyon's office, Marina was clearly losing her battle to maintain any semblance of control. She had started to sob softly. Maybe the first time, since Jenna's vanishing, Emily realized that others were suffering, deeper, irrevocable losses.
'I'm sorry, so very sorry,' Emily said. 'It is almost impossible to come up with any words that provide comfort at a time like this. I know it from losing my own parents not long ago. I liked your sister very much. She was a wonderful woman. This must be so hard for you.'
Marina nodded. 'Thank you. I heard about your daughter, and I'm sorry for what you're going through, too'
It was a kind gesture, but Emily found herself bristling slightly. Jenna is not dead like your sister and your family. Jenna is with her dad and will come home. But she said nothing.
'I appreciate that. Thank you' She lingered for a second, but there was nothing more to say. 'Let's talk about your sister and her family, all right?' She pushed the Kleenex box, toward Marina. 'Do you need a moment?'
Marina crumpled a tissue and blotted her face. Her resolve was clear. She was as ready as she could ever be. The bodies of her sister, her sister's husband, and her youngest nephew were already in caskets, lined up for burial.
'I'm okay. I mean, considering everything that has happened this week. Has it even been a week? It was such an un believable shock. First, the tornado-which we watched on the news. When we couldn't reach Peg and Mark after the storm, we figured that the power and phone lines were damaged. We kept trying and trying, but never got through. I called Mark's office and they said he'd missed a day of work, which was odd for him, but I still didn't think. . '
'How could you? I mean, really, no one could have,' Emily said.
'I told myself that on the way over here. But you know it will take a lot of soul searching to figure out if I could have prevented this.'
The remark was startling. Emily set down her coffee. The woman across from her wasn't there just to find out what happened to her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. She was there for another reason. She felt guilty.
'How so?' Emily asked.
