Thursday, noon, Cherrystone, Washington
Emily Kenyon hadn't eaten much in almost a week. Her last real meal had been the pasta that Jenna had made the night before she disappeared. Emily's clothes no longer flattered her figure; they draped limply. Her shoulders were wire hangers now. Aware of this, she smoothed out the wrinkles in the cotton blend skirt she'd put on that morning. But it was more than the forlorn fabric of the outfit that made her such a mess. It was her entire life. Her forever-marriage had been torpedoed by a husband who insisted his needs weren't being met-and found a way to rally in the arms of another, a younger, woman. She'd thought that living in Cherrystone among old friends and familiar surroundings would be a tonic for her troubles. But she was wrong about that, too. Even living in the family home, as lovely and as steeped in cherished memories as it was, had been somewhat of a mistake. Old homes take a lot of new money, and a detective's salary and the child support of a doctor-ex didn't add up to nearly enough.
Worst of all, Jenna was still gone. Emily had finally talked to David. She'd got her old friends in the Seattle PD to check it all out. And she was now convinced that David had been telling the truth. Jenna was on her own. Or worse. She was helping someone, she'd said. Emily knew it had to be Nicholas Martin.
Despite every effort of the sheriff, and of law enforcement all over the state, there was no clue where they were.
Emily had been adamant. She didn't want the public to know that her daughter was with Nick. That would make her personal involvement in the case a liability. It might tempt him to hurt her. So while there was a concerted effort to find Nick and ask him about his dead family, no one in Cherrystone except Shali and a few kids at school knew with certainty that Jenna was missing. Instead Emily had explained she was with her dad for a while.
When Randazzo's office at Cherrystone High demanded to know if Jenna was coming back, Emily said she would let them know what the situation was when she knew, that the family was working through some issues, and that her investigation of the Martin homicides had made the situation even more difficult. Randazzo had had the decency to back off.
So there Emily sat in her office, fishing through messages from the media, amid fermenting latte cups in the trash, and a legal pad headed with 'Call Today' on her desk. She tapped her pen against the paper. She felt empty, depressed, and heartbroken. On some level the Martin case would have been a detective's dream-a puzzler that required both wits and work, but she was short on both just then. Her litany of reasons to hate her life was topped off with the deep hurt she felt that Jenna had called David instead of her.
She had been a good mother. She was sure of it. She thought she and Jenna had been exceptionally close, a kind of personification of the old Helen Reddy chestnut, 'You and Me Against the World' She wondered how she could be so wrong with her assessment. So blind. What had been going on between them? How could she have missed any warning signs that things were awry? She remembered all the times she'd passed by Jenna's bedroom and saw her typing away on her Mac. Emily had thought Jenna was doing her homework. Was she chatting with Batboy? Why hadn't Jenna told her about him?
She wrote on the pad in front of her: school, friends, teachers, neighbors. Who held the key? Who knew?
There was nothing in Nick Martin's background to indicate he'd be capable of killing his entire family. As Emily now worked her way through the rest of the rather thin green school district file, a reasonably positive picture of the missing teenager came into focus. His grade in Speech Communications was his lowest, a C+. He'd had mostly As and Bs. There were no teacher comments, but to Emily's way of thinking, Nick Martin was probably shy, uncomfortable in front of a group. Most kids were. As Jenna had told her, Nick was artistic; high marks in four different art classes bore witness to the idea that he was one of those creative types that are often ostracized in the high school culture that praised athletes over artists. In fact, nowhere on his transcript could she find that he'd been involved in sports. He wasn't a Columbine kid-one of those disenfranchised malcontents that stormed around the high school campus in a black trench coat bemoaning the world that had kicked him to the curb.
Emily's stomach growled and she pressed the palm of her hand against her abdomen to stifle a noise she was sure Kip could hear in the office down the hall. She'd had nothing but coffee all day. She thought of what Peg Martin's sister, Marina, had said about the problems that had seemed to be brewing between father and son. What was going on at home that caused both Nick and Mark Martin to leave school and work? Had a confrontation between father and son escalated to such a degree that escalated into a bloodbath that wiped out the entire family?
Except one. Except Nicholas Martin, the missing.
The only thing that kept Emily from sinking into the floor in utter despair as she worked on the threadbare case was the phone call Jenna had made to David. That alone allowed her to sharpen her focus after Kip had suggested she drop the case because of 'personal' reasons. Emily understood where the sheriff was coming from, but Kip had underestimated her-or what she wanted to be. Indeed, what she had been before returning to Cherrystone.
They talked after Marina Wilbur left the office to complete funeral arrangements for her sister, nephew, and brotherin-law.
'Look,' he said, folding his big mitts on her desk, 'I don't think Jason's ready for this by a long shot, but I don't know that you can take on what needs to be done here. I might need to, you know, elevate his role here.'
'Jason?' Emily could scarcely believe her ears. 'He's only a deputy and he's barely out of diapers,' she shot back, knowing at once that she'd been on the borderline of insubordination. It was more of an overreaction to demonstrate as clearly as possible that she was capable of doing her job. It was the one thing about which she felt confident at that moment, now that 'wife' and 'mother' seemed no longer in play.
'I've thought about turning it over to Spokane for an assist,' he said. 'We're not staffed for this kind of event here'
Kind of event? He was talking media-speak and it irritated her that much more. Her face grew hot.
'How can you say that? I have more experience than any of those grandstanders from Spokane. You know that. Jesus'
'Chill. Deep breath, Emily. Can't you acknowledge that you're under an inordinate degree of stress? Maybe so much that you really can't perform your duties?'
Emily bit her lip. What she wanted to say right then could get her fired and she knew it. She counted to three.
'Brian,' she said, using his first name, a technique she employed while cozying up to a suspect she wanted to win over, 'I admit I'm under stress. Okay? I concede that point. But I know I can do my job. Jason's not ready and since when did we ever want to get Spokane involved in our affairs? And-' She hesitated, realizing that she was on dangerous ground again. 'I'm sorry. Give me a break, Okay?'
Kip groped for a pack of cigarettes in his jacket, and put an unlit cigarette in his mouth. It dangled from his lip as he started to speak, 'I will. You deserve it. I'm going outside to puff and think. Let's talk about the case when I get back'
Emily turned her attention back to her notes and the file. 'All right. I'll be ready.' She knew a few moments cooling off were a gift and she was going to take advantage of it. She opened her case notebook and looked at her notes when the phone rang.
It was a reporter from a Spokane radio station.
'We've had a couple of sightings of the Martin boy,' the young woman, with the unfortunate name, Candace Kane, said. 'Care to comment? I'm recording now. Okay?'
'No, not okay,' Emily said. 'I don't know what you're talking about and I don't comment on anything I don't know about'
Candace barely took a breath, and then started chirping again. 'But I need a quote for the news. Here's what we know. We got a call from a couple listeners who saw him shopping at the Riverside Mall at the Nordstrom'
Emily wanted desperately for it to be true but she didn't even attempt to hide her skepticism. 'I doubt it's Nick Mar tin,' she said. 'Frankly, he doesn't impress me as the Nordstrom type'
There was silence from the other end of the line.
'Ms. Kane, are you still there?'
'Sorry. Yes. I was writing that down. Old school, since you won't let me record your comments for our air. Anyhow, that's what I thought about the Martin boy, too. The photo they ran of him in the paper made him look like
