'You're not mad at me, are you?'
'Of course not,' Emily said, searching for a word that carried some measure of her pain. 'Worried. I'm worried about you. Honey, where are you?'
Jenna fought to hold it together, but her grip on her emotions was spiderweb weak. 'I'm all right,' she said, her voice breaking. 'I can't say where I am. But I'm safe. I'm fine. I told Dad to tell you that I'm okay.'
A noise coming from the hallway cut into the conversation, and with the phone tight to her ear, Emily shut the door. 'He told me, but why didn't you call me? I am your mother'
Jenna was crying softly into the phone. 'Mom, you know how you get. Nick needed my help.'
Hold your anger. Keep calm. Jenna's okay.
Emily heard a car with a bad muffler in the background; it seemed to pass near wherever Jenna was calling from. She could hear other voices, too. She wondered if Jenna was at a pay phone, maybe at a gas station or store.
'Nick needed you?' she asked. 'Nick is in a world of trouble.'
Another car passed by. Was she outdoors?
'I know what you're thinking, Mom. That's why I didn't call you first. You are always too quick to judge. Nick didn't do what they're saying-what you're saying.'
Emily wanted to yell into the phone for her daughter to get a grip. The boy was dangerous, unbalanced, any number of adjectives zoomed through her mind, but she knew better than to use any of them. 'Jenna, you don't know what happened,' she said.
Silence.
'Jenna?'
'I do, mom. Nick told me. He didn't do this. He isn't capable of anything like this. I know him.' Jenna's words shattered into pieces and she stopped to compose herself. 'He's scared, Mom. I'm scared'
Emily had never felt so helpless in her life. Jenna was her baby. She thought their bond had been stronger than anything she could imagine. From her side, it was. But there she was, about to beg her scared little girl to come back to her. The idea of such a plea would have seemed beyond inconceivable a week ago. But the world had turned over since the storm. Nothing was as it had been.
'Come home, Jenna. Both of you. This isn't safe. Don't you know that the FBI is within a hairbreadth of getting involved? They're thinking kidnapping here'
'Kidnapping?' Jenna wasn't crying anymore. Her mood had shifted. She was angry. 'You wouldn't let them do that. You know I went with Nick willingly. I went to help him. I care about him.'
'I realize that,' Emily said, now lying. She hadn't even heard Jenna mention Nick Martin's name up until that phone call. She wondered how well she knew her only child.
Jenna went on. 'I told Shali to tell you the truth, but she didn't think she could get through to you. That you wouldn't listen to her.' Her voice now showed traces of exasperation. It was probably abundantly clear that Shali didn't tell her mom anything.
'You talked to her, too?' Emily felt foolish to feel hurt over that, but the feeling grabbed her too quickly for her to assess it and set it aside. 'Dad, Shali? Finally, you call me?'
'Mom,' she said, 'Don't be like that'
'All right. Now tell me where you are'
'I can't do that. I'm okay. That's all I'm saying right now.'
'Jenna,' Emily again struggled to keep cool. 'Do you know what you're doing here? This is not right. His family is dead and he-'
'He didn't do it. I know him.'
By then Emily was sure if she pressed the point any harder, her daughter the real love of her life-would hang up. She'd get in some car with Nick Martin and disappear for a while. Emily had to think like an investigator, just then, not like a mother.
'Okay. Maybe I can help. I want to help. Can I talk to him?'
Emily heard Jenna put her hand over the phone and say something, though it was too muffled to make out.
Jenna got back on the line. 'No, not now. But I can tell you what he told me'
'All right, honey, tell me. Take your time.'
Jenna went on to describe how Nick had come home from school because of a supposed family emergency. He had searched the living room, kitchen, the yard, everywhere, but found absolutely no sign of his parents.
'Mom,' Jenna started to sob again, 'he went upstairs and found his parents and brother ... they were all dead and stuff. I mean, his dad wasn't dead, but he was hurt real bad. He told Nick to get out. To run away. That there was someone that wanted to kill him.'
Both ends of the line grew quiet for a moment. Another car passed by.
'Jenna? Are you still there?'
'I'm here, Mom,' she said. 'Oh, Mom, he's scared. He said his mom and dad and brother ... they were all shot'
Emily wished she could reach through the phone line and put her arms around her daughter.
'Oh God, honey. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is Nick all right?'
'He's a mess, mom. He's scared spitless. We're both scared. Whoever is out there wants to kill him.'
'Kill him? Why? Why in the world would anyone want to kill his mother and father and little brother, and then him?'
Jenna paused. She was collecting her thoughts, but Emily felt as if her daughter was sifting out what to tell and what to hold close.
'Nick thinks it has something to do with the adoption,' Jenna said. 'Ask Cary about it.'
The name was a knife in Emily's heart right then. Maybe to her back, she wasn't sure.
'Cary?' She was incredulous. 'What does he have to do with any of this?'
'I knew that would piss you off, Mom. Glad you dumped him. Nick says that Cary talked with his dad. Made his dad really, really mad. Something about the agency or the birth mother wanting to see Nick, but Nick's dad didn't want anything to do with it. Nick and his dad fought about that'
Emily put her fingers to her lips. It just didn't compute. 'But Cary? I don't understand how he was involved?'
A young man's voice said, 'Let's go'
It seemed to distract Jenna for a second. 'I don't know,' she finally answered. 'Nick said something about how Cary and his dad got into it one night, over the adoption. But he doesn't know.'
'I'll find out. Now come home.'
'No. We can't. Mom, we saw what you said in the paper. You said Nick's a killer. Everyone says so. But he didn't do it. And we aren't coming back until you know who did. Bye, Mom. I love you'
The line went silent so fast that Emily didn't have a second to plead for her daughter to stay put. Help will come. I'll take back what I said. I love you. Don 't do this. Don 't be gone. Her hand still frozen on the receiver, the room swelled back to its normal size. Gloria was at the door.
'Is she okay?' she asked, sticking her head inside.
Emily set the phone down. She turned to Gloria and nodded. 'I think so. Gloria, see if you can get this call traced. Right away.'
Gloria stood there expecting more conversation, maybe some details that could set her own worried mind at ease, but Emily didn't offer anything. Instead she scooped up some files, and put them in a drawer. Next she grabbed her purse and coat and started for the door.
'Where are you going?' Gloria asked, moving aside.
'I'm off to see a scumbag lawyer,' Emily said, disappearing in the whirlwind of her exit.
Friday, 1:14 n.M1
'Where's Cary?' Emily Kenyon refused to wait for a response from the latest in a long line of front desk girls at McConnell's over-ferned law office in the Old Mill Building. This one was blond and pretty, like the others. She was also completely out of her league when she tried to stop Emily. The detective would not be denied a meeting. Appointment or not. She kept walking toward McConnell's corner office in one of those industrial edifices tastefully reimagined by architects and interior designers into office space that said its occupants were hip and cool and cared
