were her greatest source of strength and power; finding Jenna stood above all.
My daughter's out there and I'm not leaving until I find her and bring her home.
Something screamed. Startled, Emily looked up and into the night sky, a boiling brew of clouds. Just a seabird. She was almost there. The bunker was twenty yards away, behind a hedge of sea grasses and spruce trees so tortured by the elements they looked like alarmed figures fleeing the waves of the Pacific. The trek to the top of the bluff had taken no more than ten minutes, but with each step she felt as if the sinking sand would steal her feet. Here. I'm here. But where are you? Where is the bunker?
Emily steadied herself on the grassy and sandy layer that covered the concrete slab roof of the secluded bunker. She looked around with her light, finally tracing the edges of the roofline beneath her feet. Waving the flashlight's beam toward the ocean, she could distinguish the crisp edge of the bunker's camouflaged covering. Bracing herself against the elements, she moved slowly toward its face.
Emily could hear the surf of the Pacific two hundred feet below, pounding the embankment with a relentless fury. Gooseflesh consumed her body. Since she could barely see, she climbed down a ledge backward, facing toward the edge of the cliff. She expected it was no more than ten yards away. There was no other way down, at least none she could see with a flashlight that only produced a strong beam when she rocked it back and forth, shifting the weakening batteries.
She bent down, her back to the ocean, and slid. Her hands were frozen and wet, but she barely used them for grasping; they'd become more like hooks than hands. She dropped ten feet, feeling the relief that came when her feet rested on the packed red clay and sand of the earth.
The red clay.
She was close. Close to finding Jenna. Her heart pounded with such a hurried force, she worried that she might have a heart attack. She'd die right there. No one would find her. No one would find her daughter. Her lips were blue, and vapors curled from her mouth as she frantically searched for a way in. All the while, a fierce wind pummeled her.
The bunker had three openings, not really windows, but more the size of very small doors. Each had been fashioned with bars by the state's Fish and Game Department to allow access for bats, but to deter visitors of the human kind. A sign proclaimed the bunker as a protected habitat for Townsend's Big-eared Bats. On closer inspection, she noticed that one of the bars could easily be removed. It was clear by the color and condition of the bar darker and smoother than the others-that it had been handled. It had been moved. She tucked the flashlight under her armpit, its beam scattering in the wrong direction. She pulled and twisted and the middle bar came loose. She dropped it and it fell with a thud into the sand.
This is the way in, she thought, hoisting herself up to the opening and fishing her feet through it. She swiped her light at the floor to make sure the drop wasn't so severe as to cause an injury. She slid herself into the opening, and slumped to the wet concrete floor. She dropped to her knees. She was inside.
Once more, her light moved across the floor.
Blood? Oh God, no! she thought as she caught the sight of red spatter that had marked the middle opening. Oh no, please. The words nearly slipped from her lips as her freezing fingertips felt the red color. It was hard. Even under the layer of wetness from the rain, Emily Kenyon could feel that it was a dried pigment. Not blood. Paintball, she thought, momentarily relieved.
She pointed the beam into the depths of the bunker. It looked empty, dark, hollow The space was surprisingly largemaybe as much as two thousand square feet. She trained her light all around. There were sodden boxes full of garbage. It smelled of bat guano. A rat or maybe even a raccoon lurked on the other side of the darkness.
'Jenna?' Her voice echoed in the darkness. 'Are you here?
'Help me! Get me out of here,' called a faint voice-her daughter's voice.
Emily felt a jab at her heart. Toward the back of the bunker, the wall farthest from the ocean, there was a steel door. The voice was coming from there.
'Honey, I'm here'
The wind howled outside, the storm was moving at break neck speed from the gloomy waters of the Pacific. She wondered if she'd heard anything at all. The wind was messing with her. A whistle, then a shriek. There had been no answer to her call.
She tried again, inching toward the door. 'Jenna?'
'Mom? Mom?'
It was her! 'Yes, it's Mom!' Her gun now drawn, Emily reached for the door and lifted the lever handle.
'Help me,' said the weak voice as Emily swung open the door to a small room. File boxes filled with county records were packed in rows that had once likely been neat. Right now they were a shambles. More paintball spatter. The smell of moldy paper permeated the air.
'Help me,' came a voice once more. It was male this time. Young. A teenager.
Nick? Or was it Dylan, toying with her once more?
Emily aimed her light at the direction of the voice and scanned the room. A leg. A torso. A face. It was Nick Martin. He was on the floor, his legs bound by cording. His skin was ashen, and his eyes glittered like wet stones. His gaze sliced through the air. He looked so different from his photograph, even more so, Emily thought, from when she'd seen him last. With his mother. His dark hair, so carefully highlighted by Peg, was gone. Even his youth failed him right then; his handsomeness was no longer evident. He was caged. Angry and weak at the same time.
'Mrs. Kenyon, help me,' His voice was a rasp. 'We gotta get Jenna out of here'
'Where's my daughter?' Adrenaline was now a flood through her body.
Brown eyes stared back. 'Get me out of here,' he said.
Emily bent down and began to untie the ligature that was wrapped around his surprisingly muscular body. She'd thought that he was slighter. A runner or something. But he was bulkier than she remembered. Much more so. She started to loosen the cording, but something struck her as terribly wrong. It was already loose. Oddly so. Anyone could take this off. A kid this strong could break this cord with a half-assed tug.
'Mom! Don't!' It was Jenna's voice, this time, muffled.
Emily peered over Nick's shoulder. Was .Jenna right there? She looked into his eyes, but it was already too late. A pipe or steel rod came down on her, grazing her temple and striking her shoulder. Then another, this time dead on. The small musty room closed in. And as she began to fall only one thing came to mind:.Ienna and I are going to die.
From the other side of the bunker, a cigarette glowed.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Thursday, exact time unknown, in the bunker
When Emily regained consciousness, two things were on her mind. Her daughter, and a gaping hole in her right temple that sent a rivulet of blood down her clammy skin. She shook her head, trying to startle herself into being fully awake. Where am I? Where is denna? Her mouth was like cotton, so dry, that at first she thought she'd been gagged. What happened? She tried to speak, but her words came out in a whisper. 'Jenna?'
A voice came at her like a dream, like the sweet song of an angel. If words could be uttered like a hymn, they had been just then.
'Mom, I'm here'
The phrase brought a smack-down bump to Emily's awareness. It was a spark. It rekindled a flash fire of memory. Shed been in the bunker. Shed been tracking Nick and Jenna. Jenna was there. Shed been helping Nick get free. Then a curtain of darkness, sudden and complete.
A battery-powered lantern glowed a few yards away. Within the yellow light was the silhouette of two figures. One was standing, a cherry ember hanging from his lips as he smoked. The other was sitting on the cement and clay floor. It was a much slighter figure. Jenna.
Emily found her voice again. 'Nick, what's going on here? What are you doing to us? Jenna, are you all right?'
'Shut up!' Nick said. 'She's okay. But she can't talk.'
Emily tried to lean forward to get a better view, but her body was frozen. 'What have you done with her?'
