"Dad, please don't do that just yet. I came here for help. Your help. Nick didn't do anything wrong."
David reached for his phone. "But kidnap you," he said tersely.
She grabbed her father's free hand. "That's not fair and that's not the truth. Don't call."
"I didn't, sir," Nick said, wishing he hadn't used the word "sir" but it just slipped out. It seemed so false, though it hadn't been meant that way.
David didn't know if he should call the police or his exwife. Or listen to his daughter and the stranger that accompanied her.
"Listen, Nick, I don't really know what happened," he said. "But I'll be blunt. Your family is dead and the police are looking for you. I'd put this at the top of anyone's list when it comes to troubling. Wouldn't you?"
David didn't wait for an answer, which was fine, since it didn't appear as if Nick was going to say anything. He stood mute, stepping backward toward the door. His eyes were full of fear and, maybe, David thought, remorse.
"And somehow, God knows how, you've got my little girl involved in this mess--"
"What's going on here?"
It was Dani. The noise of the argument rousted her out of her feather bed. Her blond hair was surprisingly tangle free and she even wore-at least Jenna thought so-a little lip gloss. Her bathrobe was a Vera Wang knockoff, all creamy and flowy. It didn't conceal much.
The teenager stood there, her big blue eyes wide.
"You're pregnant," Jenna said. She looked over at her father. "She's pregnant"
Dani pulled on the belt tie of her robe and like some kind of floating cloud, took a seat next to David.
"I was going to tell you," he said, his eyes riveted on his daughter. Embarrassment swept over his handsome face.
"When? When my brother or sister was born?"
"It was something I wanted to tell you-"
"We wanted to tell you," Dani interjected, her hand now caressing her melon-sized abdomen.
"In person," David continued, finishing his thought.
"We want you to be here for the wedding, too" Dani's words were meant for Jenna, but she seemed to say them in the direction of her future husband, now sitting on the couch. "I was hoping you'd be in the bridal party. If you don't think that's too weird, you know. It would mean a lot for me"
Dani was carrying on like she was talking to a wedding planner, not a teen that'd just found out that she was going to be a big sister.
"You know," Jenna said, "I thought that I had the worst week ever. Let's see. A tornado rips up our town, Nick's fam ily is murdered, I'm sleeping in a shack, my mom is pissed off at me, and now my dad's girlfriend is knocked up ""
"Enough!" David stood up. His face was red with anger. He was walking a fine line and he knew it. In front of him was his nearly grown daughter and to the left his pregnant girlfriend. He knew he needed to let her vent, but the "knockedup" comment was too much.
"I'm not saying I'm perfect," he said stiffly, holding his temper.
Jenna went to Nick, who was standing his hands in his jeans pockets looking around like he wanted to escape. "No Dad, you're not," she said, fighting back tears. "Far from it. Some family we are"
No one said anything for a few long seconds, when Nick finally broke the ice.
"Can I use your bathroom?" he asked. "Been a long drive."
Dani smiled, though she had fanned the flames of the little altercation, she knew things in her perfect home were not so ideal after all. Regrouping was in order and she pounced on the opportunity
"Down the hall, Nick. Let's all get some coffee," she said, looking at the other two still frozen in their anger.
Jenna followed her dad and his girlfriend into the kitchen, an enormous room of hanging pots and pans and a gas-fueled fireplace.
"Does Mom know?" she asked softly, once more feeling the hurt of a secret revealed.
"Yes," he said. "I'm afraid she does."
Dani feigned a preoccupation with brewing coffee, and Jenna summoned the courage to speak her mind. The words came in a rush. "Dad," she said, "If you call the police and say anything about Nick, I'll never speak to you again."
He clearly didn't like her attitude. "Don't push me," he said.
"You know, I cried for a week when you moved to Seattle. Make that a month. And all along you probably had her. Like she was waiting in the wings. I thought that your leaving us was something that you needed to do to practice your specialty. Spokane wasn't big enough"
David remained mute. He figured at the very least in some small way, he had it coming.
"And you know what, Dad? Seattle had everything you wanted," she said, again thinking of Dani. "But it didn't have me. It didn't have Mom"
"It is more complicated than that. You'll see when you live your own life."
"Complicated? What I'm going through right now is complicated. I need you to be there for me. I need you to help me. Nick and I need your help."
Saturday, 11:15 A.m., north of Seattle
Traffic was uncharacteristically light as Emily Kenyon drove northward from Seattle. Her back ached from the long drive from Cherrystone, and her car smelled of a cinnamon scone she'd picked up from a Starbucks drive-through. She told herself to ignore the exit off the freeway that led to the home she and David had shared when they were first married. It was a classic Craftsman in the University District. It had more built-ins than they had things to stash. David was doing his residency at the University of Washington Medical Center back then. She was finishing up her stint at the police academy south of Seattle. All was good. Too good. Too short. She knew that the fragmentation and ultimate destruction of their marriage had been shared by both, but even so she wished she'd given in more often. For her daughter's sake, and deep down, she knew, for her own.
She glanced at the Mapquest printout of directions to Olga Morris-Cerrino's address and pulled off the freeway onto a two-lane road along the creamy green waters of the Nooksack River. A grove of cell towers flew by the driver's window. She passed a small dairy farm and wondered how much longer it would be there. New homes were pushing the countryside farther and farther away. It was true of just about every populated part of Western Washington. In time, she knew, there would be no more farms. That would never happen in Cherrystone, of course. As David had pointed out time and time again, "Nobody with half a brain would want to live there."
If it was home, you would, she'd thought.
She passed by an emu farm, its sentinel of birds standing along a wire fence line like prehistoric creatures. All turned their heads in unison as her Accord drove by. Emily thought they were ugly, but considered stopping to snap a photo with her cell phone. Jenna would think they were cute. She thought opossums were adorable. Emily turned right up the long dirt driveway, a tuft of grass separating two parallel grooves. The mailbox: CERRINO.
Olga Morris-Cerrino was already waiting out front of the big white house, the chief benefit of a very long driveway. Standing over the sink in the kitchen window, one could see a car coming two minutes before it arrived. There was always time to do a little urgent straightening of the house and a cursory check in the mirror to see if the hair looked all right.
"You made good time," Olga called out, walking toward the car. "Perfect timing. Minestrone sound good?"
Emily shut the car door and extended her hand. "You must be Italian."
Olga ignored the hand, and embraced Emily with a warm hug. "Don't let the last name fool you," she said, with a laugh. "I married into that one. And the minestrone? It's my mother-in-law's recipe. I claim nothing."
"It is so beautiful here," Emily said, looking around at the garden as they walked toward the open front door.
Olga bent down to pick up the cat.
Emily smiled. "That must be Felix."
Olga nodded and the cat purred. "He's probably the only one who knows the real me. I'm not a cook. Not Italian. And until I married Tony, I thought dirt was something disgusting. Now look at me. I can't keep my fingernails clean." She flashed her nails, edged in garden soil. "I never wear gloves. Love the feel of the soil on my hands. You'd laugh if you knew me before I ended up all the way out here. Couldn't keep a houseplant alive."