Jenna couldn't move at all. "We have to get out of here." She shivered in the cold, damp air. She could not have been more frightened or more grateful that she wasn't alone. Nick was there.
"We will. And we're going to kill whoever did this to us ""
Another wave of nausea hit her. "I feel sick. Going to close my eyes." When she did, nightmares of the mining shack and the rats, the tornado, the bloody scene that Nick had seen back home came at her in a seamless reel, over and over. Blood. Gunshot. Bonnie. Angel's Nest. Dani's pregnancy. It rolled on through her strange, almost drug-polluted subconscious. It was a storm. Each memory shaking her, scaring her.
A flash of light. It jolted her. Her eyes snapped open. Then she slammed them shut. She was so scared. She just wanted to sleep.
Monday, 3:15 EM1, Tacoma, Washington
Dylan Walker's house was one of those grand-styled Victorians with a large bay window that at one time overlooked Tacoma's Commencement Bay. Trees and buildings had risen to block the water views in the decades since it was first built. It had a broad front porch that had been painted gray. The rest of the house was gray, too. But not by design. Years of neglect had allowed the dirt and grime of the city to steal the luster of the oyster-white paint. Flakes fell like snow onto the front porch. The place had been carved into apartments, a further indignity to what had been a fine, old home.
Emily parked the Accord around the corner, a half block away from the house. She looked at her watch. She thought that she might be early, but, in fact, Christopher Collier was late. Must be some trouble with the judge. She turned on talk radio and listened to some blabbermouth host yak about the rising price of gas and how the middle class would never recover from what the current administration had put it through. If she had been with someone she would have rolled her eyes. If she had been with someone she trusted, like Christopher, she'd have threatened to call in to the show.
Who cares about the price of gas when our lives in general are so screwed up? Who cares about anything when your daughter is missing?
Refusing to wait with her daughter's safety on the line, Emily knocked on the door marked with a black plastic label- 703'/2-and held her breath. She'd never seen Dylan Walker except in photographs. It had been a long, long time. Prison years were like dog years-times seven or ten. She doubted he'd still live up to his nickname: Dash.
"Are you looking for Dan?" A voice came from a graying man with rounded shoulders, a bright pink nose, and wireframed glasses that gave him the distinct countenance of a skinny Santa. He was cutting grass.
"Dan?" Emily looked puzzled.
"Yup. Dan Walker. He's not there"
Dylan Daniel Walker. She processed the information. It would be a violation of his parole if Walker had taken on an other name to hide who he was. But using his middle name was fair game.
"He's been gone for a while. Lost his job at the hospital a week or so back. Maybe he's out looking for work. Hope so. I'm his landlord, I can take a message"
"No message" Emily showed her detective's badge and the old man acknowledged it. "Just waiting for another officer to arrive."
"Let me know." He didn't ask any questions, which surprised her. Instead he brushed his sweaty brow, nodded, and went back to his yard work. "Might rain soon," he said.
Emily was about to take a seat on the railing by the front door when her cell phone rang. She flipped it open. The voice wasn't familiar at first, but her words were.
"Can I put you on the air?"
It was Candace Kane, the reporter from the Spokane radio station.
"No, you cannot," Emily said, wondering how the reporter got her hands on her cell number. The number she always gave out went through dispatch-a landline. "I'm in the middle of something here"
"I know. I heard about Bonnie Jeffries. You found her," she said. "That's why I'm calling."
Emily felt some relief. The call hadn't been about denna. "Candace, I know you're just doing your job, so I know that you'll understand that I'm just doing mine. I can't comment on the investigation. For one thing, it's not my place to do so-this is a Seattle case"
"Yes," Candace said, "I understand that. But you're over there in Seattle because of a connection between the Martins and Angel's Nest. Bonnie Jeffries worked for Angel's Nest. Right?"
"Look," Emily said, her patience rapidly evaporating, "you apparently already have better sources than me"
She noticed Christopher parking out front, and very abruptly the phone call was over.
"Sorry, I'm late," he said, coming to her. "Got the warrant, here."
"He's not here," she said. "Landlord's over there. He'll let us in."
On seeing them talking about him, the landlord ambled over.
"Now there are two of you," he said, squinting into the sun. He looked at Christopher only-one of those men who are blind to a female cop when there's a choice between a man and woman with a badge. "What can I do you for?"
"We have a warrant to search this apartment," Christopher said, holding out the folded papers.
He waved the warrant away. "No need. I follow the law. When you've lived in this neighborhood you see a fair amount of those. Of course it wasn't always that way. We're supposedly a neighborhood in transition. To what I ask?"
"Sir, I can only imagine," Emily said as he fished in his front pocket for his keys.
"Found 'em," he said. "What's Dan done to get all this fuss?"
Christopher started to answer. "We can't say-"
He cut off Christopher with a quick, "yeah, yeah ... I know the drill. I'll wait outside. Leave the place as you found it please. Otherwise the wife and I will have to clean it up. We can't afford to call in any more help, you know. Fixed income."
"All right," Emily said. She put on her rubber gloves. Christopher did the same.
"You won't find anything nasty in there," the landlord said. "Dan is the neatest fellow you'll ever meet"
Christopher held the door and the pair retreated inside. The apartment was in perfect, almost boot-camp-barracks order. Nothing suggested that Dylan Walker was anything but the neatest tenant since Felix Unger. Shoes by the front door were matched and in perfect alignment with the baseboards. A stack of magazines mostly automotive, aerospace, and, oddly, gardening-were set with such precision one would have thought the place was being previewed by a real estate listing agent.
The furnishings were simple, not expensive and not upholstered.
"You'd think he'd have a pillow around here. Jesus, who could watch television on that?" Christopher pointed to an old mahogany church pew that Dylan Walker used for his sofa. A small TV sat on an antique wire-and-wood egg crate on the other side of the room.
Emily agreed. "Not exactly the cozy type, that's for sure. Maybe those years in New Jersey gave him a taste for a spartan lifestyle." She let her eyes wander over the room, noting that there was not a single photograph or picture on the walls. The sole bit of wall art was a hardware store calendar with a small picture of an apple orchard. Emily went over to a Formica desk and opened the drawers. The first two were empty, save for a couple of pencils and some legal-sized envelopes. The third and bottom drawer held a shoebox of photos. Emily sifted through its contents, hoping to find some images of Bonnie, Tina, someone whose face she'd recognize.
Any ties to the case? To Nick? And by extension, Jenna.
Instead, the photos were all of Dylan Walker, albeit an older and decidedly tired version of the man that had prison groupies hearts atwitter so many years ago. Most had him wearing a T-shirt or a chambray shirt. A small tuft of gray hair poked from the V of the collar. His face was still quite handsome, his features still chiseled, though somewhat softened by the passage of time. Maybe sun in the prison yard? Despite that, his eyes remained a pair of lasers to the camera lens. On the back was his signature: Love, Dylan.