"You're going to make it, Chris."
He nodded.
The bars on her phone flickered and the call to help was gone. She'd told the dispatcher all she could. Emily Kenyon sat on the floor and cradled his head in her lap. The fire crackled, the overstuffed sofa beckoned. But everything about the scene was wrong for the events consuming her. It was not a romantic getaway for two. It was a crime scene redux. Reynard Tuttle. Christopher Collier. God, please help me. Help me. Help Chris, she thought.
A whisper from Christopher stopped her prayer.
"I have an idea where Walker is," he said.
Emily wasn't sure if he was delirious or not. His eyes were hooded and his voice weak. "Closer," he said.
She pressed her ear to his warm mouth, nearly grazing it.
"The red clay. I've been there . .
"Where?"
"Red-"
Nothing more came from his lips. Chris slipped into unconsciousness.
"Where?"
But nothing.
Emily felt for his pulse. Nothing. She was panicking and could no longer tell if she was feeling her own heartbeat or his.
"Chris! Don't leave me!"
Again, nothing.
Emily tried harder. She shook him. Was he breathing? She felt a puff of air flow from his lips. Last breath? God, no! Finally, she felt the thump, thump of his heart. It was weak, but steady. She wanted to cry. It was more than her missing daughter, as if there could be any more. It was also this man, this gentle, smart, and caring man that seemed so vulnerable and so much in danger.
It passed through her mind and she fought it: Was this all her fault?
"Don't leave me," she said, her words desperate and loud, as if the volume of her concern could snap him out of the darkness. The clock above the fireplace inched later and later.
Emily heard the roar of a thunderclap and the pounding of gale force winds off the roiling Pacific. But the evenness of the noise indicated something else, something so welcomed. It was the answer to a prayer and proof that the dispatcher had taken down all the information. Emily placed Christopher's head on the floor and ran toward the door and began to flash a message to the pilot by flipping the switch to the floodlights.
She didn't use Morse code. Just a quick succession of light and dark to signal the message that could save Chris Collier: "We're here!"
A hospital helicopter landed on the wide beach in front of the cabin and two EMTs and a nurse were on the ground and in the cabin in less than a minute. Within five minutes, Emily and Chris were onboard; she saw their cars parked just down from the cabin, a bright light pouring from the picture window facing the ocean.
It was silly and she knew it, but Emily wished she'd thought to turn off the lights.
The helicopter lifted and was sucked up into the black sky.
"Officer, you need to be belted in," an EMT, a man of no more than twenty-four, told Emily as she hovered over the sagging frame of a man she cared deeply about, a man who was there in harm's way for her.
For her daughter.
"I'm not letting go of Christopher. You understand?"
The young man acquiesced. There was no messing with Emily Kenyon right then.
"All right," he said, "I'm going to pretend I didn't notice."
"You do that. And you tell your pilot to get to the goddamn hospital as fast as he can"
Chapter Thirty-seven
Wednesday, 3:30 PM., Seattle
Emily sat in a plastic chair in a grim hospital room in Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, the region's prime trauma unit. White walls and floors had not yet seen the mauve and taupe makeover of most hospitals. It was cold, antiseptic, and anything but homey. But for Emily Kenyon, it felt like the greatest place in the world just then. Christopher was drugged up, but peaceful. He was alive! Flowers from friends in the department filled the deep sill of the window. A banner generated by someone's ancient dot matrix printer spelled out GET WELL CHRIS! over his bed. A nurse in a blueand-white smock fiddled with one of the tubes that connected Christopher Collier to an array of bags-saline, pain meds.
"You all right? You really ought to go home, Officer."
"I'm fine. I'm not going anywhere"
"Suit yourself," the nurse said. "His vitals are good. Should be waking up any time now. Might as well get some coffee. Machine's down the hall"
Even machine coffee sounded good. Emily studied Chris's face for a clue about his consciousness. But he was still. A minute away wouldn't matter. When she returned, she nearly dropped the Styrofoam cup full of what she now considered the world's worst coffee.
"Emily. Are you here?" Chris said, his tired eyes lighting up just a little when she came into view.
She hurried to his bedside and patted his hand. "Where else would I be?"
"Did you find Jenna?"
For the first time, tears came, rolling down her cheeks. But there was no whimpering, no sobs, just the release of a nightmare. She knew his question was out of genuine concern, but it felt wrong to pounce on her missing daughter's case the second the man woke from surgery.
"No, Chris. No. You had me so worried." She bent over him, "You feel better?"
"I'd feel a lot better if I could get out of here to help you find your little girl and hunt down that asshole."
His voice was a near wheeze. He was a big man, but he looked so small and helpless it nearly broke Emily's heart. Had this been her fault, too? Had she led him to disaster once more? The bullet missed Christopher's heart, but had to be surgically removed from his lungs. He'd be breathing like a leaky tire for quite some time, but he'd recover. That was the one bit of good news that came that day.
"I'm going back to Copper Beach," she said.
"To find her?"
"Yeah," she said. She touched his hand. "I have to do something."
Christopher looked up at her and nodded. "Emily, I've an idea where to look."
Emily's eyes widened and she felt herself sink closer to him, to capture what he said. She almost assumed that he'd been hopped up on morphine, but the look in his eyes was clear. He did have an idea.
"Where?"
"Remember the red clay dust Walker tracked around the cabin?"
She did. "Yes. You mentioned it before you blacked out"
"There's a formation not far from Copper Beach. Red clay isn't all that rare near there, but there is a place that might be the kind of hideaway a piece of garbage like Walker might like. I remember going there a few years ago with the kids."
Emily recalled the events of the evening of the shooting. She remembered how the red clay had clung to the soles of Walker's shoes. It had been wet, then dried and flaked off.
"Where?"
"There's an old World War II bunker near Copper Beach. Maybe ten miles away."
Emily's heart started to race. A bunker? Underground? She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, his beard's growth pricking her lips.
"I need a place to start looking," she said.
As she turned to leave, she thought she heard Christopher say something more. The words were a complete surprise, though not unwelcome.
"What, Christopher? What did you say?"
"I love you, Emily."
And just as she hoped his suggestion of where to look for Jenna, she hoped that his last words were also rooted in reality-not the steady drip of the drugs that kept him comfortable and half asleep.
"I love you, too," she said. She went back to him, bent down, and kissed him on the lips tenderly. "You already know that, don't you?"
He managed a smile. "Yeah, I do."
Chapter Thirty-eight
Thursday, 12:22 A.M., place unknown
Emily parked in front of a weathered chain and stepped outside, her flashlight's narrow beam barely a match for the heavy shroud of weather, an approaching storm. But, of course, none of that bothered her. Nothing could stop what had fueled her hunt since it all began-her daughter. Where was Jenna? Before the last bars on her cell phone died, she'd talked to Olga Morris-Cerrino about what had happened and where she was going. Olga told her that she'd heard through her pal at Seattle PD that local cops had requested infrared flybys to search for Jenna.