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?"
Nick sucked on his cigarette and exhaled, sending a sliver of smoke into the air, then, like a whirlpool, out into the drafty bunker. "Nothing. Nothing compared to what's been done to me"
Emily struggled even harder to stand, to get a better look, but it was useless.
"What are you talking about? Let me help you"
Nick looked at her, blank eyed. "I'm not helping anyone. No one ever helped me"
He continued to smoke and Emily strained to get a better view of her daughter. Jenna was within a few yards of her, and she could see in the dim light that her breathing was rapid and shallow. But she was alive. Relief mixed with the fear that seized Emily. She wriggled in the cording, but it was too tight. "Look," Emily said, her tone gentle, "I know about Bonnie and Dylan. No one will blame you for any of it. You've been through so much. I'll help you"
"You don't have a clue about what I've been through. I've been alone my entire life."
Emily was unsure how to play it. Play him. Her instincts failed her. Her head hurt. Her heart ached. What to say? "That's not true. Your parents loved you. They wanted you. They chose you" It was weak and she knew it. She was fir ing off a list, hoping that she'd trigger something that would bring him back to what she hoped was really there. "You were wanted"
"You didn't live in my house with my family," he said. He dropped the cigarette butt and twisted it with the heel of his shoe.
"I know. But I did know your mother."
"You think you knew her. She was ten times worse than my dad. Everything was about Donny. Donny reminded Dad of his father. Donny had Mom's eyes. Donny was a chip off the old block. I was nothing to them. I was the boy they picked up from an agency because Mom couldn't get knocked up"
"Don't talk like that, Nick." Emily felt wetness at her temple. She couldn't reach it, of course, but as it dripped down she wondered if it was blood or sweat. She was unsure of how badly she was hurt by the scuffle. She saw a length of rebar by his tennis shoe-clad feet.
"Why are you doing this to me, to Jenna?"
"Dan says that Jenna's collateral. Just like you. He's just pissed off at you for screwing up everything."
"What? His place in the serial killer hall of fame?"
Nick laughed. "It's a little like that. Dad says that God told him that he had a special plan for him and that his son, me, would help him get there. I'm willing to do for him what needs to be done"
"But killing Jenna, me? What's that?"
"Collateral, Mrs. Kenyon. You ruined my dad's rhythm. You cost him what was rightfully his when you killed that dumbass Tuttle."
"What are you talking about? That was an accident. I was trying to save Kristi. She was just a little girl. She didn't deserve to die."
Nick Martin was unmoved. His eyes, cold like a doll's eyes.