Free A Cold Dark Place by Gregg Olsen

killer. She was sure of that.
    "You don't know Nick. I do. I sat next to him for half a
year. The guy has some weird ideas. He's been through a lot.
But he's basically decent."
    "I'll bet Laci Peterson thought the same thing about her
husband Scott"

Tuesday, 4:45 P.M.
    The City and County Safety building had once been city
hall, before a bond was passed in the mid-1960s and a new
government office was built. The old brown masonry building with a handsome limestone crown made the building
look like a baker's nightmare with piped-on swirls of white
glaze-a wedding cake run amok. It was old, dank, and
reeked of Pine-Sol and urinal cakes. Sheriff Brian Kiplinger's
office overlooked Main Street. Next to his was Emily Kenyon's,
a smaller, but serviceable, space that indicated with its lesser
dimensions who was the top dog in the office. She kept a
spotless library table desk behind which she was seldom
seen. She was what the staff called a "walker," a person who
just can't sit behind a desk. Itchy feet. Short attention span.
The truth was Emily had battled lower back pain for years.
The only relief was getting up off her butt and moving around.
She never mentioned it because she didn't think it was anyone's business. Besides, people hated a complainer. She knew
she did.
    She nodded at Kiplinger, ensconced in his over-Rotary
Clubbed and -Kiwanised space. There wasn't a bit of room
for another plaque touting the sheriff's relentless community
involvement. A two-year-old Easter lily that Emily was sure
would bloom a second time if he took care of it sat glumly
on a bookcase brimming with the minutia of law enforcement-binders, binders, and more binders. Kiplinger was on
the phone, but he waved her in and covered the mouthpiece.
    "It's Good MorningAmerica," he mouthed. A broad smile
spread across his handsome face. "Guess who's going to talk
to Diane Freaking Sawyer tomorrow?" He beamed.
    Emily smiled back. "That would be you, I'd say."
    "Be sure to watch. Got a stack of messages on your desk.
You can have the next big one," he said.
    Emily didn't care about the media, be it Meredith Viera or Matt Lauer. None of them. She cared about two things.
Finding out where Nick Martin was and getting a good
night's sleep. She returned to find a deck of pink WHILE YOU
WERE OUT slips by her phone. The office secretary, Sammy
Jo McGowan, had placed them in perfect chronological
order: KREM TV, KING TV, and Northwest Cable News.
(Seeing that one, Emily was sure it would be one of the "biggies" that Kiplinger would leave for her to handle once his
preening with one of the national TV divas was finished.)
The stack went on: Cherrystone High School, Mark Martin's
office, the reporters from the local and Spokane newspapers,
and even a guy from a Seattle radio station. The last was a
message from Cary McConnell: "Call me! We need to talk!"

    Emily separated the phone message slips into three piles:
Call back, give to sheriff, and toss in the trash. McConnell's
note was destined for the third pile. That was easy. The
media calls were designated for the sheriff, leaving Emily
actual potential leads. She dialed the number for Mark Martin's office and got his administrative assistant, Maria Gomez,
on the line.
    "Detective Kenyon," Maria said, her fluty voice, suddenly
raspy with emotion, "I knew something was wrong. Mr. Martin
got a call from home and was told to get there right away.
That was on Thursday. He left like a bat out of hell. Friday
morning he didn't come in ... and oh, then the storm, and
well, I didn't even think about them until Monday morning."
    Emily could tell from her voice that Maria had started to
cry.
    "It's all right," Emily said, "you had no way of knowing."
    "But I did," she said. "I knew something was wrong. Mr.
Martin has never left like that. Ever. He's never missed a day
of work without calling in. I should have gone over there or
something. Called the police."
    This was