by Lisa Jackson
There’s no evidence that she’s dead. Remember that. You’re looking for a missing woman, not a dead one.
But deep down, he felt a dread so vile, he couldn’t face it. Didn’t want to be the first to say the words “serial killer” when there were no bodies to suggest the horrid thought.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t help wondering, had he granted her an interview earlier, would she have traveled that stretch of road? Been hit from behind? Been abducted?
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself as the police band radio crackled and he passed the theater. Christmas lights burned around the windows and a backlit sign reminded everyone that tickets were currently on sale for the troupe’s next production, a local version of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Since when? Carter thought, his mood as gray as the clouds overhead. At least it wasn’t snowing. Crews had finally managed to scrape and sand the roads and electricity had been restored to all but a handful of citizens of Lewis County, but the temperature was still below freezing and now the ice floes in the river were beginning to cause concern. Sleet mixed with snow in the higher elevations and wasn’t supposed to improve.
He noticed Jenna Hughes’s Jeep was parked in the theater’s lot and he wondered if she’d hired Turnquist or if she was still looking for a bodyguard. He didn’t like to think of her and her girls alone and isolated at their ranch. Since he had a few minutes before he was officially on duty, he pulled into the lot. Before he second-guessed his reasons, he headed up the steps to the front doors and walked into the theater.
Music was playing from the speakers and he heard the sound of voices coming from the lower level. His boots ringing along the hardwood, he made his way to the sound and found Rinda and Jenna bending over a computer screen.
“Hey, handsome,” Rinda said, standing and hugging Carter before holding him at arm’s length and studying him. “Bad morning?”
“Aren’t they all?”
Rinda rolled her eyes, but Jenna, leaning against the desk, actually cracked a smile. And what a smile it was. Damned near radiant. Probably practiced.
“I saw your Jeep out front and I wondered how things were going. You hired Turnquist, right?”
She nodded.
“But he’s not here.”
“He took the kids to school and is going back home. We have a deal. He stays overnight in the studio over the garage so that he’s got a bird’s-eye view of the place, and we’ve got cell phones and walkie-talkies on all the time.” As if she read the questions in Carter’s eyes, she added, “Look, I’m freaked out, of course I am, but I can’t have someone breathing down my neck every second of the day. I have to have a little privacy. Some independence.”
“The security system’s working?”
“So far, so good. Jake’s double-checked everything and he walks the perimeter every night…I feel a whole lot safer. Thanks.”
“Just do what he says.”
Rinda let out an exasperated breath, “The polite response is ‘You’re welcome.’ Jesus, Carter, when will you quit being such a hard-ass?”
“When I think things are safe.”
“Things are never safe,” Rinda pointed out, her good mood dissolving. “But yeah, right now it’s not a great time around here. First Sonja and then Roxie.” She clucked her tongue and rubbed her arms. “I don’t suppose you have any news on either one of them.”
“Not yet.”
“Jesus. I hate this. Roxie was a good kid. Headstrong, but, well, she was young.”
“You knew her?”
“Not all that well, but when Scott and I moved back here from California, I met Lila, Roxie’s mom. We were both newly divorced and so we connected. Scott hung out with Roxie even though she was a couple of years older.”
The door to the theater opened and footsteps heralded Wes Allen’s arrival. “Hey, what’s going on…?” His gaze clashed with Carter’s. “Shane,” he said and nodded, though his smile was forced. Had been for years. To think they’d all been friends once.
“Wes.”
“In here fighting crime?” Wes asked, winking a steely blue eye.
Rinda let out a nervous little laugh.
“Wherever I can find it,” Carter said, refusing to be baited. No more. There had been a time when he’d wanted to bash in Wes Allen’s face and he’d given it a good shot one night, jeopardizing his job for a chance to pummel the man who had seduced his wife. But that had been years ago, before Carter accepted the fact that Carolyn had probably done the seducing and that he, Carter, had been instrumental in pushing her away. Maybe those years of therapy hadn’t been wasted after all. He nodded toward Jenna Hughes. “I’ll stop by later.”
Was it his imagination, or did her green eyes brighten just a fraction? “Do that.”
“I will,” he promised, and for the first time in over two weeks, Carter felt as if there was light at the end of the tunnel. “See ya around,” he said to Rinda and clapped a stunned Wes Allen on his shoulder.
Why is it so dark?
And cold…so damned cold.
Pain screamed up her arms.
Groggily, she opened one eye.
Where am I?
Roxie’s head was thick, her thoughts unconnected, her memory fragmented. Her mouth ached. Her teeth felt weird.
Shivering violently, her painful teeth chattering so hard they rattled in her skull, she tried to think.
Frigid air swirled around her, whispering over her bare skin.
Was she naked?
She forced her other eye open and saw that she was in some kind of chamber…or laboratory, a dark, cylindrical room that was so cold that her breath fogged in shallow wisps. Suspended over a large tank.
What! Suspended?
Jesus, Roxie, think! Where the hell are you?
Little bits of memory emerged. The accident. The stun gun. The needle. Oh, God, some pervert had her!
She tried to scream but couldn’t force a sound. Her arms were stretched over her head, her wrists bound to a crossbar, her legs, too, strapped against a long, steel beam that pressed against her spine.
Looking down, she saw that the vat was glass and filled with a clear liquid.
Oh, God, it’s acid, she thought wildly, trying to struggle, as she remembered the horror movies she’d watched so avidly. Panic squeezed through her insides. Ice-cold air swirled around her. She had to escape. Now! Frantically, she searched the large, frigid chamber. The ceiling was twenty feet above her, the rounded walls far away and darkened, but there were people in one corner. No, not people, but the faceless mannequins she’d seen earlier, all dressed in weird clothes…or costumes…clothes she was certain she’d seen somewhere, but that couldn’t be…She swallowed back her fear as she spied posters plastered upon the walls surrounding the macabre stage, posters from movies she’d seen:
Resurrection.
Beneath the Shadows.
Innocence Lost.
Summer’s End.
Movies starring Jenna Hughes…and her pictures were everywhere, tacked to the ceiling and walls. This was some kind of, what—macabre shrine to her? What the hell kind of madness was this?
This is a dream. A nightmare. That’s all. Calm down.
But her heart was racing, thundering in her ears. Though she was frigidly cold, she began to sweat, the thin, wet drops of pure fear.
Was she alone?
“Help!” she yelled. “Oh, God, please, someone help me!” But her voice was garbled and muted, even to her own ears. Fear and desperation clawed through her.
Then she saw him. Again.
The dirt-wad who had done this to her.
Stark naked, standing in the eerie blue glow of a computer monitor.
“You fucking bastard!” she tried to yell. “Get me down from here, you prick!” Her words were useless…unintelligible.
He stared up at her. Even smiled.
Oh, God, he was enjoying this.
Her bravado crumbled.
“Help me!” she
tried to plead. “Please!”
He moved slightly and she noticed his erection…thick and hard. He was really getting off on this. Oh, God…she thought she might be sick.
He pushed a button on the computer. Music filled the chamber. A song she recognized. The theme from some movie. White Out, that was it—the movie was never finished but the song had been released.
The beam jolted.
Terror scraped down Roxie’s spine and she screamed.
With a whirring sound, the steel cable began to unwind.
Slowly the beam began to descend. By inches she was being lowered, closer to the tank of clear, deadly liquid.
“No! Oh, God, no!” She began to whimper and shake, struggled vainly against her bonds, watched in terror as she was lowered ever downward. “Please, for the love of God, let me go!”
The volume of the music increased until it was echoing in the chamber, ricocheting through her brain as the beam touched the clear liquid. She sucked in her breath, the cold burning her lungs as her toes hit the icy liquid.
Not acid.
But water.
Cold enough to freeze solid.
“Stop! Please! Why are you doing this to me?”
Her feet were submerged, muscles cramping against the cold as it crawled upward, ever upward. Past her calves to her thighs and higher still. She screamed wildly, trying to thrash, her legs and arms unresponsive, the bonds too tight, her blood congealing in her body. As the water reached her breasts, she knew that she was doomed. Through her tears and the curved glass of the vat, she saw the son of a bitch again, now so much closer. She spat at him, hitting the glass above the surface of the water. He didn’t so much as flinch. Just stood naked and hard.
Watching.
Waiting.
Killing her by frigid, deadly inches.
CHAPTER 30
Fifteen minutes after deciding to quit holding an old grudge against Wes Allen, Carter was seated at his desk in the courthouse. He spent most of the morning answering e-mail, filling out reports, taking phone calls, and handling the regular business of the department, but all the while he thought about the missing women, Mavis Gette, and the notes Jenna Hughes had received. Were they connected? Not that he could prove anything.
But he wasn’t done trying.
It didn’t help that the D.A.’s office was on his ass. Amanda Pratt had stopped by his office earlier, sweet as pie, inquiring about the Mavis Gette case. The broken collarbone, a bit of an overbite, and finally, DNA, had proved that Jane Doe was Mavis Gette, whose killer was, presumably, still on the loose. As an Assistant D.A., Amanda was getting pressure from the District Attorney, who, in turn, was being pressured by the media and community to find Mavis Gette’s killer.
“We need to come up with some answers,” Amanda had said when she’d swung into his office earlier.
Get in line, Carter had thought, but had said, “We’re working on it. If anything breaks, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks, Carter.” She’d laid a hand on his, as if they’d somehow bonded. Then she’d wrinkled her nose and offered him a smile that was supposed to be cute and unthreatening. It wasn’t. The woman was a shark in a tight skirt and three-inch heels, out to promote number one and eventually become D.A. She didn’t care whom she skewered with her stiletto heels on the way up. Carter knew it. Everyone in the department knew it.
Fortunately, she’d finished with him and, shoes clicking down the hallway, had left him to his work. He spent the next few hours fielding calls, finishing reports, and studying pictures of the two missing women and Mavis Gette. Physically, they were similar in build, though not coloring. They were all pretty and petite, around five feet, three inches, all around thirty, all Caucasian. But Mavis had been a transient. Roxie a career woman. Sonja a wife and mother trying to make ends meet. Mavis and Sonja had lived in California, Roxie hadn’t.
But there was something that tied them together. He just couldn’t see it yet. Absently, he wrote the names of the women on a legal pad, thinking about each.
Mavis Gette’s dead.
Sonja Hatchell and Roxie Olmstead are missing.
You can’t tie them all together by the evidence.
And yet…as he stared at the computer images of the three women, he felt that they were connected. He just hadn’t figured out how yet.
“Hey!” BJ said, poking her head into his office. He’d been so engrossed in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard her approach. “How about I buy you lunch?”
“What’s the special occasion?”
“We both need a break.”
“Don’t we always?” he asked, but was already reaching for his jacket. “Don’t we always.”
“Listen, Carter, don’t you know the old adage about looking a gift horse in the mouth? So shut up and keep up, unless you want to buy your own damned burger.”
“And I thought you were springing for steak.”
“In your dreams,” she said as they headed down the stairs and outside. Despite the cold weather, they walked the few blocks to the Canyon Café and grabbed a booth. Though it was late, the little restaurant was crowded, filled with patrons who had driven into town after over a week of cabin fever. The kids were back in school, all the businesses open, the Interstate no longer closed. Yeah, life was back to normal, except that he had one dead body, two missing women, and a stalker to deal with along with the regular crimes.
The strains of country music could barely be heard over the buzz of conversation, rattle of silverware, and crackle of the fryer. Two waitresses were hopping, pouring coffee and water, while a short-order cook placed orders on the counter and the smells of frying onions and sizzling hamburgers competed with the aroma of freshly baked pies.
BJ had snagged a recently vacated booth and they waited while a single busboy cleared the table and pocketed the two-dollar tip left among straw wrappers, napkins, and dirty dishes. Once the Formica had been swabbed clean, a waitress who’d worked at the café for as long as Carter could remember poured coffee and took their orders.
“Anything new with the bust of the kids up at Catwalk Point?” BJ asked.
“So that’s what this is all about—you want the inside scoop. From the OSP.”
Her eyes narrowed at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Right—consider the fish and chips a bribe. I’m a high roller. But yeah, since you and Sparks are tight, I thought you might know more.”
Carter laughed. “The girls are safe. No charges, but because of Megan, you know that much already.”
“What about the others?”
“The boys will probably have to do some community service for providing alcohol, even though they aren’t twenty-one themselves. Actually, they’re getting off pretty easy.”
“Too easy,” she said. “But the good news is that Megan finally saw the light and broke up with Ian Swaggert.”
“Will it last?”
“Too early to call. But I’m hoping.” She lifted crossed fingers for Carter to see. “Ever since the ‘incident,’ and that’s what we call it, mind you, ‘the incident,’ Megan’s been toeing the line around the house. Jim doesn’t go ballistic like I do, just kind of mopes and looks at Megan with big, sad, disappointed eyes. You know the routine—his expression says all too clearly, ‘How could you do this to me?’ Like it’s all about him. Hey, I’m not complaining. It seems to be effective, at least for now. We’ll see, though, if that little worm Swaggert leaves Megan alone. He’d better, or he’ll have to answer to me.” She took a long swallow of her coffee. “See how you’re missing out, not having kids?”
The waitress deposited their lunch, a burger and fries for BJ, halibut and chips for Carter. BJ dug in as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. “I’m blowing my diet today,” she admitted. “It’s hell to try and lose weight during this weather. I mean, who wants a spinach salad with no dressing when it’s ten below?” She bit into her burger with gusto.
They talked about nothing important for a while, waved
to a few local patrons they knew, and were nearly finished eating when BJ said, “I’ve finally got a report for you about who’s been renting or buying Jenna Hughes’s movies. Believe me, the list is long and infamous.” She pushed her basket aside. “Your name came up a few times.” He didn’t comment. “But then, you’re in bad company.” She pulled her wallet out of her purse and slapped some bills onto the table. “I checked with the video stores in town, in the surrounding areas, online, and even the library’s records. A lot of people have been watching Jenna Hughes movies around here, let me tell you. At least since she moved up here, and I’m not even talking about those people who have personal collections that they taped from their televisions.”
They walked outside and BJ huddled deeper into her coat. “So, aside from mine, any names pop out at you?”
“Mmm. Her biggest fan seems to be Scott Dalinsky.”
“Rinda’s kid?”
BJ nodded. “He’s got every movie she ever made—ordered them all online and even bought some movie paraphernalia through e-Bay.”
“You checked his credit card records?”
Her grin was wicked. “I’ve got my sources.”
“Who else?”
“Just about everybody in town,” she admitted, stopping on the curb and waiting for a truck to pass before she stepped into the crosswalk. The snow on the road was patchy, scraped by plows and melted by the warmth of vehicle engines as they passed. “And out of town as well. There’s a guy in Hood River and a woman in Gresham who are uber-fans, it seems. Around here, Wes Allen has a collection, as does Blanche Johnson and Asa McReedy, the guy she bought her place from. Then there’s a lot of kids in the high school including Josh Sykes…well, you’ll see the entire printout, but believe me, it only expands our suspect list rather than shrinks it.” They were walking up the courthouse steps to the warmth inside. They passed the security checkpoint and the records room before taking the stairs to the second floor. “Give me a minute,” BJ said, and showed up in Carter’s office five minutes later with not one stack of printouts, but three. The first list, of people who had rented or bought videos, was over thirty pages.