by Lisa Jackson
“This many?”
“That’s right,” she said. “And we’re just getting started. These are the people who’ve rented or bought a Jenna Hughes movie in the last two years and live within a hundred miles of Falls Crossing.” She sent Carter a sly look. “I was afraid the department might run out of paper if I expanded the search, but we can always change the perimeters, go back more years, or increase the physical area. I went a hundred miles because that will include the Portland metro area and the zip code for the postal station where the letter was postmarked. It allows an extra twenty-five miles around that zip code, so if our creep decided to be clever and drove across town, or from the suburbs, we’ve covered his ass. If he drove farther, then we need to expand the perimeters, but this seemed right to me, assuming that the guy lives within driving distance of Jenna Hughes’s place. We know that either he or an accomplice left the note in her bedroom.” She dropped the second list onto the first. Again, the printout was a thick sheaf of typewritten papers.
“Popular lady,” he said, reaching for his pencil and wiggling it between his fingers as he skimmed the list of people who had rented or bought movies.
“Too popular, it seems.”
“Mmm.” The names were arranged in descending order. Those who’d purchased/rented the most copies of her movies at the top of the first page, the least on the last page. “Too popular. And too sexy. Though you probably haven’t noticed.”
He shot her a look, then skimmed the list of names. Scott Dalinsky was at the top of the list. “Have you cross-referenced this with the people she knows?”
“Mmm. Last page.”
He flipped through the pages, and there, big as life on the final sheet, were at least thirty names, including his own. Scott Dalinsky, Harrison Brennan, Wes Allen, Travis Settler, Asa McReedy, Yolanda Fisher, Lou Mueller, Hans Dvorak, Rinda Dalinsky, Estella Trevino, Seth Whitaker, Blanche Johnson, Jim Stevens. “Your husband?”
“Hey, Jim’s a red-blooded American male. Not immune. How about this one? Derwin Swaggert, the preacher. Ian’s dad. You think he rented Resurrection because of its Christian overtones, maybe used it for reference in his Sunday sermon?”
Carter snorted.
“Or Beneath the Shadows—probably has something to do with the Twenty-third Psalm. You know, there’s that passage about walking through the shadow of death.”
“You really have a thing against the Swaggerts,” Carter observed.
“Just their kid. And only when he messes with mine.” She motioned to the list. “I’ll leave this with you, and oh…check this out, uh, page seven, I think…” Quickly, she flipped the pages over and ran a finger down the list. “Here ya go. Roxie Olmstead rented Innocence Lost less than a week before she disappeared. Chew on that awhile.”
“I will,” he said, then eyed the other computer printouts she hadn’t yet handed him. “More information, I presume.”
“Ah, Sherlock, there’s a reason you’ve been elected sheriff. It must be your keen detective skills.”
“Oh, hell. All the while I was sure it was good-ol’-boy charm.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s it,” she said, sarcasm dripping from every word. She slapped the second set of sheets onto his desk. “I checked with the Webmaster for Jenna Hughes’s official site, found out who sends her the most e-mail, who logs in the most frequently. I’ve got a huge computer file, but only printed out the names of fans, again, who live within a fifty-mile radius. I can expand that as well.”
He eyed the reports. “Efficient, aren’t you?”
“I like to think so.” She leaned a hip on the edge of his desk. “The next step I took was to look over the fan Web sites dedicated to Jenna Hughes—not only the official fan site, but all those other nonsanctioned ‘unofficial’ fan Web sites. What a trip. She garners more than her fair share of obsessive types, let me tell you.”
Carter’s jaw hardened and he didn’t like the turn of his thoughts—that any sicko with a computer could have a little piece of Jenna Hughes.
Like you do? his mind taunted, and he shushed the guilty questions, didn’t want to go there.
BJ was still explaining. “Some of those sites are filled with all kinds of crap, including nude photos that could be fake, sexual references, and all sorts of discussions about how sexy she is.
“If this is the kind of thing that happens when you’re gorgeous, rich, and famous, count me out. Browsing through some of those Web sites, I thought I should be wearing hospital gloves because my keyboard was probably contaminated. And all the while that I searched, I was getting pop-up after pop-up screen, in continual loops. Damned irritating. I think I should be getting not only overtime, but hazardous-duty pay as well.”
“Put in for it. See what the powers that be say,” Carter suggested without much humor.
“I’ll tell them it was your idea,” BJ teased as she turned back to the printouts.
Carter had realized, of course, about the dark side of celebrity, the lack of privacy, the photo-hungry paparazzi, the obsessed fans, the tabloid exploitation, but he’d always figured it just came with the territory, the quintessential price of fame. But now, as he considered the fear that had become a part of Jenna Hughes’s life, the ugliness seemed more real, the danger more certain. He felt an inner rage, a quiet determination to find the creep who was terrorizing her and put him away.
BJ was still talking about what she’d uncovered on the Internet. “It was more difficult to find someone who took responsibility for the more bizarre sites, of course, but I was able to go through to the chat room logs and the bulletin boards and figure out those who seemed most obsessed with Jenna Hughes and her movies. The problem is, those people aren’t required to use their real names—they use all sorts of strange aliases, so I’m still trying to find out who some of them are.”
“But you can?”
BJ winked. “I think so.”
“Legally?”
She stared him straight in the eye. “Absolutely.”
“So that if we find this son of a bitch, we can nail his ass. He won’t be able to pay for some high-priced, sleazy defense attorney to whine about his client’s rights being abused by the police and beat the rap.”
She hesitated just a beat. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Don’t worry, Carter. Everything I find will hold up in court.”
“It had better.” He ruffled the edge of the computer printouts with his thumb. “Tell me you did some kind of sort/ merge thing and came up with a list of names you know who visited her Web site and rented or bought the most movies.”
“And who lives in the area.” Smiling smugly, she slid a slimmer printout across his desk. “Here ya go, boss,” she said. “All the unusual suspects.”
CHAPTER 31
“It’s like a prison at home,” Cassie complained as Josh picked her up after global studies. She was taking a chance ditching study hall, but didn’t care. She was already hopelessly behind in some of her classes. He opened the door to his truck and waited as she climbed into the elevated cab. Once he was inside, she lit a cigarette and said, “We’ve got this bodyguard who’s like a drill sergeant or a spy or something. He wants to know everything I do.”
“Everything?” Josh asked, his eyebrows rising.
“And more.” She didn’t take the bait and exhaled a stream of white smoke. “It bugs me.”
“How long is he going to be there?”
“Beats me. Probably until they find out who’s sending Mom some weird letters.”
“Who do you think it is?” he asked as he pulled out of the high school’s parking lot, hit the gas, and sent the back of his truck sliding crazily on the ice.
“Hey!” she cried, just as his big tires grabbed the asphalt. “Knock it off, okay? I’m not in the mood.”
But Josh only gave her a smug glance as he slowed for the cross street.
He acts like he just won the Indy 500, she thought in a blinding flash of understanding. What
’s wrong with him? With me? Why the hell am I with this big bohunk?
“So who’s sending the letters?” he repeated, sounding like a broken record.
“Geez, I don’t know.” She let out a disgusted puff of air. “Maybe that same kook who did last time. When we were still in L.A. Or maybe a new creep. I just wish he’d go away.” She glanced across the seat to Josh, watching his reaction. “The police are involved, too. The sheriff’s trying to figure out who sent the letters.”
“That dirtbag couldn’t find his own ass with a magnifying glass.”
“Jesus, do you always have to be so gross?” she asked.
“It’s true,” he said, pouting. “He’s always lookin’ to bust my balls.”
“Well, now he’s after whoever is sending Mom those notes. My guess is he’s going to try and find out who it is that’s got such a weird fascination with her.”
“That could be half the men in the county.”
“Yeah, I know.” Including the sheriff himself, Cassie thought. Sheriff Carter, now there was an interesting guy. Quiet. Smart. Good-looking…the same with the new bodyguard, even though he was really old—in his thirties or something. She liked his short blond hair, intense blue eyes, and straight nose that matched perfect teeth. He was fit, muscular, and, even though he didn’t smile a lot, when he did, he looked like a poster boy for one of those “Have-it-all-with-the-Marines” type of ads on TV. On top of it all, he was whip-smart. She recognized that straight up. It was true that Jake Turnquist made life a prison, but Cassie could think of worse jailors. She cracked the window, letting in a little cold air so that the smoke was sucked out of the cab as Josh, one eye on the road, slipped in a CD and pumped the bass up to the max. His sub-woofer was pounding, his fingers tapping out rhythm on the wheel, his head bobbing to the loud music.
“So is your mom still pissed at me?”
“Majorly pissed.”
His face knotted up. “Shit.”
“You care?”
“Sure. If she’s mad at me, it’ll be tough to get to see you.” He slid her a lecherous smile that, she supposed, was meant to be sexy.
Instead it irritated her. Sometimes she wondered what she saw in Josh. Ever since the fiasco up at Catwalk Point, she’d thought about breaking up with him. And then you’d be alone. So what? Being alone might be better than being embarrassed by Josh, who sometimes seemed to act fourteen rather than his age. Maybe that was why she found the bodyguard so attractive. He was a grown-up. “You know, you could come over. Hang out. When Mom’s there. We could study or watch TV.”
“With the bodyguard dude, too? Sounds like a blast,” he mocked, and shook out a cigarette from his pack on the dash. With a flick of his lighter, he lit up, then continued driving and rocking-out. Cassie flicked the butt of her cigarette out the window. Being with Josh was making her nervous. He stopped at a minimart, bought them each a soda, and then cruised through the frozen streets, waving at friends who passed, showing off in his tricked-out truck, doing not much of anything.
Cassie was bored out of her mind.
“If you came over, at least you could see my mom,” she said, and it was her turn to lift an eyebrow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you think it means.”
“Oh, geez, Cass, not that again. I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t have a hard-on for your mom.”
“Nice to know,” she muttered under her breath.
“My folks aren’t home.” He offered her a kinder smile. “We could go there and have the place to ourselves.”
Like sex would fix everything. Suddenly she felt tired. She glanced at her watch. “I really can’t. Jake’s picking me up right after the last bell.”
“Jake?” he repeated.
“The bodyguard.”
“I thought he was guarding your mom.”
“And me and my sister. He and Mom have this whole program worked out where he drives us around during the day and watches the place at night. I’d better be at the school when he shows up.” She took a long sip of her drink and watched shadows play across Josh’s face, as if he was just beginning to understand that she had other things to do—that, perhaps, she had other things she wanted to do other than just hang out with him.
“Come on, Cass—”
“Really, Josh. I can’t mess up anymore. Mom was really, really ticked off about the last time I snuck out up to the mountain and the cops came.”
“Shit.” He didn’t argue any further, just put on his best I’m-really-pissed face, and drove recklessly back to the school. He dropped her off and didn’t bother kissing her, just peeled out of the lot, music blaring, foul mood following after him like the smell of burnt rubber.
Oh, grow up! she thought, and wondered about her change in attitude. It’s as if ever since being caught at the crime scene, she’d seen Josh with new eyes. He claimed to love her, but she still didn’t believe him. He was just a good-time, damn-the-consequences country boy who would rather be racing cars or hunting, or watching near-porn movies and drinking beer, than anything in the world. Josh Sykes was going nowhere fast in a cherried-out, old pickup with a cranked-up cab and extra-wide tires with mag wheels.
Big whoop.
Cassie had better things to do.
Lots better.
Carter skimmed BJ’s lists for the twentieth time. Throughout the day, whenever he was in the office, between his other duties, he’d looked over the names of the people he’d known most of his life, but the one person on the report that kept running through his head was Scott Dalinsky. Rinda’s kid. An oddball, but certainly harmless. Right? Or was he coloring his judgment because he was Scott’s godfather? What about Harrison Brennan? The neighbor who seemed all-too-possessive of Jenna.
Shane drummed his fingers on the desk and perused the list, his gaze landing, not for the first time, upon Wes Allen. Carter’s one-time friend. Carter knew from personal experience that Wes couldn’t be trusted, but he tried not to let what happened with Carolyn color his judgment.
He forced his eyes to examine other possibilities. What about Ron Falletti, Jenna’s personal trainer, or Lester Hatchell. Les had purchased two of Jenna’s flicks long before his own wife had gone missing. And he wasn’t the only one, by far. Nearly everyone in the department, including Lanny Montinello and Amanda Pratt, had rented several of the movies and hell, even good old Dr. Dean Randall, Ph.D., had bought Innocence Lost and Resurrection within the last two months.
It seemed as if the whole damned town had a little piece of Jenna Hughes in their homes.
Which wasn’t such a surprise, considering what a splash it had made when she’d moved up here from Hollywood. Everyone for miles had taken a sudden interest in her and her work. A lot of the rentals and sales had occurred within the first six months of her move.
Even he had a few of her DVDs. Which was a joke. His entire collection consisted of Rocky, The Terminator, The Godfather series, and three of Jenna Hughes’s movies. He’d had more CDs and tapes at one time, but he’d donated them to the library when he’d cleaned out Carolyn’s things after the accident.
Aside from a few pictures and the home movies, he’d pitched everything after her death, as if in so doing he could erase her from his life, wipe away the pain, pretend her betrayal hadn’t existed. Hell…
His phone jangled and he picked up the receiver, but he kept one eye on the list. The stalker was on those pages, he was certain of it. Carter just had to figure out how to flush him out.
The rehearsal had been abysmal, Jenna thought, as she hiked the strap of her purse over her shoulder and walked toward the front doors of the theater. Tiffany, one of the girls in the cast, had come down with a case of laryngitis. Madge Quintanna, as Mary Bailey, had shown a range of emotion that vied with the animation of statues on Easter Island. The man playing Mary’s husband, George, had hobbled across the stage on crutches and forgotten thirty percent of his lines. The lights had flickered eerily throughout the first act
, and Rinda had snapped at Wes, who had blamed Scott.
Jenna was dead tired and already thinking about a long, hot bath and a paperback that was boring enough to put her to sleep as Blanche, carrying her satchel of sheet music, walked with Rinda and Jenna to the front door. As if reading the exasperated expression on Rinda’s face, Blanche said, “What Tiffany’s mother should do for that laryngitis is give her hot water with lemon and honey. It beats any of that over-the-counter stuff they sell at the pharmacy.”
“Hot water?” Rinda said.
“With honey. And lemon. I’ve heard that you can add whiskey to it, but I never did with my kids, didn’t believe in that. And they didn’t need it. Would you like me to call Jane? I wouldn’t mind. I know her pretty well, as Tiffany’s been taking piano lessons from me for two…or is it three years?” she asked, seeming confused for a second. “Two, I think it is—anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’d be glad to place the call.”
“If you think it’ll help, go for it.” Rinda looked at Jenna as Blanche, beaming, bustled off. Once the front doors slammed behind her, Rinda said, “I doubt if anything other than divine intervention will help now.”
“Things will get better,” Jenna said, and wrapped a scarf around her neck.
“When hell freezes over.” Rinda glanced to the windows and snapped her fingers. “Well, maybe you’re right. It’s cold enough—I think hell is freezing over as we speak.”
“I didn’t know Blanche had any kids,” Jenna said, realizing how little she knew about her coworkers and friends.
“Scary thought, huh?” Rinda joked.
“Extremely,” Jenna said with a chuckle as she and Rinda moved along the aisle between the row of pews to the front door.
At the front door Rinda paused. “We’re the last to leave, right?”
“No—I think Lynnetta was still working on costumes in the dressing room.”
“Geez, that’s right. Lynnetta!” Rinda called, her voice echoing through the apse. “Lynnetta?”