by Lisa Jackson
“We’re holding our own.”
“Good.” She sighed, tugged nervously on the gloves in her hands, and beseeched him with those famous green eyes. “I’ve got a problem.”
Haven’t we all, lady? “More missing props at the theater?” he asked, half joking and not even scaring up a hint of a smile on her often-photographed lips.
“I wish.”
Fishing in her oversized purse, she shook her head. There was a tension about her he hadn’t noticed before, a hardness to her mouth, tiny lines of worry visible between her delicately arched eyebrows, a nervousness as she dug into the bag. “It’s a little more serious than the stolen things, I think. Rinda said I should tell you about it as I live out of town and am therefore in your jurisdiction. Lucky, you, huh?” Still no smile as she looked up at him, then retrieved a plastic Ziploc bag and dropped it into the middle of his desk. “I received this in the mail, at my personal post office box.”
“What is it?” he asked, picking up the bag. “Fan letter?”
“Oh, it’s way beyond a fan letter.” Her voice was brittle with sarcasm as he picked up the bag and studied the note written over the picture of her.
He scanned the words through the thin plastic sheath. With each obsessive line, his gut tightened. No wonder she appeared about to jump out of her skin.
You are every woman.
Sensual. Strong. Erotic.
You are one woman.
Searching. Wanting. Waiting.
You are my woman.
Today. Tomorrow. Endlessly.
I will come for you.
“Who sent this to you?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
She had his attention now. “You have no idea who would send you something like this?” He held the bag more closely to his eyes and examined the envelope. Same type as in the letter. Postmarked in Portland—on the east side, he thought.
“That’s right, none.”
“Ever happened before?”
She let out a small sigh and lifted a shoulder. “Well, yes. Once.”
He dropped the plastic bag onto the desk, grabbed a pen from a cup on his desk, clicked it, and slid a notepad closer. “Go on.”
“The other time was a while back when I was still living in L.A. There were always obsessive fans, of course. Always. But…” she gnawed on a corner of her lip, then caught herself and met his gaze steadily again, “…but I thought I was safe here.”
“Anyone ever stalk you?”
“Not recently.”
“In the past?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “There are some fans who step over the line, get a little too close, try to move into your space, and once there was a guy who just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Her clear eyes clouded with the memory. “He called and showed up at my house, followed me when I was jogging, showed up on the set, even when I was out to dinner. And yeah, he sent me a letter. It was…unnerving, to say the least. I was married at the time. My husband and I got a restraining order against him.”
“What happened then?” he asked.
“I never heard from him again. I guess he got the message.”
Her explanation didn’t seem right. “Wait a second. The restraining order was the end of it?” Carter wasn’t buying it. Not for a second. “He was obsessed with you to the point that you went to the police and then he just went away?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to him, but he left me alone.”
Carter didn’t like it. He clicked his pen several times. “The guy’s name?”
“Vincent Paladin.”
Carter scratched it out on his legal pad.
“Address?”
“I told you, I don’t know what happened to him. He was kind of a vagabond type, I think. About twenty-seven at the time. Never lived in any one place more than a month or two. At the time he had an apartment in Compton, which is in L.A. County—south-southwest of USC. Claimed he was a student there, but the police found out that was a lie. Actually, he worked at a copy store—Quickie Print, I think the name of it was.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five…almost six years,” she said.
“And you’ve never heard from him since?”
“Not a word.”
Odd. Was it possible Paladin had relocated up here?
“Was the letter similar to this one?”
“Not at all. It was a long, rambling thing, handwritten on a yellow legal pad. There were seven pages, I think.”
“Do you have a copy?”
“No.” She offered him a small, self-deprecating smile. “It’s not something I like to dwell on.”
“But the police in L.A. have it on file, right?”
“I would assume. Detective Brown, Sarah Brown, was in charge of the investigation.”
Carter wrote down the detective’s name and made a note to call LAPD. “Anything else you can tell me about Paladin?”
“Not much.” She shook her head, the long braid swishing between her shoulder blades. “He was an introvert with this odd obsession about me.”
“Did he ever harm you?”
“No, and I really don’t think that was his intent. He was never violent, never got into the house, though he did hang around outside the gates. It creeped me out to see him there, but he never stayed long.”
“What about this picture?” he asked, picking up the bagged note again and studying the photo beneath the words, a beautiful photo in which Jenna Hughes was sexy, sultry, and sophisticated.
“A publicity shot for Resurrection, a movie I made nearly ten years ago.”
“Any significance to it? Any reason this picture would be chosen over all the other publicity shots of you?”
“Not that I know of. It was just part of the promo for the film. Available anywhere. Video stores. The Internet. Collectibles. Movie paraphernalia, I suppose. Right before the movie came out, there were thousands of pictures available, but, as I said, that was a long time ago.”
Carter asked more questions about Paladin, didn’t find out much, and made a note to find out what the creep was up to, where he’d most recently dropped anchor. Could he have followed Jenna north? Been stealing some of her things? She mentioned the phone call and the fact that she thought she’d heard music from one of her movies playing in the background, and he felt a tightening in his gut.
“Do you have any enemies?”
“Other than my daughter’s boyfriend?” she said, and then looked immediately contrite. She fiddled with the gloves in her hand. “Strike that, would you?”
“Why?”
“It’s not him…I was just joking.”
“Not a joking matter.”
“No,” she said soberly, her eyes suddenly a darker shade of green. “It’s not.”
“What about your ex-husband?”
She shook her head. “Robert’s too into himself, and he and I get along.”
“What about boyfriends or ex-lovers?”
She smiled and blushed as if embarrassed. “None,” she said, dropping the gloves onto her lap and looked directly at him. “Surprised?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not like the characters I play, Sheriff,” she said quickly, a flash of anger coloring her cheeks.
“I assumed not.”
She arched an eyebrow, silently accusing him of the lie. “A lot of people do, you know. They think I’m the person they see in the film. They tend to forget that what I do is called ‘acting’ for a reason. They identify with me as the character I’m portraying, and that’s just not the way it is. I—”
His phone jangled and he held up a hand, took the short call, then hung up.
“Sorry,” he apologized, and scanned his notes.
“You were asking me about my love life,” she reminded him, an edge to her voice, the anger still simmering in her eyes.
He didn’t blame her for not wanting to discuss what happened behind her closed doors,
but that was just too damned bad. Today, if she wanted his department’s help, she had to provide answers. To all of his questions. “So what about it?”
Her jaw slid to one side and she looked as if she wanted to spit nails. Instead she gripped the arms of the chair. “The deal is this: I really haven’t dated much since the divorce. I’ve seen a couple of men for coffee and dinner and that’s about it. It probably totals four or five dates, if you can call them that.”
“Who were the men?”
“Jesus.”
He waited, stared at her, gave her time.
“I don’t want to drag everyone into this.”
“It’s important.” He was firm and getting tired of her backpedaling. “Either you want me to help you or not.”
“Yeah, I know. Okay, I’ve gone out to dinner twice with Harrison Brennan—he’s my neighbor and does some odd jobs around the place. I’ve had coffee with Travis Settler, the father of one of my daughter’s friends, a couple of times. Believe me, it’s all pretty tame. Nothing X-rated.”
He ignored the jab. “Why haven’t you dated more?” he asked, and looked at her hard again. He had assumed that men would be all over her, but she didn’t seem to be bullshitting him.
“I guess I’m too busy, and I intimidate a lot of men, I think.”
“Because of your fame?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, so tell me who you think would send you the letter?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t have a lot of time, Ms. Hughes. Why don’t you give me your best guess.”
“I wish I could,” she snapped, unable to come up with anyone she thought might want to torment her. Then she gave him the names of the people she’d met since moving up here, most of whom Carter knew personally, none of whom he considered a nutcase who would send an obsessive letter like the one she’d received.
But then, no one knew what a person did privately.
He glanced down at the letter she’d found in her mailbox again. So meticulous, the text painstakingly placed so that the words didn’t mar her face nor detract from the sensual atmosphere of the photograph.
“Resurrection was the movie where you played a killer, right?”
Little lines framed her mouth. “A psychotic murderess.”
“Who was into sadomasochism.”
“Mainly sadism,” she corrected. “Anne Parks inflicted pain on her lovers, not herself.”
He remembered the film. Had seen it in the theater with Carolyn. Remembered talking during the long drive home about the level of eroticism versus violence in the thriller. “Doesn’t it seem odd that of all the publicity shots of you, he chose this one?” he said, and felt a real sense of foreboding. Gone were any of his thoughts that Jenna Hughes was just a Hollywood princess who was missing a few baubles she’d donated to the local theater.
“I don’t think it was random,” she admitted, and licked her lips nervously. “And that’s what’s scary.”
“But the music you heard was from another movie?”
“White Out. The song was a hit. The movie never came out.” She cleared her throat, then explained quickly about the accident that had closed production of the film. He remembered reading about the avalanche and tragedy. Looking at her now, he saw the pain in her eyes, noticed the slight droop of her shoulders and he realized she’d never gotten over the loss of her sister who had been killed during the filming. There had been a freak accident; explosives that were to be used in a later scene had inexplicably gone off, creating a killer avalanche. Jenna’s sister had been in the path of hundreds of tons of wildly rolling, roaring snow and ice. She’d never had a chance. Jenna, he guessed, somehow blamed herself for not being able to save her younger sister’s life.
He asked a few more questions, and they were just wrapping up the conversation when BJ knocked on the door. “When you’ve got a minute,” she said, poking her head into the room. Her usual smile was nonexistent.
“We’re about done here.”
Jenna stood. “Look, I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Just let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“I’ll keep this, run it down to the lab,” he said, motioning to the plastic bag. “In the meantime, be vigilant. Lock your house and cars.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll get back to you. Let me know if you hear anything else, get any more disturbing mail or calls, or if you think of anything that might help.”
“I will.”
“You have a security system?”
“Yes.”
“Use it. You might consider a guard dog.”
“I have a dog.”
He remembered seeing the ancient mutt in the old truck and at the theater. For a second he considered telling her to upgrade to a younger, tougher animal that might at least be able to hear, but decided to hold his tongue. “Good.”
He stood and shoved his hands in his back pockets. “Look, you take extra precautions, okay? For you and your kids. I’ll make sure that the road near your house is on the nightly surveillance for the county, but I have to tell you, my men are working overtime already. It’s up to you to be on guard and stay safe. You might consider hiring a bodyguard and getting a more…aggressive dog.” He didn’t so much as crack a smile as he held up the plastic bag. “I’ll have the lab check this out, see if we can get prints or other trace evidence or find out what kind of paper, ink, and printer we’re dealing with.”
“Thanks.”
She seemed sincere. Maybe he’d misjudged her by immediately tossing her into his mental bin of preconceived stereotypes that all Hollywood actresses were egomaniacs. “I’ll let you know what we find out.”
“Great.” She nodded curtly, then hurried out of his office. As he watched her go, he knew he hadn’t seen the last of her. Surprisingly, that wasn’t such a bad realization.
Jenna Hughes was one hell of an intriguing woman.
CHAPTER 15
“Trouble?” BJ asked, watching Jenna walk briskly through the desks toward the front door of the sheriff’s office.
“Always.” Carter, too, was eyeing Falls Crossing’s most famous citizen’s backside. Even hidden beneath fleece-lined layers, her ass was definitely tight and oh, so female. He drew his eyes away, but figured BJ had seen his silent appraisal. “So, what’s up?”
“Charley Perry. Apparently he likes being a celebrity. Station KBST has been offering up sound bites all morning about their ‘exclusive interview’ with him.”
“Give me a break,” Carter grumbled. “I thought I told him to keep his mouth shut.”
“That’s like telling a grizzly to be gentle when you’re offering him a piece of steak.”
“I suppose. Any news from missing persons about Jane Doe?”
“No matches yet.”
Great, Carter thought, and found the remote to the small television that was balanced atop a filing cabinet. Just…great.
“What’s this?” BJ was looking at the plastic envelope on Carter’s desk.
“Looks like Jenna Hughes found herself another fan.”
“You are every woman? You are one woman? Jesus, who does this guy think he is? Julio Iglesias?” She was studying the envelope.
“That’s Enrique—you’re dating yourself.” He glanced at the note again and it bothered him. More than he wanted to admit. He considered her beautiful face. “Whoever sent it thinks he owns her.”
“She have any idea who would do this?”
“Nope—but she did come up with the name of a stalker who chased her around a few years back. Vincent Paladin, some creep who hung out in video stores.”
“Does he live around here?”
“Don’t know. Yet.” He tapped the desk and scowled. Was it just coincidence that Jenna Hughes received the note at the same time that a Jane Doe was discovered up at Catwalk Point and Sonja Hatchell came up missing…the incidents seemed unrelated…or were they?
Jane Doe appeared to be the victim of a homicide that had occurred a while back.
Sonja Hatchell was missing. But she could have taken off on her own, or been lost in the storm.
And now Jenna Hughes was being terrorized, if not stalked.
“Hey, what’s going on?” BJ was staring at him. “I see gears grinding in that brain of yours.”
“Just thinking about coincidence. You believe in it?”
“Never.”
“Me neither,” he said, and chewed on the edge of his moustache as he pointed the remote at his TV and clicked it on.
“Uh-oh, here we go.” BJ was already staring at the small television screen and there, in all his glory, was Charley Perry, chatting up a reporter. Charley’s white hair was combed, his beard trimmed, his plaid shirt clean and pressed. “Look at him, all gussied-up and dignified-looking.”
“Idiot.” Disgusted, Carter clicked up the volume and listened as Charley Perry shot off his mouth. “I should have his ass arrested for impeding an investigation.”
“And think of all the negative publicity the sheriff’s department would get then.” BJ winked at him. “Remember, you’re an elected official, sworn and dedicated to upholding the law and—”
“Yeah, I get it.” He watched Charley expound on his theory of what had happened to the unidentified woman, then tell the story of how he and his faithful dog, Tanzy, had found the remains. The screen had switched to the dog in question, a white-and-liver-spotted mutt that seemed to have some springer spaniel in her. Tanzy whimpered and hid behind Charley’s bowed, jean-clad legs, avoiding a treat offered by the reporter. The segment was soon over, and Carter clicked off the set. “That was newsworthy,” he groused.
“Charley’s harmless.”
“And a moron.” Carter’s mood darkened. With no news on the Jane Doe, Sonja Hatchell’s disappearance, Jenna Hughes’s stalker, and Charley Perry mouthing off to the press, the day was going rapidly from bad to worse.
God, it’s cold. So cold…and the music…where are the strains of music coming from?
Teeth chattering painfully, Sonja opened a bleary eye and struggled to stay awake. She’d been in and out of consciousness, she thought, though her mind was thick, her thoughts disjointed. She knew time had passed, though she wasn’t certain if it was in minutes, hours, or days. Her brief seconds of wakefulness had been without clarity. Vaguely she remembered being abducted, but she couldn’t recall her captor—had it really happened? And there was a fragmented image of stripping her, but again, the memory was dreamlike…surreal. Then she remembered that the monster had not only shaved her head but filed her teeth…she tried to feel her incisors with her tongue, but tasted blood and felt only sharp little nubs where once her teeth had been.
