Deep Freeze

by Lisa Jackson

  Every muscle in her body tensed. A tiny piece of lavender-colored tissue paper was visible.

  What the hell?

  She hadn’t put anything wrapped in tissue in the box.

  But Allie could have. She’s always playing with your things. Maybe she found the missing bracelet and returned it, wrapped like a present.

  Or…

  Heart hammering, she carefully unfolded the thin paper and as she did, she thought she might be sick. Her eyes widened in horror and she screamed as she stared down at a severed, bloody finger.

  CHAPTER 38

  Jenna let out a shriek guaranteed to wake half the state. Trembling, she stared at the finger in horror. Oh, God, oh, God, oh…She heard footsteps and her kids calling her. “Mom! Mom!” Critter began to bark madly. “Mom, are you okay?”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Jenna spied Allie in the doorway, her face pale, her chin trembling. Allie’s little fingers were clutching the doorjamb, her nails digging into the wood casing. Cassie stood right behind Allie, her hands wrapped protectively over her younger sister’s shoulders, her frightened eyes holding Jenna’s. “What’s going on?” she whispered obviously terrified.

  Don’t lose it, Jenna, not in front of the girls. You have to be strong. Jenna took in a deep breath, glanced down into the box, and noticed that the blood looked fake…that there was no bit of bone visible in the flesh, that…what the hell? Her mind ran in circles and felt sick inside as she realized it wasn’t a real finger, complete with wedding set, but a fake digit, the kind created by master craftsmen on a movie set. The kind of thing Shane Carter was talking about earlier.

  “Mom?” Cassie prodded.

  “I…I’m okay. It’s just a sick joke,” she said. “A sick, twisted, horrible prank.” Still quivering inside, she forced a smile. “Someone left me a present.”

  “Let’s see.” Assured that things were okay, Cassie stepped around a horrified Allie and made her way across the room. “Sweet Jesus,” she gasped. “What’s that?”

  “Fake.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “My jewelry box.”

  “I wanna see.” Allie, on bare feet, hurried to the dresser. “Oh, yuk!” she said, her little face scrunching in horror.

  Cassie was shaking her head. “But who—”

  A door creaked open downstairs.

  Jenna’s heart stopped. “Shh!” She wrapped her arms around both of her girls.

  “Jenna!” Turnquist’s voice boomed through the house. His boots pounded on the stairs. “Jenna!”

  Relief flooded through her. “Up here! In my room! It’s okay!”

  He flew into the room, his weapon in his hand. “I heard a scream.”

  “Another visitor,” she said, and hitched her chin toward her jewelry box.

  Turnquist strode across the room. “Shit.” He looked at the finger, but didn’t touch it. “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s fake, someone’s idea of a sick joke.”

  “Or worse. The rings look real.”

  “They are,” she whispered, “or damned good fakes.” Her stomach was in knots, and she felt the urge to throw up at the depths of depravity of the person who had done this. “They look like Lynnetta Swaggert’s engagement and wedding ring.”

  “No!” Cassie cried, her already-pale face losing its last hint of color. “Not her real ones, right? These are just…kind of the same.”

  “I noticed them the other day when Lynnetta was altering a dress. If these aren’t Lynnetta’s rings, then they’re a damned good copy.”

  Allie’s eyes grew wide. She wrapped her arms around her mother and Jenna held her close. “I’m scared, Mom.”

  “Me, too, baby. Me, too.” For the first time in her life, Jenna didn’t know what to do. Her home had been violated and was obviously unsafe. Whoever had been terrorizing her came and went at will. Despite the alarm system. Despite her contacts with the police. Despite her damned bodyguard.

  She stared out the window to the snow falling, and she prayed the power wouldn’t go out.

  Where could she take her children? Where would there be a haven where her daughters wouldn’t have to be in harm’s way? And how would she get them out of here? The roads were nearly impassable and all the hotels in town were full. And the son of a bitch wanted her to run. That much was obvious. Why else try to scare her witless? Anger rode along the back of fear. Who the hell was this bastard? What was he trying to do? “We’ll be okay,” she said firmly, stroking Allie’s hair.

  Cassie stared at her mother, silently accusing her of the lie. For once there wasn’t a trace of anger, disrespect, or sarcasm in her gaze. Just plain, naked fear. “I think we should all go to L.A. for the holidays.”

  Jenna didn’t argue, but said, “I think that’s what he wants.”

  “He? Who? The sicko who did this?” Cassie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Too bad—I still think we should leave. Go somewhere else. Mom, this kind of thing never happened in California.”

  That much was true. It was almost as if the bastard wanted her to return. Why? Did he feel threatened that she was up here? Wanted her gone? Or was he trying to push her back to California because he wanted her there? Why? To make more movies?

  Robert.

  He wants the kids closer.

  “I’m calling the sheriff,” Turnquist said. “He’ll send out men, or get in touch with the Oregon State Police. I want this place gone over with a fine-tooth comb. Meanwhile, all of us, we stay together. In the den. When the police get here, I’m going to tear this place apart.”

  “Be my guest,” Jenna said as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. She didn’t care if he pulled the walls down. She just wanted the son of a bitch nailed.

  Carter pushed the speed limit through the snow. He planned to explain that he’d seen someone snooping around Wes’s shop, had taken off after the guy, called BJ on his cell, and then, after losing the suspect in the snowstorm, had returned to the scene, where he would meet up with Wes. That would explain a lot. Cover his lies.

  He pulled into town and saw Wes’s truck parked on the street by his electrician’s shop. It was a hole in the wall, not much more than an office and a repair room where he kept spare parts and tools. Wes was inside, the lights on, standing in the middle of the office.

  Carter walked in the open door.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Wes demanded, his face furrowed and dark, the smell of beer and cigarette smoke clinging to him.

  “I saw someone poking around.”

  “Who?”

  “Couldn’t tell.”

  “Nothing’s missing. No window broken. Doors locked up tighter than a drum.” Wes rested his hips on the old scarred desk.

  “You were lucky.”

  “Was I?” Wes asked. “I’ve had this shop here for, oh, what? Nine years. Never a break-in, never anything stolen, and tonight you see someone you don’t recognize, take off after him, lose him in the snow. That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “You who had one dead body, three missing women, and all kinds of emergencies countywide were just cruising through town and saw someone poking around my place.” He skewered Carter with a look that screamed bullshit.

  “I was on my way home.”

  “You live in the other direction.”

  “I was on one last patrol, but hey, if you don’t want my help, I’m outta here. Believe it or not, Wes, I’ve had a long day. I’m cold, tired, and don’t need to take this crap from you or anyone else.” Carter was angry now and saw no reason to mince words. “As you pointed out, there are more important cases than this.”

  Wes rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, didn’t seem the least chastised.

  “Took you a helluva long time to get back here.”

  Carter reached for the door. “I’ve got better things to do than listen to this. I thought you’d want to know that someone was hanging o
ut at your shop. It seemed to me that he was intent on breaking in. Maybe I was wrong. See ya.”

  “Someone was at my house tonight.”

  “Who?” Carter asked calmly, every nerve ending alert.

  “I’m not sure. But someone came in. I think I scared him off.”

  “How’d they enter? Break down a door? Through a window?”

  Wes shook his head.

  “No sign of forced entry?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe you forgot to lock the place.”

  “Nope.”

  “Then what?”

  Wes scowled darkly.

  “Anything taken?” The pictures and videotape still in Carter’s pocket felt like lead.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “If you want, I could come out and look around. Go through the house. Find out what, if anything’s, missing.”

  Wes blinked, then caught himself, but there was a trace of panic in his eyes that he quickly hid. “Maybe I was mistaken.”

  “You sure?”

  “Hell, I’m not sure about anything anymore, Shane.” His arms folded over his chest.

  “Join the club. Now, unless you need me here, I’m leaving.”

  “I still think it’s funny, you dragging me out in the middle of the night.”

  Carter lifted his eyebrows and played his trump card. “Maybe you shouldn’t be driving.”

  “Why?”

  “You smell like a brewery.”

  Wes’s eyes narrowed. “You want to give me a sobriety test?” he asked, his voice low. “Your department fuckin’ calls me down here on some bogus information and then you want to give me a goddamned sobriety test. What the hell is this, Shane? Some kind of setup?”

  “I told you what happened.”

  “And I don’t believe it.”

  Carter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want to have to—”

  “You don’t have to do anything, Shane. Not a damned thing. I’ll just go home and we’ll forget all about this.” He stood away from the desk and snagged his keys from the desk.

  Carter pretended to be thinking it over.

  Wes eased his way to the door. “It’s late.”

  “That it is.” Carter rolled his lips in on themselves as if he was pondering the weight of the world; then he caught Wes’s guarded gaze and stared him down.

  “Let’s call it a night.”

  Carter nodded slowly, still appearing to think things through. “Tell ya what. You lock up here, go home, check things out, and, if something’s missing, let me know. I’ll send out a deputy, or you can fill out a report down at the station.”

  “Great,” Wes muttered as he opened the door and a gust of icy air swept into the office. Carter walked outside and made his way to his truck.

  “Take it easy on the drive home,” he warned, as if he really thought Wes might be inebriated. He knew better, could tell that Wes might have a slight buzz, but he was far from over the limit. But Wes was just paranoid enough that Carter could play on his worries.

  Wes turned his collar to the wind. “I’ll be fine,” he said, stalking to his truck.

  Not if I have anything to say about it, Carter thought, climbing into his own rig and watching Wes drive away in the rearview mirror. He smiled grimly as he noticed Wes’s particular attention to signaling, stopping for the requisite number of seconds at the flashing light, and keeping his pickup under the speed limit.

  Just to give Wes something to worry about, Carter followed him for six blocks before turning in the opposite direction and heading home. The streets were nearly empty and as he drove out of town, no vehicle was visible in his rearview mirror. Which was all the better.

  Carter drove outside of town and caught 1–84, heading west. The traffic was nil as the road was officially closed, but he ignored the barriers, driving around the iced barricades and, within a few miles, turning onto the Bridge of the Gods. He parked midspan. Leaving the truck to idle, he climbed out, walked to the side and pulled the videotape from his pocket. As he glanced down at the black case, he wondered what images of Carolyn had been caught on the damning video. Had she been naked? With Wes? In a compromising position? Or just a video of her fully clothed and smiling…who cared? He told himself he was better off not knowing and was surprised that so much of the old festering pain seemed to have disappeared. He really didn’t give a damn what Carolyn had done, but he sure as hell didn’t want it dredged up again.

  Let sleeping dogs lie.

  He wiped the tape case clean of any fingerprints and shivered in the cold. The wind blew harsh as a demon’s breath, knifing through his clothes. Snow swirled wildly. Beneath the bridge, the inky waters of the swollen Columbia River raged.

  Teeth chattering, Carter dropped the tape onto the slick asphalt of the bridge. He stomped on the casing with the heel of his boot, smashing the plastic and shattering it into sharp black shards.

  Not good enough.

  He ripped the tape, stripping it from its spools; then he picked up the debris and hurled the whole damned mess into the dark, icy depths of the Columbia below. “Adios,” he said into the screaming wind and felt an unlikely sense of freedom.

  He would burn the pictures in his pocket in the woodstove at his house. Nothing ceremonial about it. He’d just throw the betraying shots onto the fire and wouldn’t even watch them curl and hiss as they incinerated.

  They would be destroyed. Forever. When Wes Allen’s house was searched, no pictures of Carolyn would surface to bring up the old scandal again. And Carter didn’t believe Wes would be stupid enough to mention to the police that someone had taken his prints or his video of another man’s wife—the sheriff’s dead wife. Even if he did, so what? Wes Allen wasn’t just his ex-best friend and wife’s lover; he was now Jenna Hughes’s stalker.

  He was going down.

  Big time.

  Over the howl of the wind, he heard his cell phone. Slipping on the ice-slickened asphalt, he hurried to his Blazer and jumped into the driver’s seat. He managed to pick up the phone as he closed the door with his other hand.

  “Carter,” he said into the handset.

  “It’s Turnquist.” The bodyguard’s voice was barely audible.

  Carter’s muscles clenched.

  “We’ve got a problem here at the Hughes place. Everyone’s safe now, but security’s been breached.”

  Damn. “How?” Carter demanded.

  “I think the guy was in here. Don’t know when. Probably sometime tonight.”

  “What? While you were there?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but yeah, I think so.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Carter wanted to reach through the wires and strangle the bodyguard. “Jenna’s okay?”

  “Yeah. They all are.”

  “Both girls.”

  “Yes!” Turnquist snapped. “But I need some help. We’re holed up in the den, and I don’t want to leave Jenna or the girls in the house alone, but I need to search the place.”

  “Absolutely do not leave them alone!” Carter ordered, suddenly frantic. Why hadn’t he followed Wes until he was home? But there was no way Wes could have gotten there in the past half-hour. What about earlier, when you thought he was at the Lucky Seven?

  Carter stepped on the gas and pulled a quick one-eighty on the bridge. “Put Jenna on.”

  “She’s all right.”

  “Put her on!” He gunned the engine and his tires spun.

  “Hello?” Her voice was steady and touched him in a way he didn’t think possible. The Blazer straightened.

  “Are you all right?”

  “All right? What do you think?” she said, and despite the angry tenor in her voice, there was more—an underlying current of panic.

  “Stay with Turnquist.” He drove off the bridge, his wipers fighting the ice accumulating on his windshield.

  “Don’t worry.”

  Something deep inside of him cracked. “I do.”

  There was a second’
s hesitation, then she said, “Carter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get the hell over here.”

  “Hang in there, Jenna.” His voice felt suddenly rough. “I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 39

  The seconds scraped by on the clock in the den, and Jenna was going quietly out of her mind. She, Cassie, Turnquist, and even Critter were sequestered in the small room. Every curtain and blind in the house was drawn tight and the lights and television flickered as winds, keening down the gorge, buffeted the house. The girls huddled together under a sleeping bag on the couch, and Jenna tried to keep her cool.

  Impossible.

  Get here, Carter, she silently thought, every muscle in her body tense.

  Turnquist, too, was on edge, his weapon at his side.

  Every ten minutes, he walked through the house, weapon in hand, eyes darting everywhere, stopping at the windows and opening the blinds a bit to catch a glimpse of the storm. Jenna listened to his footsteps creak on the stairs or pad lightly on the floors overhead.

  She sat in a rocker, eyes fixed on the clock, one hand falling over the arm to scratch Critter behind his ears.

  Finally, about the time Jenna was certain she was coming completely unhinged, the dog lifted his head and growled. Turnquist, who was just descending from the second story, walked into the darkened kitchen and squinted through the night. “It’s Carter’s Blazer,” he said, and punched in the code to allow the sheriff to roll through the gates. But the gates didn’t so much as budge. “Damned things. I’m going out,” he called over his shoulder. “The gate’s iced up.” He threw on a down jacket and left the house, closing and locking the door behind him.

  Allie was dozing, Cassie’s eyes at half-mast. “Can you trust him, Mom?”

  “Who? Jake Turnquist?”

  “Yeah. It doesn’t seem like he does much. Not if the guy still gets in. Maybe it’s him.”

  “I checked him out.”

  “By talking to Mr. Brennan. Oh, wow.”