Deep Freeze (16 page)

They were getting nowhere fast. At least, that’s the way it seemed to Carter as he threw his keys onto a shelf near the front door of his cabin. Physically he was dead tired, but his mind was working overtime, fueled by caffeine and the nicotine he’d inhaled when he’d bummed a couple of cigarettes from Jerri. He’d kicked the habit ten years earlier, but at times when he was dog tired and trying to work out a problem, or when he’d had more than two beers, he tended to fall off the wagon, though never enough to buy himself a pack. That’s where Carter had drawn the line—paying for smokes. Even though he knew his rationale was foolish. The only person he was kidding was himself.

He unzipped his jacket and hung it on a hook, then kicked off his boots. His house was cold enough that his breath fogged, the frigid air seeping up from the old wood floor and penetrating his wool socks. He spent the next ten minutes stoking the fire and adding a couple of mossy chunks of oak he’d carried in yesterday.

Once the fire was crackling, heat beginning to radiate from the old stove, he rocked back on his heels and stared at the flames through the glass window set into the door.

The Oregon State Police Crime Lab hadn’t come up with any more evidence to help identify Jane Doe. So far, from talking to the companies who manufactured alginate, no huge amounts of the gooey stuff were missing, nor had there been any record of a large amount being sold to individuals who weren’t dentists or artists, or people who used the stuff legitimately in the past couple of years. But the detectives with the State Police were still checking with other distributors, some in Canada. Jane’s face was being reconstructed by both a computer and police artist, but neither was complete as yet.

All these operations took time.

Sonja Hatchell had now been missing for forty-eight hours, and the prospect of finding her was becoming more grim with each passing minute. Deputies had organized volunteers in a search party that was continuing, but hampered by the inclement weather. All the roads and bridges that were passable had been checked and double-checked. Still nothing. It was as if she and her car had fallen off the face of the earth.

Then there was still the issue of Jenna Hughes’s missing things, frightening phone call, and anonymous letter, along with the ravages of a storm that hadn’t yet abated. In the past couple of days the wind had died down and the snow had stopped just long enough to give the sanding crews a chance to catch up to the plows, then it had started all over again. There had been two more accidents on I-84 and the State Police had shut the Interstate down once again.

Homes without power had been evacuated, and all of the mountain streams had completely frozen over. Even the larger rivers were beginning to ice up. All in all, it was a mess, and the damned weather service kept predicting more of the same. The media, all dressed in their designer ski gear, gleefully reported the number of inches of snow, showed video images of kids sledding down city streets, cars sliding off roads, semis backed up because the truckers couldn’t get across the mountains, and cross-country skiers making their way through the streets of Portland. Meanwhile, Carter and his overworked crew, along with the State Police, the department of transportation, and all the utility companies, were working around the clock to keep the roads and residents safe. Which was impossible.

God, he was tired.

Outside, the wind tore through the forest and Carter grumbled under his breath. He walked to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and ignored a man-sized dinner in favor of a tray of ice cubes and a bottle of Jack Daniels tucked away in the cupboard. With a flip of his wrist, he slapped the tray onto his counter, sent a few frozen cubes flying, then poured himself a drink. He was supposed to be off duty for the next two days but figured he’d be called in before daybreak.

But he still had time for a short one.

Sipping the whiskey, he hankered for another smoke, but ignored the craving as he sat at his desk and booted up the computer. His electricity flickered, and he had to try again, but the lights managed to stay on and he was able to access the Internet. Without hesitation, he called up a search engine and typed in Jenna Hughes’s name.

The number of sites that could be accessed was astronomical. Especially for an actress who was no longer working, a once-upon-a-time star who should have fallen off the public’s radar. Carter pulled up the first fan club site and found himself staring at a computer image of Jenna, the Internet’s answer to an 8x10 glossy head shot. In the picture, she was half-turned toward the camera’s lens, and a hint of a smile tugged at her full lips. There was a glimmer of naughtiness in her green eyes, a shadow of a sexy imp beneath her serious facade. Shiny black hair fell in tangled disarray and framed her face coquettishly. Though the image was only of her shoulders and head, you had the feeling that she was naked in front of the camera, that she was teasing whoever had the audacity to stare at her.

Carter’s gut tightened.

He felt a current of lust in his blood, just a tiny bit of want, which, he knew, was exactly what the publicity shot was meant to inspire. And the kind of imagery that could cause not only sane men, but those who were unbalanced, to think of Jenna Hughes intimately, to want her, to imagine themselves with her sexually.

A scary proposition.

And now his problem.

He viewed several pages, read some facts about her, checked out some of the posts to the bulletin board, then surfed again. Without too much trouble, he found the picture of Jenna that was used for the publicity of
Resurrection
, the same sensual shot that had been copied, printed over, and sent to her by some sicko.

It was easy enough to download the picture.

A six-year-old could do it.

By the time Carter had finished his drink, he’d looked through a dozen sites, and only scratched the surface. He typed in several lines from the poem and came up with nothing significant, then gave up. Jenna Hughes had a serious problem, yes, but so did a lot of other people. He thought of Lester Hatchell and frowned.

What had happened to Sonja?

Even in an ice storm, people in cars didn’t just disappear.

Or did they?

He walked into the kitchen and poured himself another stiff shot. The wind was raging, rattling the windowpanes, howling in the trees, forcing brittle branches to slap against the old siding. God, he hated the cold.

How many times had he considered moving to a warmer climate?

To Tempe, Arizona, or Sonoma, California, or Taos, New Mexico. He’d gotten literature from over a dozen towns in the Southwest, weighed the pros and cons of pulling up stakes and chasing the sun, but had never followed through. It was almost as if he were fated to be here, that the invisible ties that bound him to Falls Crossing were strong as steel cable.

Back at his desk, he settled into his chair again and before he concentrated on the computer screen, he caught a glimpse of a Lucite cube that was forever beneath his desk lamp, yet never noticed. It had been a gift from Carolyn on their first wedding anniversary, and beneath the plastic surfaces were faded snapshots of him as a much younger man, a much less jaded man, a man who, at that time in his life, had known how to smile. Six photographs. All were of him, four included Carolyn, another was with David when they were gangly-looking freshmen in high school, and the last was a group shot that included Rinda Allen and her brother Wes, along with Carolyn and a few others. They’d been ringing in the New Year and were all wearing stupid little hats and blowing those ridiculous noisemakers…

That New Year’s Eve party had been so long ago.

During another bone-cold winter.

He closed his eyes for a second. Tried to call up Carolyn’s face. But all he could remember were images from photographs or home movies that had been taken over the years. Knowing he was making a mistake, he walked to the hall closet, pushed aside some loose tools, and found an ancient cardboard box. Inside were videotapes from a life he’d led long ago. He pulled out the first cartridge he came to, then walked into the living room. Hesitating only for a second, he shoved the tape into his VCR and clicked on the television.

A few seconds later, there she was.

His heart clutched.

She was laughing, her blond hair poking out of a red stocking cap, her scarf unwinding, her boots slipping as she ran through the snow and hurled hastily packed snowballs back at the cameraman.

“Don’t…Shane, don’t you dare,” she ordered, laughing as the image wiggled and a snowball came from the direction of the camera to splat against her back. “Oh, you devil! That was dirty! Just you wait.” She threw a few back at the camera. “When I get you home…”

“You’ll what?” his voice demanded.

“I’ll make you pay!”

“How?”

“I’ll take it out of your hide.”

“Can’t wait,” he’d said, and another snowball flew past her head before the image stopped altogether. The last movie he’d ever taken of her. Three days later he was called to an accident. She’d been driving, hit black ice, slid off the road, down a steep canyon to Cougar Creek. Her neck had snapped. She’d been killed on impact.

Carolyn.

His wife.

The woman he’d sworn to love until death.

And he had.

Oh God, he had.

Long after he shouldn’t have.

Faye just wasn’t right.

Standing naked near the clear glass tank, he eyed the woman’s near-dead body as it hung in the freezing chamber and wondered why he’d thought she’d do. True, she had a slight resemblance to Jenna Hughes, but her skin wasn’t the correct shade; the tattoo of a ring of roses around her ankle was all wrong. The set of her jaw was sharper, her eyes smaller, her nose not quite as straight. She just wasn’t perfect.

But then no one was.

Except Jenna.

Unhappy with his choice, he unstrapped this pale replica from her bonds and couldn’t help but feel a thrill as her cool skin brushed over his. The sensation of cold flesh touching him caused his heart to pump, his blood to flow more freely. There were things he could do to her. Sensual acts he’d been planning for a long while. And he could do them now, while she was still alive, breathing so shallowly from her near-frozen lungs.

He drew in a short breath. Shut his mind to any erotic image with this woman—this fake. Lying with her, touching her, kissing her in this state would be sacrilegious. He had to save himself.

For Jenna.

The time was near…so near. He had to force himself to be patient. With the woman draped over his shoulders, he glanced around the room again, his gaze moving to the walls where he’d trained floor lights upward to the artwork surrounding the entire room. Pictures of Jenna Hughes stared down at him. Photographs he’d downloaded anonymously from the Internet, movie posters he’d bought over the years, blown-up pictures from magazines and newspapers, even grainy shots from the scandal sheets. She was everywhere, her image carefully and lovingly fastened to the ceiling and walls.

And to think that he’d even considered fornicating with this…this sad, pale, bald replica.

Shame burned through him as he carried her to a dark corner of the room and gently placed her into his specialized long box. She twitched a bit as her skin touched the previously mixed alginate, but he settled her into the coffin, where the gelatin-like substance oozed over her. Slowly, her body sank lower. The trick was to make sure that the alginate would suspend her body, that her buttocks and shoulders wouldn’t rest against the bottom of the tank while the alginate was at the perfect consistency, to ensure that the mold of her body was flawless. It was tricky work, as the stuff congealed quickly.

He was trying to create a full-body mask, though so far his attempts had proved unsuccessful, and he’d been forced to use mannequin bodies with head casts. His hope was to hone the process so that by the time he’d abducted Jenna, he would be able to cast her perfect body over and over, perhaps in different positions if he could find a way to keep her alive long enough, and build his shrine to her. He’d already made some mistakes.

In his first attempt, he had not shaved the woman’s head properly, leaving her hair to mess up his image. A stupid, amateurish blunder. That mistake had been time-consuming. A waste. What had he been thinking? Since then, he’d worked more carefully, had honed his art to a science, planned the smallest detail, knew who he would use for his work…He’d spent the last two years creating a list of women who would be as near-perfect as possible for his shrine though he hadn’t started actually sculpting his creations until last winter. Before Jenna Hughes had moved up here, he’d been studying specimens, looking for women with the right facial structure, acceptable frames.

Now, as Faye sank into the pink, oozing depths, he felt a sense of accomplishment. She didn’t move. Couldn’t, as she was immobile from the freezing. The alginate seeped upward between her legs, through the space between her arms and torso, over her closed eyes. It slithered into her most intimate recesses and molded to her. The process would only take minutes. She would die of suffocation, but not struggle, as she was comatose, already a victim of the frigid ice water and relaxants.

Soon he would have a perfect mold. With extreme precision, he would extract her from the solid alginate, then stuff her useless body into the freezer before he disposed of it permanently.

He watched as the alginate began to solidify.

Just as he’d planned.

Leaving the coffin, he walked through a separate doorway to his computer room and sat at a desk with several keyboards. Anonymously, he logged on, and, starting with e-Bay and some of his favorite vintage dress shops, he began searching. Somewhere, if he took enough time and exercised patience, he would find articles of clothing and jewelry that would suffice as a full costume for Zoey, his next project, the character Jenna played in
A Silent Snow
. Smiling to himself, he imagined showcasing Zoey as well as all the others. He already had found the costume for Faye Tyler of
Bystander,
and the black dress he’d picked up at the theater that Anne Parks of
Resurrection
would soon wear.