Deep Freeze (21 page)

“I’m okay,” Cassie said, her eyes dry again, her chin jutted, lips folded over her teeth.

“Are you?” Jenna demanded, angry and worried and knowing she wasn’t getting through to her daughter.

“You know, Mom, maybe this isn’t all about me. You’ve been really uptight lately. But then you always are around Christmas.”

That much was true. Ever since the tragedy surrounding
White Out
, filmed during the holidays, Jenna had developed an aversion to anything remotely connected with Christmas.

Cassie leaned low in her chair, cradling her cup on her bare midriff. “Most families have fun around the holidays, you know? They have parties and Christmas trees, and go caroling and shopping and sledding.”

“Is that what you want to do? Carol and shop and sled?” Jenna asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee and noticing that her hands were trembling slightly.
Get a grip. You can’t bring Jill back. It was just an accident, remember?
But the niggling thought that what had happened in Colorado was more than a freak accident had always stayed with her, lingering at the edges of her mind, tinged with guilt that she’d survived while her baby sister had been killed.

“Maybe,” Cassie said indifferently.

Jenna couldn’t imagine her eldest daughter wearing a wool coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck as she walked down the frozen streets of Falls Crossing and happily caroled the neighborhood with
Silent Night
or
The First Noel
. No—it just didn’t fit.

Cassie set her cup on the table. “Geez, I just want to have some fun. Is that so bad?”

Jenna stirred cream into her cup. “And sneaking out and going up to the site of a murder to get high is fun.”

“Yeah!” Cassie leaned back in her chair and folded her arms under her breasts, stretching the skin of her abdomen. Her belly-button ring winked in the kitchen lights. “It beats hanging out here and doing nothing.” She glanced longingly at the windows. “I’m so sick of this weather. I
am
gonna call Dad. He’ll let me come home for Christmas.”

Come home.
Jenna’s heart twisted as she took a chair across the table from her daughter. Cassie had never thought of this house as her home, still considered Southern California as where she belonged. “Maybe that would be a good idea,” she said, hating the words. “In the meantime you can help me put up decorations around here. Now…let’s talk about sex and drugs and alcohol.”

Cassie groaned. “Do we have to?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jenna said, taking a warming sip of her coffee. “We have to.”

Carefully, he painted her face. Dipping his brush in the pallet, gently blending the flesh tones, he worked tirelessly. Music was playing, the score from
Bystander
reverberating from nearly twenty speakers that he’d wired throughout his own personal soundstage and workroom. He loved this music; it was his favorite, and as he looked up to the stage where mannequins were posed, he felt a sense of pride.

Most of the figures were dressed in perfect replicas of originals from his favorite Jenna Hughes movies. Some were still naked, waiting for the right costume, and all, so far, were faceless, no features distinguishable on their blank, bald heads. That part was changing.

He studied the stage where the women of his dreams stood motionless. Though not finished, he imagined them as perfect as they had been in Jenna’s films.

Marnie Sylvane, the lonely schoolteacher of
Summer’s End
, stood next to Katrina Petrova of
Innocence Lost
. Katrina had been Jenna’s first movie; she was a teenager when she’d played the young prostitute. Facing away from Katrina was Anne Parks, the psychotic murderess of
Resurrection
. A little farther upstage was Paris Knowlton, the young, frightened mother from
Beneath the Shadows
, who shared the spotlight with Rebecca Lange, the downhill racer of the never-finished
White Out
. In the far corner, Zoey Trammel, an autistic woman of
A Silent Snow
, sat in the rocking chair that had been used in the movie and now, in his hands, Faye Tyler, a sexually adventurous woman of the seventies, was nearly finished. How much he’d accomplished in so little time!

And there was still so much to do. Soon, he would have to get rid of the corpse and the car. He had a plan, but had to wait for a while before he drove Faye…no…not Faye, just the cadaver which was the shell for his art. He had to drive the husk of Faye in the hatchback to the cliffs overlooking the Columbia River, then let it roll over the edge. The car wouldn’t be found for a long, long while…if ever. The body, trapped inside, would stay in the river and slowly decompose.

Getting rid of her would be easy. All evidence destroyed.

No muss. No fuss.

But sculpting and painting the faces, that was the difficult part of his mission. He just couldn’t get the features right, no matter how hard he tried. It seemed impossible to capture Jenna Hughes’s beauty. The faces he cast, from women who had a resemblance to her, never turned out quite to his liking. They somehow cheapened her image and seemed amateurish.

Frowning at the mask in his hands, he worked even harder, feeling the sweat bead upon his brow despite the cool temperature. With a steady hand, he outlined the eye hole, making a thin black line around the lid where he would insert the lashes, imagining what his work would look like when the false eye, a perfect shade of green, would be inserted. He already had the wig, shaped in the style Jenna wore as Faye Tyler, a chin-length bob with feathered bangs cut just beneath the eyebrow ridge.

He paused for a minute, set down his brush, and picked up his remote control. As he’d done a hundred times before, he clicked on the big-screen television he’d mounted into a far wall, then fast-forwarded the DVD of
Bystander
already inserted into the player. He knew exactly where the scene he wanted was—a close-up of Jenna Hughes’s beautiful face. He found it easily and there she was, staring directly into the camera, her eyes taking on an erotic, catch-me-if-you-can spark, the hint of a smile pulling at the corners of lips tinted a soft rose…

His heartbeat accelerated as he imagined she was looking directly at him. Flirting with him. Teasing him. Enticing him. She wanted him. His gaze never leaving the screen, he hit the Play button. Watched as she carelessly tossed her hair away from her face, turned, and began walking…slowly away. The camera focused on her buttocks, covered by a swingy, light skirt and bare legs lifted by four-inch heels.

He trembled inside.

Licked his lips.

Waited.

Then it came. The second in time he lived for.

Slowly, Faye Tyler turned her head and looked over her shoulder.

He hit the Pause button. Studied that come-hither glance and felt his groin tighten, blood pumping furiously through his veins.

She was so perfect.

Tears filled his eyes as he stared at her unadorned beauty.

Softly he vowed, “You are my woman. Today. Tomorrow. Endlessly. I will come for you.”

The good news was that the storm had abated. Near-zero temperatures had warmed, and the digital display on his Blazer hovered in the low thirties.

The bad news was that another cold front, worse than the first, was on its way, and nothing was going to melt soon. Add to that the fact that, after nearly a week, there was no sign of Sonja Hatchell. He doubted she was alive, though he’d never admit it to Lester. At least not yet.

Carter drove along a winding stretch of road leading to Falls Crossing and listened to the police radio as the defroster in his Blazer worked overtime. He’d checked twice daily with the Oregon State Police and Sparks had kept him updated, but there was just nothing to report. They still had no idea who Jane Doe really was, even with the widened missing persons sweep; nor did they yet have a composite picture of the woman, either from the computers or by having an artist sculpt a face onto the bones. The alginate lead hadn’t come up with anything, either, but the lab technicians had found traces of another substance in Jane Doe’s hair, a fine little piece of plaster that made no sense whatsoever.

But it was something.

Not much, but something.

It was morning, the first light of dawn filtering through the ice-crusted trees that lined this stretch of the highway, heavy snow piled high on the roadsides. He passed a few abandoned cars on his way into town, met a snowplow headed the opposite direction, and noticed a sanding crew not far behind. He was dog tired, a knot of tension twisting between his shoulder blades, and all the coffee in the world couldn’t chase away the fatigue that had settled upon him.

He just couldn’t sleep.

Maybe it was the weather.

Maybe it was Jane Doe and Sonja Hatchell.

And maybe it was Jenna Hughes, who had, though she didn’t know it, invaded his life. He’d studied the note sent to her, made inquiries about her missing things, checked e-Bay and talked to the pawn shops in Portland, even looked up her fan sites online and come up with nothing. He’d checked with video rental and sales companies, asked for lists of customers who had asked for Jenna Hughes movies, but so far hadn’t come up with anyone suspicious. Worse yet, though he wouldn’t admit it to a soul, he’d started dreaming about her. Scenes from her movies had invaded his nights and he’d woken up sweating, hard as granite, and feeling every bit the fool he was.

He’d called her twice, and though she’d received no more threatening notes and no more of her personal items were missing, she had managed to get her security system and electronic gates working.

He drove into town where the street lamps were just winking off; colored holiday lights blazed in all the storefronts, and as he passed by the local theater, he automatically checked for Jenna’s Jeep. There were no vehicles in the snow-covered lot, just a back-lit sign announcing tickets were on sale for the next play,
It’s a Wonderful Life,
which would be performed near the end of December.

At the courthouse, he pulled into his reserved spot, braced himself, and headed inside. He grabbed a cup of coffee before settling into his office and sorting through reports, mail, phone messages, and e-mail.

BJ showed up around ten and seemed relieved. Her daughter and friends had been cited with misdemeanors for their part in the party up at Catwalk Point. As it turned out, nothing was disturbed, none of the kids had any link to the crime, or so it seemed, and there was no harm done to the crime scene or the case. Sparks had decided to go easy on the group, citing the young ones with breaking the curfew and the older ones with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, then having the D.A. drop the charges in exchange for some community service. It seemed fair enough, though Carter feared it would do nothing to change any of the delinquents’ behavior.

BJ, however, thought it was for the best. “No one was hurt, so the parents should deal with their own kids. Megan knows where Jim and I stand.” Carter wasn’t certain this was the right tack. He remembered interrogating Josh Sykes while the insolent kid had sat leaning back in the metal chair, his scraggly bearded chin belligerently thrust forward, eyes at half-mast, almost daring Carter to make a move that would result in a lawsuit. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Josh had repeated over and over again, and Carter had wondered what Cassie Kramer saw in the young punk.

Now, BJ settled into the chair facing his desk, suddenly got to her feet, left the room, and returned with a cup of water which she poured around the near-dead plant on a corner of his desk. “This Christmas cactus should be blooming,” she reprimanded. “Just give it a little TLC.”

“Fresh out,” Carter grumbled. “I just received the word on Vincent Paladin, the guy who stalked Jenna Hughes in the past.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s in Florida. On parole. Being a good boy and visiting his parole officer every week. He was in Tampa on the day the letter was mailed from Portland.”

“He could have an accomplice.”

Carter finished his coffee in a final gulp, then crushed the paper cup in his fingers. “Don’t think so…these guys, stalkers, they’re usually loners.”

“So you’re ruling him out?”

“I’m not ruling anyone out,” he said quickly.

One of BJ’s eyebrows arched. “Get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?”

“Don’t I every morning?”

“Yeah, but lately it’s been more obvious.”

He snorted. “Maybe it’s just that I don’t like the cold.”

“Then your mood isn’t going to improve much, is it? The weather service claims we’re in for a whole lot more of this. Guess we’d better get used to it.”

Never,
he thought, but kept his mouth shut.

The evening rehearsal had turned into a complete disaster. Two actors hadn’t shown up—one woman claiming her car wouldn’t start, another staying home because he was recovering from a sprained ankle after slipping and falling on the ice. The other cast members were alternately cold or hot, depending upon the whims of the furnace, and only a few remembered their lines. The piano seemed out of tune, and there were the continuous problems with the lighting and sound systems.

By the time the two-hour rehearsal was over and the last of the would-be performers had left the theater, Jenna was ready to tear out her hair. She’d volunteered as the acting coach and after tonight, regretted the decision. Why had she agreed to help Rinda put on this production? What kind of masochist was she? Was she so desperate to fit into this community that she’d put herself through this torture for the next few weeks?
Never again,
she silently vowed as she and the rest of the staff were gathering their things and discussing the performance.

Blanche, at the piano near the stage, was picking up her things while Lynnetta, who was hemming a costume, sat in a back pew. Wes and Scott were presumably overhead, working on the faulty lights, while Jenna, Rinda, and Yolanda Fisher sat on the edge of the stage where once there had been a pulpit.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Blanche said, picking up her sheet music from the piano and pressing it into a folder.

“No,” Rinda said glumly. “‘Bad’ would be an improvement.”

Blanche zipped the sheet music into a leather briefcase. “Oh, that’s what you always say about this time in each production.”

“For what it’s worth, I agree.” Yolanda Fisher was wrapping a magenta-colored scarf around her short-cropped curls. Yolanda, a lithe Afro-American woman, gave dance lessons in the theater on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and sold insurance during the day. Tonight, she’d volunteered to help with the blocking. “It was worse than bad.” She swathed the ends of her scarf around her neck. “Pathetic’ would best describe it. Not that I’m criticizing.”

“Humph!” Blanche pursed lips tinged a washed-out red, as her lipstick had faded sometime during the first act. “What do you think, Jenna?”

“That we need divine intervention?”

Rinda and Yolanda laughed, and even Wes, hidden somewhere in the rafters as he worked on the lights, chuckled, but Lynnetta frowned as she broke the thread she’d been using with her teeth, and Scott, Rinda’s son, if he was still helping with the sound system, remained silent. Jenna felt her skin crawl a little, which was ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking toward the high ceiling with its darkened beams and hidden niches. Once there had been a choir balcony, crying room for young mothers with babies, and a couple of small closets in the converted attic space. Above the balcony, accessed by stairs, rose the belltower, a tall spire that, in Jenna’s estimation, should have been condemned twenty years earlier.

Blanche let out a puff of disgust. “I would think you all know this kind of thing just takes time and practice, practice, practice.” She pulled on her beret and a pair of leather gloves.

“You’re right,” Jenna agreed. “Practice will help.” Inwardly she thought they also needed a little more talent and a lot more dedication. However, this was a local production, the actors were unpaid, and the proceeds of the ticket sales were to be added to the fund to improve the theater and pay some of the staff, so no one could really complain.

Yolanda said, “I’m outta here. See y’all later,” as she made a quick exit out a side door to the parking lot.

Lynnetta jabbed her needle into a pincushion and folded the dress over her arm. “I think we should give the actors a break and chill out. Blanche is right. We all get nervous around this time.”

“Too true,” Rinda admitted as the furnace kicked into overdrive, rumbling loudly as it forced hot air through the ancient pipes. “Okay, let’s put this behind us. One step at a time. We rehearse again in two days. Let’s hope
all
the actors show up.”

“Oh, I’m sure they will.” Blanche took off her pink Keds and stepped into fur-lined suede boots that just covered her ankles. “Have faith!” She smiled then at her own little joke, though her lips didn’t seem to have any mirth as they stretched across her teeth. “Oh, I guess that line’s been said a time or two in here.” She slid her briefcase from the piano bench. “I’ll see you all in a couple of days. Seven o’clock, right?”

Rinda nodded. “Weather permitting.”

“Oh, honey, I don’t think the weather is going to permit anything this winter.” Blanche offered another flat smile and, heels of her boots clicking on the hardwood floor, left the theater.

“What’s her problem?” Wes called from overhead before he clomped down the stairs at the base of the belltower and appeared at a rear exit of the stage.

“She always tries to be upbeat,” Rinda said.

Jenna wasn’t sure. There was more to the piano teacher than met the eye. Blanche lived alone with five cats, three pianos, a house full of Depression glass, and stacks of paperback books. She’d been married, but no one knew if she was divorced, widowed, or just separated. Or if there ever really had been a husband or the son she’d alluded to occasionally. A talented musician, she was a little on the eccentric side. And, in Jenna’s estimation, not necessarily “upbeat.”

“I think we should all try to be more positive.” Lynnetta smoothed the dress she’d folded and placed it into a small athletic bag.

“Okay, okay.” Nodding, Rinda shoved her hair from her eyes. “You’re right. This is just the first real rehearsal—everyone will improve.” She glanced at her watch and her eyes widened. “Damn. It’s late. The dog’s been shut in the house all day. I’ve got to run.” Her gaze swept the theater. “Scott!” she yelled toward the rafters. “Let’s go.” There was no immediate response, and Rinda turned to her brother. “Wasn’t he with you?”

Wes nodded. “Earlier. But I haven’t seen him since the second act.”

“Scott!” Rinda yelled.

Jenna looked upward to all the darkened areas. “Hey, bud. Get a move on!”

Still no response.

“He didn’t leave, did he?” Rinda pushed herself off the stage and walked to one of the tall, arched windows. She found a clear spot in the stained glass and peered out to the darkened parking lot. “My car’s still outside.”

“He wouldn’t have left,” Lynnetta said, but she didn’t seem certain.

“Scott?” A note of worry sounded in Rinda’s voice. “Scott!”

“He was in the audio booth half an hour ago. I’ll go check.” Wes was already flying up the stairs and Jenna told herself there was no reason to get worked up. Scott was always out of step, just a little out of sync with the rest of the world. But Rinda was working her way up to an emotional point somewhere between irritation and panic.

“Not up here!” Wes called down over the speaker system, his voice reverberating through the vast room. “Scott…you’re M.I.A. and your mom wants to leave!”

“He’s got to be here,” Rinda said, heading for the stairs leading behind the stage to the basement dressing area when he appeared in the doorway. “Oh! God, you scared me,” Rinda cried, a hand flying up to cover her heart.

“I thought you were looking for me.” Scott’s pimply face was the picture of innocence. Around his neck dangled a set of headphones from which rap music was audible several feet away.

“I was, but…where the devil were you?”

“Downstairs, cleaning…isn’t that what you wanted me to do?”

“Oh…Well…Yes…I guess,” she said, slightly confused. “Look, it doesn’t matter, and it’s late—let’s get a move on…” Rinda’s anger dissipated as she threw on her coat and hat, then shepherded her son out the door.

Jenna grabbed her things and followed, leaving Wes and Lynnetta to lock up.

Outside, the night was calm, nerve-stretchingly so, only a few snowflakes falling from a dark, starless sky. Hands in her pockets, Jenna glanced back at the theater with its tall spire and narrow stained-glass windows and felt a chill as deep as the night. Her eyes were drawn upward, to the top of the tower and the sharp roof where once church bells had tolled. She saw a movement, a fleeting shadow, and had the strange feeling that something or someone was standing in the tower, hiding in the frigid darkness, staring down at her.

But that was nuts.

Paranoid.

No one was in the theater but Wes and Lynnetta…unless Wes had quickly climbed the rickety stairs to the top of the spire.