Deep Freeze (6 page)

“But it was in the large stage closet.”

“I know. I checked the closet.”

“I saw it here last week.” Convinced she could lay her hands on the garment in question, Jenna walked behind the stage to the area that had once housed the church’s office and minister’s quarters. Over the years it had been changed and remodeled to the point that it was a veritable rabbit warren cut into dressing rooms and closets. There were three makeup vanities with mirrors and a larger storage area for scenery and props. Old stairs led upward to a glassed-in office of sorts where the lighting and audio were controlled. The steep steps continued upward still and eventually opened onto the belltower which Rinda, who had bought the church, had never had the heart to tear down.

Jenna quickly flipped through the clothes on hangers in the main stage closet. Twice. The dress was definitely missing. “It’s got to have been misplaced,” she said, as much to convince herself as Rinda. She searched through a few smaller closets, hooks on the backs of doors, and large wicker hampers, but the sheath was nowhere to be found.

“How’s that for a mystery?” Rinda grumbled.

“What about under the stage?”

“That dust hasn’t been disturbed in years.”

“Someone must have ‘borrowed’ it.”

“Or stolen it.”

“The dress? Why?” she asked, but knew the answer.

“Because it was yours. In a movie. You still have fans, you know. Just because you quit making films doesn’t mean they all dried up and went away. I’m going to look on e-Bay. If someone isn’t keeping it for their private collection, then they’ll probably be trying to make some quick money off it.”

“On e-Bay?”

Rinda nodded. “You wouldn’t believe what people sell on there. I’ve heard of organ donations and one guy even tried to sell his soul, I think.”

Jenna laughed. “Someone paid for it?”

“Mmm. A guy named Lucifer, I think.”

“Give me a break!” She laughed, but felt a chill on the back of her arms, the premonition of something much worse than a missing costume.

Rinda must have had similar thoughts because her smile faded as they walked back to the office. “Some other things are missing, too. Things you donated. Remember I asked you about a bracelet and a pair of earrings a couple of weeks ago…”

“Yeah, but I figured they were just misplaced.”

Rinda’s scowl deepened.

Jenna cajoled, “Come on, you don’t really think they were stolen, that we’ve got a thief running around here?”

“I hope not. God, I hope not. The worst thing is, if someone did take the dress and the bracelets and other stuff, it’s someone we work with, someone who has a key to the theater.”

“Now you’re jumping off the deep end. It’s just temporarily lost,” Jenna insisted, trying not to let Rinda’s concerns infect her. She had enough problems to solve without worrying about a dress and a couple of pieces of jewelry that were missing. They’d turn up.

But all the stuff is yours. Whoever is doing this is taking things because they belonged to you.

“Don’t go there,” she muttered to herself.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

“Not a good sign. Anyway, I’m keeping a list of everything that’s ‘misplaced.’ I think I’ll talk to Shane about it.”

“Shane? As in the sheriff?” Jenna flashed back to her confrontation with the man less than an hour earlier. She felt her cheeks burn. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

She thought about fessing up, but said instead, “Get real. He has much bigger problems to solve, starting with the dead woman they found in the woods. Don’t bother him with this.”

“He’ll want to know.”

“Carter?” Was Rinda out of her mind? The sheriff was taciturn and gruff and no-nonsense. He wouldn’t want to be bothered with anything so petty as the missing items at the theater. She could imagine the mockery in his dark eyes if she approached him with the thefts. It would seem frivolous to him, she was certain.

“He’s an old friend of mine. Owes me a favor or two. I don’t know why you don’t like him.”

“It’s not a matter of liking him. I just don’t know him.”

“Because you haven’t tried.”

“Okay—if you have to know, he pulled me over this morning,” Jenna admitted. “Wrote me a citation.”

“For God’s sake, why didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t want to dwell on it, okay?” Jenna quickly explained about Carter busting her for the bad taillights. “He wasn’t exactly happy with me this morning, so I don’t think going to the sheriff’s department and complaining about a few missing items will endear me to him.”

“He was just doing his job.”

“When women are found dead and half the county is without power and the roads are iced over, he busts me for bad taillights?” Jenna was still burned.

“You should have told him you were a friend of mine.”

“Oh, yeah, that would have scored me major points,” Jenna mocked, remembering Carter’s stern countenance with the snow blowing all over him. “Let’s just cross Carter off my dance card, okay? That should be easy, since I don’t have one.”

Her cell phone chirped and she flipped it open. “Hello?” she said a little sharply.

“Mom?” Allie said, her voice worried. Jenna’s anger immediately dissipated. “Do you have my backpack?”

“No…well, maybe, I’m not in the truck. Did you leave it there?”

“I dunno, but could you bring it back to the school,
please
? It’s got my math homework in it and if I don’t turn it in today…”

“I’m on my way, Allie. Don’t worry.” She mentally crossed her fingers that the backpack was in the pickup and not left somewhere at home. “I’ll find it and leave it at the office.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“No problem,” Jenna said, relieved that her younger daughter’s sore throat seemed to have been forgotten. At least for the time being. “Gotta run,” she called over her shoulder. “A mini-crisis at the junior high.”

As she reached the door, it swung open and petite, lively Lynnetta Swaggert hurried inside. “Geez Louise! It’s freezing out there,” she complained, rubbing her hands together. Lynnetta, the wife of a local preacher, worked in an accounting office in town, but volunteered at the theater in her time off. Aside from keeping the books, she also altered and created costumes for the stage productions.

“It’s only gonna get worse,” Rinda predicted.

“Such happy news,” Lynnetta tossed back at her, then took one look at Jenna. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you later.”

“She’s on her way to be a ‘normal mom,’” Rinda teased.

Lynnetta chuckled, her hazel eyes glinting mischievously. “Is there such a thing?”

Probably not,
Jenna thought as she walked outside and hiked the collar of her jacket close to her neck. Lynnetta hadn’t been kidding about the weather. If anything, the temperature seemed to have tumbled another ten degrees in the short time Jenna had been inside the theater.

She blew on her hands, then whistled to Critter and climbed into the truck. Sure enough, there was Allie’s backpack, big as life and tucked behind the bench seat. “Ready for a little side trip?” she asked the dog. “Back to Harrington Junior High.”

The dog whined and Jenna patted his graying head as she pulled out of the lot. “Yeah, I know. I feel the same way.”

So she was finally leaving.

Good.

He was sitting in his truck, parked in a parking lot of the grocery store. Several other minivans, cars, and trucks were scattered over the snowy asphalt, but no one paid any attention to him. Through his windshield, he viewed the parking lot of the old church and watched as she maneuvered the old half-ton through the nearly empty city streets.

He didn’t waste any time but fired up his rig and drove out of the lot just in time to see her veer off the main road a few blocks ahead of him. He followed at a safe distance, a Ford Explorer and a feed truck between his vehicle and hers.

Still he caught glimpses of her, and he felt a thrill being this close, knowing she didn’t realize how near he was.

She doesn’t even know who you really are
.

“She will,” he said aloud and felt the familiar thrill that came with winter trembling through his blood. Being this close was dangerous, though he had an alibi in place if anyone noticed him here. That was the convenient thing about this town; he could walk and talk with the townsfolk and no one knew who he really was or what he really did. He was everyone’s friend and a stranger to them all. He watched as she drove into the parking lot of the junior high. He followed and slid into an empty space not too far away.

She didn’t notice.

So focused was she on her mission that she dashed into the school and didn’t realize he was nearby.

He licked his lips and caught the reflection of his eyes in the mirror.

Ice blue.

Intense.

Deadly.

But she didn’t know that.

Yet.

The school wasn’t far from the middle of town. Jenna parked and attempted to ignore the cold air that rushed through the schoolyard as she carried Allie’s backpack into the red-brick building. The first bell had already rung and kids who had clustered around the central commons area were shooting off in different directions, talking wildly, hurrying this way and that, laughing and teasing. Jenna didn’t see Allie in the group, but she did notice a knot of girls near the doors to the gym. They were staring at her and one was actually pointing.

You should be used to this by now. As long as there are DVDs and videos, someone’s going to realize who you are.
She smiled right at the kid and waved. The blonde who was pointing immediately dropped her hand, her cheeks suddenly flooding with color.

“Fame,” a male voice said, “a real pain sometimes, right?”

Jenna turned and found Travis Settler striding into the school. The father of Allie’s friend Dani, Travis was a widower who’d shown mild interest in her. They’d met a couple of times for coffee and even sat together during Back to School Night, much to her daughter’s dismay.

She remembered the conversation vividly.

“Mom, you
can’t
date Mr. Settler,” Allie had said, obviously mortified at the thought that her mother was seeing Dani’s father. Dani had been the one to spill the beans that Jenna and Travis had met at the local espresso house earlier in the day, and Allie had let Jenna have it with both barrels as they’d driven home from her school.

“And I can’t date Mr. Brennan, either,” Jenna had clarified as they’d driven through town.

“Right! You
can’t
date anyone. It’s too embarrassing!”

“I do have a life, you know,” Jenna had countered.

“But you’re already famous…and…kids have seen you in the movies and…well,” Allie had shrugged and blushed, then looked out the side window of the Jeep. “You know.”

“They’ve seen me almost naked on the screen.”

“Yeah!” Allie had said. “Do you know how weird that is?”

As a matter of fact, Jenna did. Every person she’d met in this small town had probably seen her in various states of undress either on the big screen or on televisions in the privacy of their living or bedrooms.

“So…you can’t go out with…Mr. Settler,” Allie, red-faced, had insisted. “He’s seen those movies. I know. I saw DVDs on his shelf.
Resurrection, Summer’s End, Beneath the Shadows, Bystander.
All of them! Even
Innocence Lost!
It was in the DVD player! How old were you when you were in that one, like fourteen?”

“Almost,” Jenna had admitted.

“
My
age. That is
so
creepy.”

Jenna hadn’t been able to argue with Allie’s logic.

Jenna had once been told by the owner of the local video store that any movies in which she had a part were impossible to keep on the shelves.

Allie had been right. It was creepy. Big-time creepy.

No matter how many times she rationalized that it was all part of what she’d done for a living, she’d never been comfortable with the fame and curiosity about her. Not here, at least. Every time she met a person in this town, whether it was the local bartender or the librarian, Jenna wondered what they were thinking and which, if any, of her movies they’d seen. In L.A. no one cared. Everyone was in the industry in one form or another. But here…in this tiny, provincial burg in Oregon, attitudes were different.

Now, staring up at Travis in the hallway of Harrington Junior High, Jenna said, “Believe me, fame’s a pain
all
the time.”

“And yet everyone tries to achieve it one way or another.”

“I guess.” They walked across the hallway to the glassed-in office. Travis held the door open for her. “Allie forget her backpack?” he asked. “Or is that yours?”

Jenna glanced down at the pack in question. It was unique—a canvas print in pink-and-purple camouflage and, in Jenna’s estimation, ugly as sin. Allie loved the damned thing because Robert had sent it to Oregon last Christmas. It had been delivered in a huge box, no doubt packed by Robert’s most recent wife, and filled with gifts Jenna suspected Robert had never seen. The backpack had been purchased at a spendy boutique on Rodeo Drive and probably had cost a small fortune. “No, this one isn’t mine,” Jenna said with a grin. “You were right on the first guess. This one belongs to my daughter. Mine is at home. It’s similar—camouflage, but trimmed in gold lamé. It’s for evening wear. I save it for important dates.” She offered him a smile and noticed that his blue eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Maybe we should go to dinner sometime. A big date. You can bring it along.”

“Wouldn’t be caught dead without it,” she said, handing Allie’s backpack to the secretary. “Will you see that Allison Kramer gets this?” she asked.

“No problem,” the secretary assured her as she took the pack and also an envelope Travis left for Dani. “Lunch money,” he explained to Jenna as they walked outside together. “She left it on the counter, and I thought I should just let her go hungry. Maybe then she’d remember, but…” He lifted a shoulder.

“You couldn’t do it.”

“Nah! Maybe next time.”

“Yeah, right,” she mocked as the icy bite of the wind blew across the playground that connected the junior high to the elementary school. Empty swings swayed, chains rattling with the gusts.

“They’re predicting the heaviest snow of the season tonight,” Travis said.

Jenna glanced at the leaden sky as they hurried to the parking lot. “I believe it.”

“Got time for a cup of coffee before the storm breaks?”

“I’d love one, but I’d better take a rain check. I’ve got some problems with my Jeep and pump and who-knows-what else.”

“Something I could help you with?”

Jenna grinned. “Careful,” she said, “you don’t know what you’re getting into.” She yanked open the door of her truck and Critter started wagging his tail wildly as she hoisted herself up behind the steering wheel. “But I might just take you up on it if Hans can’t fix the problem.”

“Do. Really.”

“Thanks. I will.”

She pulled the door shut and forced the old truck into gear before she maneuvered the big rig out of the icy parking lot. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Travis, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jacket, walking to his truck. He was fit and good-looking, with sharp features and eyes that didn’t miss much. His hair was a warm brown that, she suspected, lightened in the summer, and whatever baggage he carried around about being a single father, he managed to stash away somewhere. Jenna had heard it rumored he’d lost his wife to some disease, but she wasn’t sure if that was unfounded, small-town gossip or a hard-and-fast fact. Someday maybe he’d tell her.

If she gave him the chance.

“Come on, let’s ditch.” Josh’s arm was around her shoulders and his face was only inches from hers as they sat, smoking, in his pickup, a relic from the 1970s that he’d “cherried-out” with huge tires, chrome rims, mag wheels, and a stereo system that could almost blow the roof off the cab. The body of the truck was lifted so high that Cassie had to use the running board to climb inside. Josh thought it was cool. Cassie thought it was kind of stupid. “We’re already tardy,” he was saying. “Why not make it a day?”

“Cuz my mom will kill me,” Cassie argued. “I can explain why I’m late to class, come up with something, but if I miss the day, she’ll ground me for life!”

“She’s always grounding you,” he grumbled.

That was true, Cassie thought, dragging hard on her cigarette and letting the smoke curl out of her nose.

“You’ll talk your way out of it.”

“I already have to deal with last night.”

“Shit.” He rolled down his window and flicked out the butt of his Marlboro. “You should have been more careful.”

“We,”
she reminded him, trying to tamp down her anger.
“We
should have been more careful.” She glanced out the side-view window to the park, empty now, the playground equipment vacant, the trees bare of any leaves. “I probably shouldn’t have snuck out.”

“You had a good time, didn’t you?” He nuzzled her neck, lips brushing her nape, and she shrugged him off.

“It was all right.”

“No, babe, it was great.” He squeezed her to add emphasis to his position.

“Yeah,” she said, without any enthusiasm. She had enjoyed herself, she supposed, parked far up on the mountain, getting a nice little buzz from the weed and beer, but she still had a bad feeling about it. Not because she’d gotten caught. Not because she’d snuck out. But because of Josh. Sometimes…sometimes he came off like a real hick, and she thought that he might be more interested in her famous mother than he was in her. Unlike the girls in her class, who were obviously jealous. She sighed. In the eighteen months she’d lived here, she hadn’t made one single friend she could really count on. Aside from Josh. And sometimes he was questionable. In L.A. she’d had lots of girls she hung out with at the private school her father had insisted upon. Rich kids, some with famous families, most connected in some way to the film or music industry. Paige and Colby and Bella…real friends who understood. The yahoos in Falls Crossing all looked at her as if she were some kind of freak.

Maybe she was.

She shivered. Even though Josh had cranked the heat in the pickup to high, she was still cold. This damned weather and the stupid truck weren’t part of her fantasy date. In L.A. it would be warm. Maybe even hot. And she’d be sitting in a BMW or Range Rover or Mercedes convertible.
New
cars that didn’t need to be “tricked out.” They came with all the bells and whistles.

“I think we should drive up to Catwalk Point,” he said, and she felt her insides turn to ice.

“Why?”

“Haven’t you heard? They found a body up there.”

“And you want to go?”

“It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened around here in years. I think we should check it out.”

“No way.”

“Chicken?”

“There are cops up there, and we’d be caught for cutting class.”

“Not if we’re careful.”

“Forget it.”

“I can’t,” he said, and his eyes glinted with a bit of macabre excitement. She felt a frisson of fear—or was it intrigue?—skitter up her spine. But she couldn’t risk it. Not today. “Look, I’ve really got to go.” She squashed out her cigarette in the ashtray and pushed open the door.

“Oh, come
on
. Do you really want to go to chemistry and English?”

“No. I don’t.” Hopping onto the hard ground, she looked up at his hangdog expression. His hair was shaved nearly to his scalp, his sideburns pencil-thin, his goatee a shadow that was against school rules. He claimed his folks didn’t care about him, that his stepdad thought school was “a waste of time.” His mom, it seemed, had given up on her kids. College wasn’t in his future. Unless he joined the military. “I’ve really got to go.” Before he could argue, she walked briskly toward the school. She’d already missed the first class of the day, a fifteen-minute mini-period held for the express purpose of announcements and attendance, so she was screwed. The school would call her mother before noon. Great.

She cut through an alley and heard Josh’s truck scrape into gear, then the engine roar as he gunned it. His big tires chirped as he angrily headed out of town.

Well, fine! She didn’t look over her shoulder, just in case he could see her in his rearview mirror. No matter what her mother thought, Cassie didn’t always do what Josh wanted. God, it wasn’t as if she was under his spell or he was her Svengali or anything dumb like that. Sometimes her mom bugged the hell out of her.

She ran up the steps to the school.

Get a clue, Mom,
she thought disgustedly.
And while you’re at it, get a life!