Deep Freeze (14 page)

“Is she giving you the cold shoulder?”

“Make that a subzero shoulder,” Jenna groused, then wished she’d said nothing. What went on between her daughter and herself wasn’t anyone’s business but their own. However, there were times when Jenna needed someone to confide in, another parent who had dealt with teenagers, a mother who understood the frustration and worry of raising kids.

“You just don’t like her boyfriend,” Rinda charged as the furnace snapped on again and the steady movement of air filled the silence.

“That’s what Cassie says.”

“Is it true?” Rinda dumped the dregs of her coffee into a potted fern.

“What’s not to like? He smokes, drinks, does weed, I think, doesn’t work, and isn’t a great influence on my daughter. He’s going to graduate this year, I hope, if he doesn’t get kicked out for ditching class, and he can’t decide whether he wants to go to the local community college, join the Army, or take a job laying carpet for his uncle. All he thinks about is sex, drugs, alcohol, and getting into trouble.”

“So he’s like most eighteen-year-olds.”

“He’s nineteen and should be getting his act together.”

“Like you did?” Rinda said with a lift of one eyebrow, stretching one arm behind her head.

“At least I was working.”

“For a producer nearly twice your age who was taking advantage of you.”

“Robert wasn’t taking advantage of me. And I ended up marrying him,” Jenna said, before she heard herself and winced. “Oh God, I hope Cassie’s not thinking of marrying Josh.”

Rinda gave her a don’t-kid-a-kidder look. “It’s probably crossed her mind. Not that she’s serious.”

“But she’s got so much potential. She’s smart and pretty and…” Sighing, Jenna shook her head.

“Don’t you just love being a single mother?”

“I do—it’s being the heavy and the disciplinarian that I hate. The rest of it’s a piece of cake.”

“If you say so,” Rinda agreed, though her eyes had darkened, as if she were thinking of her son, Scott. “I kinda think it’s all a trial.”

“I’ve heard it gets better when they turn forty.”

Rinda laughed, but her smile was tenuous and didn’t chase the worry from her gaze. “Lesser women have raised children into adulthood. However, they weren’t dealing with this—” Rinda motioned toward the Ziploc bag on the desk. “Do you want me to go down to the sheriff’s office with you?”

“I don’t need a keeper.” Jenna grabbed the plastic bag and dropped it into her purse. At the thought of facing Sheriff Carter again, she withered inside. It was obvious he didn’t like her and had considered her last complaint frivolous.

No doubt he wouldn’t think much more of this one.

That was just too damned bad.

Sonja was shivering. Sluggish. Her blood felt as if it were congealing and there was a noise…a buzzing over the sound of some kind of music.

Where was she, and why the hell did she feel so woozy? She moved slightly but didn’t have control of her body…wait!

Her eyes flew open and she blinked hard, but it was still dark…or kind of. No…she was situated in the light, an intense, small circle of illumination, as if she were center stage beneath a spotlight while the surrounding area was pitch black.

Were there people just outside that small arc of light? People
watching
her, unseen eyes studying her? She tried to move and realized that she was naked and strapped into some kind of leather chair with a footrest and a headrest…a dentist’s chair—or one of those antiquated electric chairs she’d seen in the movies?

God, no, she thought, the cobwebs clearing from her mind with a fear so deep, she thought she might pass out again.

Or maybe she was still asleep.
Oh, Lord, please. Let this be a dream.
But what kind of weird dream was this? Her bare skin pressed hard against the cold leather. Her head was forced against the back of the chair, strapped tight, her mouth wrenched painfully open by clamps she couldn’t see.

Get me out of here!

And the feeling that she was being observed…
If you’re out there, please, PLEEEASE help me!
She strained to see, caught only glimpses of shadowy images in the surrounding area.

“Waking up?” A disembodied male voice said from somewhere in the darkness. Her body jumped within its tight constriction, causing sharp pain where her hands and legs were restrained. “We’ll have to fix that.”

Where are you, you bastard? Why the hell are you doing this to me?
She tried to talk, but her voice was just a squeak, her jaw immobile, and she remembered the abduction, her car not working…Oh God, where was the monster who had done this? Where? She glanced upward at an apparatus hanging over her head…the arm of an old dentist’s drill shining wickedly under the intense light. Her blood turned to ice as she stared at the cruel steel instrument.
Oh, God, no!

Her heart thudded.

Despite the chill, sweat broke out on her skin as she strained to move.

If she could only throw off these bonds and get out of here! Panic ripped through her. She flung herself against her shackles, struggling wildly to no avail. The buzzing intensified a second before the volume of the music increased…it was a song she should recognize…maybe from a movie, though she was too freaked out to think about it.

She had to get out of here. Now! Frantic, she attempted to twist in the chair, but could barely move, her muscles sluggish, the bands over her wrists and legs and chest holding her firmly, cutting into her flesh. For the first time she noticed a needle pressed into her skin and the long, snakelike plastic tube of the IV strapped to one wrist. Clear fluid slipped drop by drop into her bloodstream.

This was macabre. Surreal. A nightmare. Had to be.
Had
to be.

She tried to yell. To scream. To kick. To no avail.
Who are you, you sick bastard?

“It’s no use, Faye,” the disembodied voice said, seeming closer.

I’m not Faye
, she tried to tell him, her eyes moving wildly from one side to the other.
Oh, God, he’s got the wrong woman! This was all a horrid mistake! I’m Sonja! Can’t you see you’ve got the wrong woman, you son of a bitch? Let me go!

She caught a glimpse of movement in the darkness, someone slowly circling, moving just out of the perimeter of light.

Her skin crawled and she nearly peed herself.

This
couldn’t
be happening. She was tripped out somehow, that was it. And yet he circled closer, a tall male figure, all muscles and taut skin. Her eyes moved crazily from one side of her head to the other, trying to follow him.

Suddenly, as if dawn had somehow pierced this hellhole, light began to glow, radiating from the floor, illuminating the area surrounding her, allowing her to see that she was center stage and the others she’d felt near her, the people staring…no, not people, mannequins, naked, bald, and expressionless, had been placed strategically around her. Holes where eyes should be stared at her.

As if she were some sacrificial lamb on an altar.

She shriveled with dread.

What in God’s name was this?

“See them, Faye?” the disembodied voice said. “They’re waiting for you.”

I’m not Faye and these are dolls. They’re not waiting for anyone!

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. He was close, a muscular man who was completely naked. His body was scraped free of hair, like the mannequins, and a tight skullcap was pulled over his head.

She knew this monster. Had trusted him. And now, he rounded in front of her, wearing nothing but surgical gloves and an intense expression. In one hand he held scissors. In the other was a portable razor, buzzing loudly.

Her insides shredded as he lifted a lock of her hair and quickly clipped it off. The long blond lock fell to the floor. Involuntarily she started, but she couldn’t get away from him, couldn’t kick or claw or fight him, couldn’t scream.

You sick son of a bitch,
she silently yelled while the sightless mannequins watched as ever so slowly, he started cutting her hair. Clip, clip. Snip, snip. In time with the music.

Again she was reminded of the scenes in prison movies, where an inmate’s head is shaved before he’s executed. Oh, no…no…

As the buzzing became a roar near her ear and the empty-faced dolls looked on, she felt the first cold touch of the razor’s blade against her skin.

There was no escape.

“I’m sorry, Les…no word yet,” Shane said, and felt as if the weight of the world had been heaped upon his shoulders. “I’ve talked to the State Police. They’ve got nothing. Neither have my deputies. Nor the city guys. We checked with the nearest hospitals. Sonja wasn’t brought in. I’ve spoken with Lou Mueller, who said you talked to him as well, and his nephew, Chris Mueller, who helped Lou close up. Looks like they were the last people to have seen her.”

“What about the customers?” Lester asked, his voice edged with hope and something more, something darker.

“We’re looking into it. Lou’s given us names of the people he knew—the regulars—and we’ve got descriptions of a couple others as well as the credit card receipts. I’ve got deputies interviewing anyone who was at the diner last night and we’ve got a be-on-the-lookout-for bulletin out for Sonja’s Honda.” And so far they’d come up with nothing. The weather was against them, of course, the dogs unable to cover a lot of territory, the helicopters grounded, even the troopers with night-vision goggles unable to work well in the cold. “What we could use is the most recent picture of her you’ve got.”

“Okay. Anything else I can do?”

“Stay by the phone, talk to all of Sonja’s friends and relatives, and take care of yourself. I’ll send someone over.” It hadn’t been twenty-four hours since she’d last been seen, but Shane had a bad feeling about Sonja’s disappearance. It wasn’t like her. At all. Lester had sworn that they hadn’t had a fight, and even if they had, would she take off in the middle of the worst storm in half a century? Nah, that didn’t make sense. Lou, at the diner, had told a deputy that Sonja hadn’t seemed out of sorts or worried or anything out of the ordinary. He’d thought she was going straight home after work, but hadn’t seen her leave, just noted that her car was gone when he’d taken off.

Not good.

Not good at all.

“Thanks, Shane.” Les’s voice trembled a bit and then there was a
click
as he hung up.

Shane stared at the phone. “Son of a bitch.” What had happened to Sonja Hatchell? He finished his second cup of coffee, wadded the paper cup in his fist, and dispatched a deputy over to the Hatchell house. His job here in Lewis County was usually filled more with meetings, red tape, and small-time crime than anything else. There were drug busts, traffic accidents, DUIs, underage kids partying, and a fair share of vandalism. Of course, his deputies had been called out on domestic violence disputes, but usually the charges were dropped before the parties headed for court. His department had helped break up a meth lab ring two years back, and there had been a chop shop in East County that they’d helped shut down, but dead women didn’t roll out of hollow logs, nor did citizens go missing.

Until now. He glanced out one of his windows. Over the tops of buildings, steely gray clouds moved slowly. Ominous and deadly. Life had changed here in Falls Crossing. And not for the better.

He glanced through the open blinds of his office. The department was a madhouse. Phones jangled and overworked deputies bustled inside to file reports and book prisoners, just having time to stamp the snow from their boots and warm their near-frozen fingers around cups of coffee before hitting the icy streets again. There were more accidents and reports of power outages and falling tree limbs. The hospital was crammed, the ER a zoo. And Amanda Pratt, ever the ambitious Assistant D.A., was riding his butt about the woman found on Catwalk Point. She’d e-mailed twice and called once, wanting more information. And then there was the press, already calling, and one local reporter, Roxie Olmstead, who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

Carter was about to phone Lieutenant Sparks when he noticed a familiar figure wending her way through the cubicles. Though she wasn’t very tall, it was hard to miss Jenna Hughes when she breezed into a room. She was bundled in a thick ski jacket and tight-fitting ski pants tucked into slim boots. Heads swivelled as she walked by. Carter wasn’t immune himself and noticed the way her stretchy pants hugged her hips, thighs, and calves. She was just damned sexy without seeming to care.

He hung up the phone without dialing. Through the blinds, Carter observed her glance in his direction, then stop at his secretary’s desk.
Jenna Hughes was getting to be a regular around here
, he thought, as he watched her try to finagle her way past Jerri.

With everything else going on in the county, he didn’t need nor want the distraction of the Hollywood Princess. No matter what her problem. But like it or not, he was going to get her. He stood as Jerri tapped on the door and poked her head inside. “Jenna Hughes is here and would like to talk to you.” Jerri didn’t look any too pleased. But then, these days, she rarely did.

“Send her in.”

Barely were the words past his lips before Jenna strode into the room. He tried not to notice that without much makeup, or the soft focus of the camera lens, or special lighting, she was still a knockout. Great. Just what he needed.

“Get those taillights fixed?” he asked, and was rewarded with a harsh glare.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I did.”

“Glad to hear it.” Waving her toward one of the chairs facing his desk, he said, “Have a seat.”

She dropped into a side chair as she tugged off a wool cap and her gloves. A long braid of black hair fell past her shoulders. “Look, I really hate to bother you. Really. I know you’re busy. It’s got to be a madhouse here with the storms.”

“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.”