Deep Freeze (36 page)

Technically, it wasn’t breaking and entering.

He had a key.

The key Wes Allen had given Carolyn years before, and it was now in the front pocket of Shane Carter’s jeans.

But you don’t have a search warrant. Anything you find will be thrown out of court. You’ll lose your job.

Carter had wrestled with that decision for nearly four days, ever since the night Lynnetta Swaggert had been abducted. He had hoped to gather enough evidence against Wes, to get the damned search warrant, but then Amanda Pratt and her boss, the D.A., hadn’t been impressed with the fact that Wes Allen dabbled in art, knew Jenna, had bought or rented all of her films on DVD or tape. And Wes had no link to Leo Ruskin, the Leary-esque poet from L.A. who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Even Shane had known the evidence was thin at best, and his gut instinct didn’t count for much. Besides, there was that little matter of a personal vendetta Amanda Pratt had brought up.

“Isn’t this guy a friend of yours…oh!” Sitting on the edge of her desk, legs swinging, she’d snapped her fingers as if struck by a sudden bolt of insight. “Wait a minute…this was the guy that had an affair with your wife, right? The one you, in a fit of rage, swore to kill? Isn’t this the reason they suggested you go to counseling, to deal with your grief and rage? I think this little incident nearly cost you your job.”

“That was a long time ago,” Carter had said.

“And they always say something to the effect that revenge tastes best when served up cold.”

She hadn’t budged, so here he was, hours later, parked on an old logging road a quarter of a mile from Wes’s farmhouse, hankering for a cigarette and contemplating breaking the law and losing everything he’d worked for all his life.

Because of a gut instinct.

And because he was losing his perspective when it came to Jenna Hughes. What had Dr. Randall observed about him, that he was the kind of person who basically shot himself in the foot, who always found a way to thwart himself? Hence, Carolyn. Now…his job.

Tough, he thought, climbing out of his truck and making his way through the woods. He was wearing a pair of boots that were a size too big, a pair that had been left by Wes himself at Carter’s cabin years ago. Fitting, Carter thought with a trace of irony. The boots were a common brand, the favorite of hunters and hikers in the Northwest. Hard to trace. Carefully, he walked through the woods, using a flashlight, grateful for the lull in the blizzard that had been ripping through the gorge. He knew the deer trails well, had followed them while hunting as a kid, he and Wes and David together.

It had been years ago. Carter hadn’t been through this part of the forest since the day David Landis had fallen to his death while trying to climb Pious Falls. But the terrain hadn’t changed much—the forest still remained, and Carter skirted the falls, now solidly frozen pillars that stretched from the ridge overhead to the pool of ice at his feet.

The night was quiet. Eerily so. Without the cascading rush of water tumbling over the cliffs or the wind howling through the canyon cut by the Columbia River, the forest held a silence all its own. A bit of moon peeked through the thick clouds, but the stars were obscured, as if they didn’t want to witness his crime.

Sometimes a man had no choice but to take the law into his own hands. That’s just the way it was.

Angling down the hillside, he recognized Wes’s home, visible through the trees, one tall security lamp lighting the small farm with its ancient farmhouse and cavernous barn. Wes’s truck was missing, which wasn’t a surprise as Carter had spied it parked in front of the Lucky Seven Saloon, a favorite watering hole just outside of town. Wes usually spent a couple of hours there each night that the Trail Blazers played; Carter was gambling that his pattern wouldn’t change tonight. The game had started an hour earlier, which should leave plenty of time. Unless Wes didn’t stay through the fourth quarter.

Carter had considered enlisting BJ, telling her to stay at the bar and sip beer, making sure that Wes stayed firmly seated upon his bar stool. But BJ would have started asking questions, and then he would have involved her in something if not strictly illegal, then certainly borderline. No, he was better going it alone.

Pausing to double-check that no one was lingering on the farm, he leaned against the trunk of a Douglas fir that had somehow escaped the logger’s axe and watched his breath fog in the still night. Headlights flashed along the highway in the distance, few and far between. Somewhere a train rumbled on distant tracks, but no dog was barking. The two-storied farmhouse with its wide porches, steep roof, and peeling paint was dark and appeared deserted.

“It’s now or never,” he told himself and circled through the woods to the barn, where he stopped and listened for the sound of a dog or other animal, but no noises erupted, no startled neigh, no sharp, warning bark. Through a sagging gate and up the back porch he crept, as he had often years ago.

Before Wes and Carolyn had become lovers.

Jaw set, he climbed up two steps to the porch and reached the back door. He pulled off one glove with his teeth, then using his exposed hand, extracted his wallet from his pocket and removed the key.

In a second it slipped easily into the old lock and turned. Carter winced, bracing himself for the sound of an alarm that Wes could have installed in the past few years. The lock clicked and no other noises erupted.

So far, so good.

He left the boots on the porch; then, in stocking feet, he slipped through hallways that had been, years before, familiar.

The smell of the house hadn’t changed, and he noticed a row of empty, sixteen-ounce bottles of Coors on the counter. The furniture—a hodgepodge that suited Wes and no woman would claim—was the same, a little dusty, but no clutter in the living room with its dueling recliners, long couch, big-screen and surround-sound TV.

Floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he searched each room, sweeping the beam of his flashlight across a dining room table with a dried centerpiece that had to be ten years old, dust collecting on the once-glossy wood, then into the small room by the stairs, a parlor Wes used as an office. Along the wide top of the desk, next to a state-of-the-art computer, were neat stacks of mail. Bills in one pile, newspapers in another, magazines in a third. Nothing looked out of the ordinary; the bills were for utilities and such, offers of credit cards at great rates, the magazines ranging from
Popular Science
and
Hunter’s World
to
Playboy
and
Penthouse.

The computer was on standby…and with a touch of one key, glowed to life. Carter checked the time. He’d been inside ten minutes—he’d only allow himself another ten just in case Wes got bored with the game.

Since he was using Wes Allen’s computer, access was a snap, all preprogrammed. Carter glanced at Wes’s most recent visits: e-Bay and Jenna Hughes’s Web site were at the top of the list, and a check through Wes’s list of favorite or bookmarked sites, again had not only e-Bay and Jenna Hughes, but her fan sites and porn sites sprinkled in with pages dedicated to basketball, electronics, home repair, and art. Carter copied the list, sent it to himself, then deleted the sent mail. If Wes were clever, and dug deeper, he’d figure it out, but Carter was betting that Wes Allen would never know he’d had a visitor.

The digital time readout on the monitor warned him that his allotted time was nearly exhausted. After wiping the keyboard clean, Carter quickly made his way up the stairs and walked through two small, cold bedrooms filled with extra furniture and clothes, unused for any purpose, including guests, from the looks of it. Stacked boxes on extra tables, chairs and a bed without a mattress, empty closets. A quick check revealed that the boxes were filled with old papers, tax information and the like, not what Carter was looking for.

He left the extra bedrooms undisturbed, then swept through a single, utilitarian bathroom and, finally, Wes Allen’s bedroom. It was as stark and uncluttered as the rest of the house, a braided rug supporting a cast-iron bed, a solitary bureau that also served as a TV stand, and a night table where a lamp, reading glasses, box of tissues, and remote control had been placed. Neat. Tidy. Everything in order. Almost as if Wes had expected company.

Carter checked his watch. The fourth quarter would be about over unless there was overtime involved. He had to move fast.

He quickly searched the closet, found nothing, opened the bedside drawer, and his breath caught in his throat as he shined his flashlight into the interior. The drawer was empty, aside from a few pieces of jewelry and a stack of snapshots.

Of Carolyn
.

Bile rose in the back of his throat as he quickly sorted through the Polaroids.

Pictures of Carolyn laughing, clowning, pointing, or biting her lip. Photographs of her in jeans and sweaters, in a bikini, in a lacy teddy. Snapshots of her wading in the river, seated behind the wheel of Wes’s truck, on a bed with rumpled sheets.

Carter closed his eyes and let out his breath. “Son of a bitch.” His back teeth ground so hard his chin ached. “Son of a goddamned bitch!”

The old, hot pain of betrayal cut through his brain.

What did you expect when you went snooping?

Had this been a fool’s mission? A personal vendetta, as Amanda Pratt had suggested? Is this what he’d really been searching for?

He thought about burning the pictures, then set them in the drawer and closed it.

This search wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about Carolyn. It was about Jenna Hughes and protecting her. And he’d come up empty-handed.

So far.

Yet he couldn’t leave the pictures of Carolyn lying there. Silently telling himself he was a damned fool, he pocketed the full set of shots. Let Wes discover them missing. What could he do? Come down to the station and accuse Carter of the theft of snapshots of his wife?

Without second-guessing himself, he made his way downstairs and nearly jumped out of his skin as a grandfather clock near the front door began to chime the hour. He looked in every closet and cupboard and bookcase as he made his way to the back door and locked it behind him.
Get a move on. There isn’t much time. Don’t push your luck.

On the porch, he pulled on boots and walked outside. He spied the cellar entrance, an exterior door that led to the basement. Locked. With a path of broken snow leading toward it.

He’d noticed a set of keys in a drawer by the back door.

Though time was ticking off quickly, he couldn’t come this far, take this much of a risk, and not follow through. As swiftly as possible, Carter retraced his steps, grabbed the key ring, and made his way to the cellar door. In all the years he’d known Wes Allen, he’d never once crossed this threshold.

Carter tried six keys before the seventh slid into the lock and it sprang open. Using the beam of his flashlight as his guide, he stepped carefully inside, pulled the doors shut, and started down the ancient wooden steps to a dank, brick-lined basement just deep enough for him to stand. The thin beam of his flashlight exposed old jars, tools, unused hunting and fishing gear, rubber waders, a canoe that had seen better days.

Nothing.

He stepped farther inside, breathing slowly, trying not to consider the seconds ticking by. He swept the flashlight slowly into every cranny, the yellow beam washing over cobweb-laden beams, crumbling mortar, and around a corner to another door, this one padlocked.

What the hell?

Carter checked his watch. His time was up. More than up. But he couldn’t stop now. It took several tries, but he found the right key, the lock gave way, and he pushed open the door and flipped on a light switch near the door.

He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

Got ya
, he thought, with a needle-sharp sense of satisfaction. This small room was a shrine, a goddamned altar to Jenna Hughes.

As dirty as the rest of the cellar was, this room was pristine, the walls recently Sheetrocked and painted a soft gold, the floor carpeted, a television mounted in one wall, a VCR and DVD set up with surround sound, video camera, tripod, digital camera, a space heater set on the floor near a bookcase filled with videos, DVDs, and pictures of Jenna Hughes. Everywhere. In frames, or pinned to the wall, between candles, and among bracelets and necklaces, hair clips and garters. A short black wig was mounted on a Styrofoam head. Earrings glittered on the arm of the only piece of furniture in the room, a red leather recliner, facing the screen.

Using his handkerchief, he picked up a tiara. It looked familiar. Had Jenna worn something like this in
Innocence Lost
, when she’d played the teenaged prostitute? Were the earrings like those that had sparkled in the ears of Paris Knowlton, the role Jenna had played in
Beneath the Shadows?

Carter had seen enough of her movies recently. He should remember. He checked his watch and frowned. He’d stayed too late.

He started to leave, the beam of his flashlight illuminating the videos and DVDs, titles he equated with porn or Jenna Hughes. Wes Allen’s very private theater. Carter hated to think what Wes did while he watched.

He was about to leave when the beam of his flashlight slid over a black video case that didn’t have a printed spine. His gut slammed hard against his diaphragm. A labeler had been used to identify the homemade film: CAROLYN.

“Shit!” Carter reached for the video, intent on putting it into his pocket or smashing it into a million pieces. But he couldn’t. Not if he wanted to nail Wes, and damn it, he wanted to nail Wes Allen in the worst possible way. If for nothing else, then the pornography. Curiosity about what was on the damn tape burned through his brain and his guts ground.

He couldn’t compromise the collar. Couldn’t.

But he slipped the video into his pocket.

It was time to get the hell out of here.