Deep Freeze (44 page)

The tracks were half covered with fresh snow, but she noticed several sets leading to the stable, or the fence line, or the barn. Big footprints. Made by Turnquist as he perused the property.

A fine lotta good that did,
she thought angrily, when she noticed the smaller prints, nearly buried, heading straight to the barn. Her heart galumphed. Allie…the footprints had to belong to Allie, and beside the girl’s tracks, those belonging to some animal. The dog? There was also a larger set. Hopefully belonging to Turnquist.

Help me,
she thought, and started following the footprints, the beam of her flashlight illuminating her path. Her heart was jackhammering with dread, adrenaline rushing through her bloodstream. What if the bastard had her daughters? She thought fleetingly of Sonja Hatchell, Lynnetta Swaggert, and Roxie Olmstead, all strong adults and probably up against the same sick son of a bitch that had taken her girls. Dread settled like lead in her heart. Her fingers clenched harder over the shotgun.

Would she be able to shoot the creep?

If he had her kids—no problem.

What if he used Allie as a shield?

She’d have to find a way to get her daughter free.

What if Allie and Cassie are already dead?

She wouldn’t even go there. Setting her jaw, she trudged through the knee-deep snow to the window and peered carefully into the darkened barn. She used it only for storage now. She’d never owned cattle or sheep; her horses were housed in the stable.

She saw nothing but blackness through the icy panes, heard no sign of life. But the footsteps had ended at the barn door.

Drawing a deep breath, she clicked off her flashlight. There was no reason to draw any more attention to herself or make herself an easier target than she already was. If someone was waiting for her inside, she wanted to level the playing field a little.

And then she glanced at the snow near the door again and her hopes plummeted. A splatter of dark spots, partially covered by half an inch of white, oozing stains that had melted the snow and were now being covered by new flakes.

Bird droppings,
she told herself but knew better. One quick burst of illumination from her flashlight confirmed it.
Blood. Deep red splotches of blood.

Her insides curdled with fear. Images of her daughters came to mind, and she forced herself to push onward. Maybe they were only wounded…she could help them. Fear driving her forward, she pried open a side door and it creaked softly, the sound muted by the wind.

She slipped into the barn and wished she’d picked up Turnquist’s night vision goggles, the ones she’d spied upon his coffee table.
Too late now
. The scent of dry hay and dust tickled her nostrils and over the sound of wind whistling through a crack in a window, she heard something…something quiet and steady and out of place.

Safety still locked, she hoisted her shotgun to her shoulder.

Inching her way around the old, empty mangers, she squinted into the darkness, spying shadows of tools and grain sacks and images that seemed ghostly in the gloom. Only pale light from the whiteness outside the small windows gave any visibility. The shotgun was heavy and the sound she couldn’t identify, the noise that was out of place in this old barn seemed closer, still soft and muffled, but definitely human.

Her throat went dry.

She wasn’t alone.

A low, frightening growl reverberated through the cavernous barn. Jenna almost dropped her gun as she spun to face the noise.

A dog barked loudly. Jenna’s heart was in her throat as scrambling, frantic claws scraped against the floorboards.

“Critter, no!” Allie’s panic-stricken voice shouted from the corner near the stairs to the hayloft.

“Allie?” Jenna nearly collapsed in relief. She headed toward the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Allie? It’s Mom. I’m here.” She flicked on the beam of her flashlight, shining it on her own face before sweeping the weak illumination toward the wall.

“Mom?” Fear strangled her daughter’s voice. “Oh, Mom!”

To hell with being a target—Jenna ran toward the sound, Critter nearly tripping her in his eagerness. Her flashlight swept one of the stalls and there was Allie, curled into a fetal position, rocking back and forth, tears running down her face. She jettisoned herself toward Jenna. The shotgun clattered to the floor as Jenna threw her arms around her child.

Gasping, sobbing, quivering head to toe, Allie clung to her.

“Shhh…baby…” Jenna said. “It’s all right, I’m here.”

“No…no…” Allie’s voice was garbled, her face white, her eyes round in the darkness.

“Are you all right?” It was a ridiculous question. Allie, though showing no signs of physical wounds, was nearly hysterical.

“Where’s Cassie?” Jenna whispered, holding her daughter close and remembering the blood.

“With…with…him.” Hiccupping and sobbing, Allie seemed barely able to breathe.

“Shh, honey, calm down. We’re okay. Now, who’s Cassie with? Turnquist? Or Josh?”

Allie was shaking so violently, Jenna had to brace herself against a pillar supporting the haymow to stay upright. Critter, too, was anxious, whining and growling, pacing. The barn was cold as a meat locker and there was a smell that was out of place.

“No,” Allie insisted hysterically. “Not with Josh, with
him
. With
him!
”

“Who?” Jenna asked, but her heart sank and icy blades of fear sliced deep into her soul. No…oh, God, no…not the pervert who had been stalking her. She glanced out one of the small windows and prayed for headlights, some indication that the police were on their way. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s go back to the house.”

“No!” Allie sniffed and clung harder. “He’s there,” she whispered frantically. “He’s waiting.”

“He’s where?” Jenna asked, her skin prickling.

“In the house.”

Jenna’s stomach twisted.
Rinda
. “But I was just there, I searched it top to bottom. Listen, you have to be brave. Let go of me for a second.”

“No!”

“I need to call the house and get the shotgun. Come on, Allie…I’m right here.” Gently she peeled her daughter off her and bent down to retrieve the shotgun. “You hold the flashlight, okay?”

“Y-yeah.”

Fumbling, Jenna extracted the phone from her pocket and flipped it open. The battery was low, but she hit the speed-dial number for her house.

One ring.

What was dripping? That sound. Now that Allie had quieted, there was another noise. A plop, plop…

Two rings.

And the smell…what the devil was that smell? Copper? Iron? Some kind of metallic tinge in the air?

Three rings. Why wasn’t she answering? Panic assaulted her. Was Allie right? Was the monster in her house, waiting?

Oh, no, please, not Rinda.
“Answer, damn it.”

Four rings and her own voice answered. “Rinda, pick up!” she whispered over the recording. “Pick up the damned phone!” Critter was whining, dancing beside her and she gave up. Hung up and dialed Shane Carter’s cell.

“Carter.” He answered on the first ring.

“It’s Jenna. Get out here. Cassie and Turnquist are missing. There’s blood around the barn and…”

Plop!

“What? I’m five minutes away.”

“That might be too long!” she said, and noticed the floor, where the flashlight shined on the boards, paw prints and footprints in a crazy pattern of red…

“Oh, God,” she whispered, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear as she took the flashlight from her daughter and focused its weak beam on the trail of bloody paw prints…backward toward the rear wall where a wide, dark pool was slowly spreading, oozing over the ancient floorboards.

Terror gripped her. She swallowed hard as she slowly moved the flashlight, raising the beam upward, and saw a body swinging from a crossbeam.

Her scream reverberated through the barn, her face twisted in horror as she recognized the victim. Stripped naked and eviscerated, Jake Turnquist had been gutted like a deer on a hunting trip. His body was white, drained, a vicious, gory slash running the length of his body. Entrails, still steaming, were piled on the floor in a slippery, grotesque mass.

Jenna dropped the phone. Allie, clinging to her, was screaming again, losing it.

Jenna’s stomach convulsed.

She retched violently at the horrid, grisly sight.

Who was the butcher who had done this? Did he have Cassie? Breathing hard, fighting the mind-numbing horror, she scrabbled on the floor, into the wet puddle, her hands sticky with the bodyguard’s blood. “Shane!” she cried, but the cell phone connection was lost. She managed to grab the slippery phone, the gun, the flashlight, and Allie’s arm, smearing blood everywhere. “Let’s get out of here.” Propelling her daughter toward a rear cattle entrance, she started running. If they could get to the garage and the Jeep…

She slid open the big door and stepped outside to the quiet night. Pulling Allie with her, Jenna turned off the flashlight, then started running, plunging through the knee-deep snow. She had the phone in one hand and punched out 9–1-1. The more police she could get here, the better. Critter bounded behind, gasping, keeping up as the snow continued to fall.

Rinda! She couldn’t leave Rinda!

But the creep had Cassie.

She didn’t think he was in the house. She’d come from the house and there were no fresh footprints leading in that direction, no freshly broken path through the frigid white blanket. Jenna’s gaze swept the ground and saw only her own trail, already softening with the onslaught of fresh snowflakes.

Get a grip, Jenna. Pull yourself together. You have to find a way to keep Allie safe while finding Cassie.

How? Oh, God,
how?
She needed help.

Shane Carter, get here, now!

Why the hell wasn’t the phone connecting? Why was there no sound, no beep of life from the electronic contraption? Had the drop on the floor in the barn, the slide through a coagulating, warm pool of blood somehow short-circuited the damned thing? Or was it because thousands of calls were overloading the cell phone towers.
Maybe it’s just an overload of the circuits. Keep trying!

She was still dragging Allie, trudging through the snow, blinking against the icy crystals stinging her cheeks as the dog bounded ahead.

Come on, come on…where the hell are the police?

Carter said he’d send a unit.

The garage was only a few feet away and the keys were in the Jeep, weren’t they? If not, there was a spare set hidden in a drawer in the garage.

Suddenly, Critter stopped dead in his tracks. The hackles on his back went up and he snarled, baring his teeth.

Jenna slid to a stop. Held fiercely onto her child. Through the viscous curtain, she thought she saw movement. Her heart stood still. Every nerve ending sprang to life and she squinted and decided it was only the dark silhouette of a tree, branches moving in the wind.

“Come on, Allie,” she said, urging her daughter forward.

She didn’t hear a sound, just felt a change in the air, a whisper of cold air against the back of her nape. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement again, a dark, leonine mass springing from behind the garage.

Allie screamed.

Jenna swung the shotgun upward, flicked off the safety as he landed upon her, a strong, heavy male whose weight forced her to the ground.

“Run!” she screamed at Allie. She attempted to stand, searching frantically in the drifts for her gun, facing her attacker as the dog barked and snapped. Dressed in camouflage that was visible in the snow, his head covered with a ski mask, he lunged at her again. She rolled to one side through the freezing drifts. “Run!”

She felt the barrel of the gun and reached for it, gloved fingers surrounding the cold steel. But he was upon her again. This time something cold pressed hard against her neck and then a jolt ripped through her body, thousands of volts of electricity that burned through her nerves. She let out a pathetic whimper and collapsed back to the ground.

Carter was too late. He pulled through the open gates of Jenna’s ranch and he knew it was over. He’d heard her terrified scream on her phone and then the still, damning silence that had followed. No matter how loud he’d yelled, she hadn’t responded. When he’d tried to dial her again, he couldn’t get through.

A lifetime had passed since the moment they’d been cut off, but if he checked his watch, it had been less than ten minutes.
Don’t give up
, he told himself, but now that he was here at her house, he knew without stepping outside of his truck that he’d lost her. He put in a quick call for backup, but didn’t wait. Time was too precious.

His gut clenched as he opened the Blazer’s door and a blast of winter slapped him hard in the face. He ran through the thick snow to the house and noticed a glow in the windows. Maybe he’d been too hasty; there was a chance she’d survived. Drawing his weapon, he moved toward the breezeway and hurried to the house. The back door was unlocked. Not a good sign. He pushed it open and stepped quietly inside.

No one greeted him, not even the damned dog. “Jenna?” he called. “It’s Shane.”

From somewhere in the back of the house he heard a sob.

“Shane?” Rinda’s voice. “Thank God.” Footsteps clattered against the wood of the floors. “I thought you’d never get here!” A flashlight bobbed, the weak beam pointed at his face, and suddenly she was upon him, crying and sobbing, talking in gibberish, Jenna’s youngest child at her side.

“Slow down and tell me exactly what happened. Where the hell’s Turnquist?”

“Dead, I think, in the barn. I—I haven’t been down there, but Allie was.”

“You’re sure he’s dead?” Shane asked Allie, and she nodded mutely, her eyes round with terror.

A cold, certain fear twisted Carter’s insides.

“It’s worse,” Rinda said. “Josh Sykes is dead, too. In his truck down on the other side of the fence, at the logging road. Allie followed Cassie after she snuck out to meet Josh there. She witnessed the killer attack Cassie. He’d already killed Josh. The poor kid’s still in his truck. Dead.”

“You checked?”

“No. But I took her word for it.”

“He’s dead. I saw,” Allie whispered, her voice raw.

“And Cassie?”

Allie began to cry. “I shouldn’t have left her. He had her. He had her!”

“He’s got them, Shane,” Rinda said, her face twisted in a deep, horrified fury. Her dark eyes flashed in the firelight. “That brutal monster, whoever he is, has Cassie and Jenna.”

“You don’t know who he is?”

“I never saw him, but Allie did.”

Shane turned his attention on the young girl, who stared at him with wide, traumatized eyes. Her head was still moving up and down, not so much in confirmation, but because she couldn’t stop it, an involuntary twitch that somehow soothed her. “Can you tell me what happened here?” he asked, and her lower lip began to quiver. “Allie, please.” He touched her on her shoulder. “I won’t be able to help your mother until you tell me what happened. Did you see the man who did this?”

She nodded. Tears filled her eyes.

“Did you recognize him?”

She hesitated. Shook her head.

“Think, Allie,” he said, gently. “Do you know who he is?”

“No…but…but…” She bit her lip. “He knew my name. And his voice…” She swallowed hard. “I think I
should
know him.”

“Can you describe him?”

Her chin wobbled and she glanced at Rinda. “Come on, honey, try.”

“He was big.”

“As tall as me?”

“But bigger…he wore a ski mask. Camouflage…It was dark and I was far away when he got Cassie and—” She was talking faster now, her voice pitching higher, nearly hyperventilating. “—and I ran back and I ran into the barn and that’s when…that’s when I saw Jake and I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed in the barn, away…away from Jake, and Critter was with me and then my mom finally came.” Sobbing hysterically, her face twisted in despair, she added, “And now she’s gone!” Sniffing and swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, she stared into his eyes. “You have to find them, Sheriff. You
have
to.”

“I know. I will,” he promised, his gaze flicking to Rinda’s. What were the chances that Cassie was still alive? Or Jenna? Through the window, he saw flashing lights, strobing red and blue through the ever-falling snow. His backup had arrived.

But it was too damned late.

Cassie shivered, the cold permeating her skin. She ached all over and tried to move. Couldn’t. Her eyes flew open and she panicked. Where the hell was she? Suspended in the air, six or eight feet above a huge vat of some clear liquid. What the hell?

Worse yet, she was naked. Completely nude…and what the hell had happened to her hair? The bastard had removed her clothes and then…what? Shaved her head. Strapped her onto this tiny little platform and tied her wrists over her head? To what end? Oh, God, this was crazy! Everything about it was so goddamned frightening. Through the thickness in her mind, she remembered seeing Josh in his truck, the lifeblood trickling out of him, and Allie running through the woods and that horrid jolt of electricity by the madman, a man she swore she knew, though she hadn’t seen his face.

Quaking with a fear unlike any she’d ever known, she began to breathe in short, shallow breaths. She wanted to pass out, to close her eyes and fall into some deep sleep and wake up in her own bed, with Josh alive, her mother in the next room, her little sister bugging her…She let out a sob, then bit her tongue. She couldn’t give in to the sheer panic overriding all of her rational thought.

No. She had to think. To find a way out of this ungodly terror.
Calm down, Cass. Figure this out. Don’t panic. Do NOT panic.
She took a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings. The psycho wasn’t around right now; at least she couldn’t see him.

She had to get out of this spaced-out nightmare. So where was she?

Nearly immobile, she forced her gaze downward.

Dim lights glowed and she made out statues in various poses on a stage below, to one side, and a long recliner nearby with some kind of steel arm angled above it.

She squinted, tried to clear her head. The statues weren’t random, nor were they just women, she realized, and a new weird fear skittered down her spine. All the statues looked like her mom. Or her mother dressed and made up for some of her most famous roles.

No, that couldn’t be right, didn’t make any sense.

What about this does make sense?

She had to be tripping or something…That was it. She tried hard to focus, and even though her brain was thick as mud, the lighting subdued, she recognized the characters…Paris Knowlton from
Beneath the Shadows
, Faye Tyler from
Bystander
, Zoey Trammel from
A Silent Snow
, Marnie Sylvane from
Summer’s End
, all dressed as they had appeared in the movies, complete with jewelry and props, their hairstyles perfect replicas of each character’s.

Weird.

And scary as hell.

Forcing back the fear, she angled her head and craned her neck to look upward. Above the beam supporting her, tacked onto the high ceiling, were posters, dozens and dozens of blown-up pictures of her mother in her most famous roles. The same characters that were posed on the stage below, except there were pictures of Jenna as Katrina Petrova from
Innocence Lost
and shots of her as Anne Parks in
Resurrection.

This was all so eerie…She looked down again. Two statues…no, mannequins, that’s what they were, life-sized dolls. Two were faceless, though one had a wig, long black curls reminiscent of Katrina…oh, shit, whoever this freak was, he hadn’t finished his artwork…

Cassie’s heart stood still. She remembered the women who had been abducted…Were they a part of this macabre scene?

Her heart turned to stone and she looked down to the stage where two mannequins stood with the others. Two that would surely become Katrina Petrova from
Innocence Lost
and Anne Parks from
Resurrection
.

When the artist got around to it.

But what the hell does all this have to do with me?
She looked around frantically as her mind cleared and she remembered the abduction, the way the sicko had stunned her and Josh…dead…eyes rolled up in his head, throat slashed, blood all over his truck.

What was this all about?

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about anything but getting out of here. You have to escape now.

Her eyes swept the large warehouse of a room. There were doorways…not marked, but she saw them, and some kind of high-tech room with monitors. If she could find a way to cut herself down…How the hell was she suspended? Her wrists were bound…but she wasn’t exactly hanging—her feet were resting on some kind of bar and a cold pipe ran up her back…Why?

As her head cleared, she became more frantic, realized how dire her situation was. The creep, a man whose face she hadn’t seen but thought she should recognize, was missing. But he’d return.

Somehow she had to be ready for him.

Groggily, Jenna opened an eye. Her entire body ached, and her brain wasn’t working. Where the hell was she, and why were her thoughts painful and thick, as sluggish as if they were swimming through jelly in her brain?

Lying flat on her back, she was being jostled as she was transported in some rig—the bed of a pickup with a canopy, she guessed. Her hands and feet were bound and her entire body was strapped down, pressed against cold, corrugated metal. Tiny bits of memory cut through the sludge in her head. Cassie missing. Turnquist dangling and bleeding from a rafter. Allie scared out of her wits. What felt like a million volts of electricity zapping painfully into her body.

But that hadn’t been the end of it, no…she’d been drugged, had witnessed a shiny needle being eased, almost gently, into her arm and a smooth male voice she should have recognized say, “Finally, you’re coming home.”

Coming home? What was that all about?

And now she was being unceremoniously hauled somewhere, tied into the back of a pickup, the cold seeping through the canopy, her body jostled by the rough ride. Her wrists were bound painfully in front of her, her ankles strapped as well.

She thought of her daughter.
Cassie…where in God’s name was Cassie?
She hated to think that this madman had her. Jenna refused to think that her daughter might already be dead; that there had been plenty of time for this hideous beast who had captured Cassie to kill her.

Please, God, no
, she silently prayed.
Give me the strength to find my daughter and save her.
She heard the pickup’s big engine whine, felt the wheels sliding as the rig climbed, ever higher, bucking upward, sliding, spinning. As if they were driving up a sheer mountain.

The engine suddenly stopped and she braced herself. He must have arrived at his destination. This was her chance. Her moment for escape.
Think, Jenna, think.
She had so few options, but she had to get free. When he opened the tailgate, she’d throw all her force at him, kick her bound legs at his face as he leaned in to pull her out.

And then what? You’ll still be tied up. No…you have to wait until he tries to move you. You can’t do anything until you’re untied from this truck
.

But he’ll use the stun gun on me again
.

Not if you fake him out. Pretend that the drugs haven’t worn off. Act as if you’re completely feeble and out of it. You’re an actress, for God’s sake! Get ready for the performance of your life
.

She mustered all her courage, prayed silently, and stared through the darkness to the point where she knew the back of the truck was.
Come on, you sick pervert
, she thought.
I’m ready
. But instead of the back of the truck opening, she heard a clanging of chains, close, from the area near the front of the truck, and then the whine of an engine. The entire truck shuddered, then jolted, and slowly the truck began to move, upward, inching at an impossible angle, creeping up the horrendously steep terrain.

What! No! She had to escape…now!
Gravity pulled at her and Jenna would have slid to the back of the truck if she hadn’t been secured, a cord around her body strapped to the sides of the truck. What was happening? Her thoughts raced and collided before she realized that the truck was being winched up the hillside. That had to be it.

Wherever he was taking her was remote. Hidden in the mountains. Away from the roads.

Any hope of being rescued disintegrated.

The police had no idea where she was.

In this blizzard, she would never be found.

He had her!

He had his Jenna.

He hummed to himself, the theme song from
Resurrection
. The haunting, nearly eerie melody reverberated through his mind like an anthem. His blood ran hot, the wanting a fever. Seeing her so close. Touching her…ahhhhh…Everything was almost in place, he thought, relishing the cold as the wind and snow raged through the trees. He watched as his truck was winched off the road, through a clearing to a plateau on the mountainside. He kept the winch for just this purpose, to hide his vehicle, and now, as the snow fell ever downward, kissing his skin and hiding his tracks, he knew all he’d hoped for, all he’d planned, was about to come to fruition.

He’d waited so long for this moment. He’d scouted out this property the moment he’d learned Jenna Hughes was buying in this part of Oregon, an area he’d been familiar with, a section of the country where his own pathetic excuse for a mother resided.

He smiled bitterly at the thought of the bitch who’d borne him and the father he’d never known, nor, he suspected, had she. Whoring slut! How many times had he been cast outside while she, in the warmth of the house, had entertained? Had his own father been like those he’d seen through the glass? A slick-haired musician with a cruel smile and smoldering eyes, the kind of man she’d attracted and brought home? How many nights had he been sent outside while she entertained?