The truth of everything was beginning to sink into her consciousness and comprehension. What was real and what was not.
The Mansion—where she had stumbled upon all kinds of horrors—had not offered anything real. She’d run from an imaginary foe when she’d left the place, too terrified to scream. Cameras had been shooting her movements. She shouldn’t have been there alone, though. She should have been there with Natalie Fontaine.
Except she knew now that Natalie Fontaine was dead—but not among the carnage that had appeared to fill the Mansion. She’d never made it to the island. She was dead back at her hotel room.
Decapitated.
While the members of the Fate cast had traveled to the island—Ralph, Simon and Larry had come together. They’d arrived at the Mansion about a half hour before Clara. They had also screamed their way out and run to the Alaska Hut—only they hadn’t stumbled upon the body of Amelia Carson along the way.
Cameras rigged at the Mansion would have captured first the terror—and then what was supposed to have been a laugh.
No one was laughing.
Because of what had happened to Natalie, Misty Blaine hadn’t gone to the island, and Amelia Carson hadn’t been there because she’d been dead, as well.
According to Nate Mahoney—who had spoken as if he’d become a zombie himself—it would have been a great crossover. The cast would have been featured on Gotcha, and then on Vacation USA as wonderful people who had come to work an Alaskan cruise, talking about why they loved the state so very much.
At the moment, Clara wasn’t sure that she loved Alaska at all. But then, she was still in shock, she assumed.
“It really doesn’t have anything at all to do with the ship,” Larry Hepburn said, trying to speak lightly.
“That’s right,” Simon Green said. “This is someone—someone who hates reality TV. And, I mean, that’s half of America. Some shows are cool—you know, where they save people or really give people jobs at the end. But, most of it...”
His voice trailed off.
“Alaska is beautiful,” Ralph said.
Clara looked at the three men at the table with her. Ralph Martini, kick-ass tenor, star of many a Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway show. Simon Green, new kid on the block, early twenties, thrilled to have his first speaking role/solo song in Annabelle Lee, the play they were set to perform on the Fate the following Saturday night. Larry Hepburn, tall, blond, bronzed—everyone’s golden-hunk guy, leading man for the play.
They’d all worked the Caribbean and Mexico together on the Celtic American Line’s Destiny ship—until a serial killer had been taken down aboard. Clara had known she was in danger on the ship, but she had never faced anything like this, nor had she stumbled upon a dead body then...a dead body in two pieces.
Not that the previous situation hadn’t been awful. And naturally, after it had all happened, she’d wanted to go in a new direction.
When she’d learned about Annabelle Lee, her new path had seemed perfectly clear. Alaska! What could be more different from the sunny Caribbean? And the cast called for a middle-aged tenor in a great role as the father of the house—Ralph!—as well as two younger men and two younger women. Larry and Simon fit the bill perfectly for Ashley, the haunted husband, and Billie Boy, Annabelle’s brother. Clara had gotten the role of Annabelle, the light and ethereal ghost still longing for life, while Connie Shaw, great dark-haired alto, was the young hero’s new wife, having to deal with the ghost of the past—who just didn’t want to go away.
Simon, heroically trying to save Clara’s friend Alexi Cromwell when they were on the Destiny, had broken a leg in a fall down a flight of stairs on the ship. His injury was healing nicely, but since he was a song-and-dance man, it was great that this show only required a few ballroom-dancing numbers between the ghost and Ashley, played by Larry Hepburn. It made the part perfect for Simon while he continued working his rehab exercises on his leg.
It had seemed so good. And so they had all headed up to Seward. She’d heard about the beauty of Alaska for years from other performers with whom she’d worked. Clara had come as soon as possible—longing to see as much as she could of Seward before going into the long days and nights of rehearsals. She’d spent time at the museum, learning about the native people, the first Russians on the scene, “Seward’s Folly,” the quake that had devastated the area in 1964, and more. She’d been able to take a small local cruise to see the majesty of the glaciers, giant whales breeching, the power of falling ice...but there was so much more she wanted to discover. The wildlife, dogsled races, the raw geography of the area, Kenai Fjords National Park—everything that made Alaska so special and different. And, eventually, she would find the time, but then...
The time she had given herself just hadn’t been enough.
Rehearsals had started, and then Celtic American had contacted her and some of the others about filming for Vacation USA and she had met with Natalie Fontaine and agreed to head out on the ferry and meet her at the Mansion, and then the blood and guts that had been fake and now...
Now the blood and guts that were real.
Simon, slim, young and earnest, reached over for her hand. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah,” Ralph said. “None of us blames you.”
“Blames me!” she repeated, staring at him, her temper rising. “Blames me? For what? Hey—you guys were out of a job. The ship was being held for months. I found out about this opportunity and told you about it!”
“I could have been playing that new role on Broadway,” Ralph said.
Clara felt the frown that gripped her brow. “That role is being played by Jeff Goldblum. I don’t think you should have counted on it—no offense, Ralph. Mr. Goldblum does have one hell of a résumé.”
Ralph sniffed.
“Hey—I’m happy. I’m out of the chorus,” Simon said. He smiled at Clara. “And I know I wouldn’t have any role on Broadway!”
“That didn’t come out right,” Ralph murmured. “I’m sorry, Clara. Really. I mean, this is going to be okay. This doesn’t have to do with us. This has to do with someone who really, really, really hates reality TV.”
Clara was silent. She prayed it went beyond that. One woman decapitated; one woman cut in half. That seemed like a lot more than anger.
“Miss Avery?”
She looked up. It was the wall of an FBI man who had pitched her down into the snow—and scared her out of ten years of life. She realized that she hadn’t been thinking FBI because these guys looked so different. He’d been bundled up in an official parka; now, he had doffed the jacket and he looked like a Norse lumberjack. He was Norse—he had said so. Norse American, obviously. He was very tall—possibly six-four or six-five—and definitely built like a logger. But then, she’d spent enough time with Jude McCoy and Jackson Crow of the FBI to know that they took their work seriously. They went to the gun range frequently, and they went regularly to the gym, since their strength and agility in the field could be just as important as tools of their trade.
“Your turn for the grill—I guess we come right after you,” Ralph murmured.
She supposed that they would. The state cops who had arrived first on the scene with a second FBI man had stayed with the cast where they were grouped together at the kitchen table. Clara knew that, a little more than a hundred yards away, police, FBI, techs and whoever else, were still working on the crime scene. So far the living film crew on the island—Nate Mahoney, Becca Marle and Tommy Marchant—had been questioned at the Alaska Hut. Clara felt bad for them; she’d only met Natalie Fontaine and Amelia Carson once. But that crew had worked with the two women hand in hand for several years.
Now, she wondered where the three of them had gone—or if law enforcement was purposely keeping them all apart.
Or, if they were lucky, and are already
off this wretched island.
“Miss Avery?”
He had to repeat her name. She rose and followed him out of the kitchen. She passed through the dining room and the cozy parlor with its raw wood furniture and huge stone hearth to the office straight across from the kitchen.
There, Special Agent Thor Erikson indicated that she take a chair.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“Just great,” she replied. “Nothing like being taken with a bunch of fake blood—and nearly plowing into a pool of the real stuff.”
“If it makes you feel better, there was less blood than there could have been,” he said. “Miss Carson was apparently killed elsewhere—and dumped where she was found.”
Clara didn’t react in any way; she didn’t know the proper reaction to such words.
“Why were you running?” he asked her.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked.
“No,” he said very seriously. “I don’t kid under circumstances like this.”
Well, of course you don’t.
She almost snapped the words out, but refrained. “Surely, sir, you’re aware that I was at the Mansion. And I believe you saw the Mansion?”
“Fake,” he said. “All for the cameras.”
“Yes, well, Agent Erikson, you knew that. I did not.”
“But why did you run out here?”
“The hut is out here! I hoped to God I’d find friends at the hut, film crew, people—anyone other than whoever did that!”
“You acted as if you were being chased.”
“I was being chased.”
“By who?”
“By whoever killed all those people—I assumed,” she said.
“Did you have reason to believe someone was after you?” he asked her, frowning.
“Yes, I heard something,” she said.
“Heard it from where?” he asked her.
“In the house—the Mansion. I didn’t go in very far. I came up the front steps. I opened the door to the mudroom, and then to the foyer. And then...then I stared in horror at what I thought was a massacre.”
“You didn’t call out—you didn’t scream?”
She shook her head. “I was too—too terrified to scream. Then I started to back out of the house and...yes! I’m certain that I heard someone upstairs. And by what I saw...it might have been whoever did this. So I turned to run out and as I did so...yes! Yes, I heard someone on the stairs. So I started to run as hard as I could. I figured my only hope for help was the Alaska Hut. I didn’t know what had happened at the Mansion, only that no one—no one living—was there to meet me. And I knew that part of the filming was supposed to be at the Alaska Hut. I figured people had to be there—someone who could help.”
“What if you had found the same thing here, at the Alaska Hut?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I didn’t think like that. I couldn’t think like that. If so...”
She didn’t say it aloud. Maybe if she had allowed herself to think the worst, she would have just lain down in the snow to die.
“But you’re positive you heard someone.”
She nodded. “Pretty positive.”
“Pretty positive.”
Annoyance shot through her like a bolt. “Look, I’m not an agent. I’m not a cop. I don’t even like horror movies. I live alone. I like musicals and The Big Bang Theory and reruns of Friends and Frasier and I Love Lucy. I never even watched shows like Gotcha. I don’t think I knew it existed. I was scared out of my wits and I ran, pretty darned certain that I’d heard someone and that if I didn’t want to be minced meat, too, I needed to run and pray for help.”
“We haven’t found anyone on the island so far,” he told her.
“Well, you don’t think that I paused in running from the house to chop a sweet stranger in half, do you?” she demanded, her temper flaring.
“I thought you knew Miss Carson.”
“I met her once. Yesterday. The first time I was out here on the island. I met with Natalie Fontaine and Amelia Carson at the Mansion and then Tommy Marchant—their cameraman—gave me a tour of the island in a snowmobile thing that seats two. I knew where the Mansion was in relation to the Alaska Hut. I know now where there are heavily forested sections of the island and where there’s ice down to the water. I know the dock. That’s what I know. To the best of my knowledge, you can reach this place by private boat and ferry and that’s it. I’m not a regular at wild parties here, Agent. I sure as hell don’t know what more you want from me!”
“Cooperation!” he exploded.
He leaned back in the office chair, hands gripping the sides. If he’d had longer hair, been wearing furs, and maybe had an Irish wolfhound at his side, he’d have looked like a conquering Viking.
“Miss Avery, as you might have noticed, there’s a heinous killer at work here. Two people you knew were brutally murdered. I’d like every bit of help you can give me—if I’m not keeping you from an episode of Friends for too long!”
She stiffened as if she’d been hit by lightning.
“I’m trying to help! And don’t you give me this holier-than-thou speech! I know how to cooperate. I’ve worked with the FBI, real FBI, good FBI agents! They were all there when the Archangel came on the Destiny and—”
“What?” He leaned forward suddenly, staring at her as if he was convinced that she had suddenly announced that she was the Archangel herself.
She foundered. “I was last supposed to be performing on Celtic American Cruise Line’s Destiny. We never did do the show. There was a storm at sea and a killer on the ship and, thankfully, Special Agents Crow and McCoy and...”
Her voice trailed off. He was still staring at her.
“Look. I’m sorry. I know I’m being rude. I’m sure you’re an excellent agent.” She stopped speaking again. She was afraid she’d spill out something like So, you see, I do know how agents should act! You think you’re tough, huh. Yeah. You’ve got the look. You could be an actor. You’d make an excellent Viking. I could totally see you in The 13th Warrior. And you’d have been great in Thor, given Chris Hemsworth a run for his money—move over, Stellan Skarsgård.
Thankfully, she managed not to speak.
They were both still staring at each other when there was a rap at the door and it opened a shade.
“Thor?”
Clara knew the voice; she knew it because she had depended on Jackson Crow as if he were a lifeline when she’d been on the Destiny.
The man in front of her blinked. He stood, recognizing the new arrival, as well.
“Jackson,” he said.
Clara leaned back for a minute, just breathing. Then she, too, rose to her feet and turned to the door.
Jackson Crow had arrived. He was busy shedding a huge parka. He hadn’t taken note of her yet; he walked across the room.
She’d expected that maybe such manly agents greeted one another with stiff handshakes, but she was mistaken. The two embraced in a fierce hug instead.
“How the hell are you?” Crow demanded.
“Pretty good—until this morning,” Thor Erikson said.
“Yeah, me, too,” Crow said, and Clara was startled by the timbre of emotion in his voice.
She didn’t know what was going on. Surely, neither of these men had known the victims.
They spoke quickly for a moment in a conversation that meant little to her—but seemed to make perfect sense to the two of them.
Crow first. “You heard, then.”
“Didn’t believe it. How the hell...?” Erikson responded.
“It’s the system. Criminals who are incarcerated will find a way out.”
“Damn, someone out there should have known—should have watched him better.”
??
?Should have. But this isn’t—”
“The same. No. I’ve seen the remains.”
And then, it was as if they both realized she was in the room. They were an intriguing pair, both so tall, the one dark, the other so light. And while they were perplexed, there was also something solid and reassuring about them together—as if they were godlike sentinels of old.
Jackson Crow saw her then. “Clara, poor Clara!” He walked toward her.
She hurried to him and he encompassed her in his arms.
“I’m so sorry, so sorry,” Crow told her.
Agent Erikson cleared his throat. “I’m just beginning to get the gist of this. You were all aboard the Destiny when the Archangel was caught.”
“Myself and Jude McCoy, Miss Avery and her actor friends out there,” Jackson Crow told him. Clara realized she was still clinging to Crow like a lifeline. She managed to straighten herself. Agent Erikson was looking from one of them to the other. He shook his head and sank back in his chair.
“Miss Avery found the second body,” he said.
Jackson Crow looked at her. “Clara, Lord, how horrible. I’m sure you came up here to get away from what happened in the Caribbean.”
Clara shrugged uneasily, aware that Erikson was looking at her as if she somehow brought bad things with her wherever she went, like an unlucky penny.
Jackson Crow looked over at Thor Erikson. “What else did you need from her?”
“Anything, everything. When you met with Ms. Fontaine and Ms. Carson, Miss Avery, were they nervous in any way? Did they make any comments of being afraid of anyone in Alaska? Did they suggest that they had received any threats?”
Clara shook her head. “We met. Natalie made sure I was aware that Celtic American was wholeheartedly for the cast joining her show for the segment—it would be wonderful publicity for them. I’d already signed all kinds of waivers for the show.”