“Oh, right,” Jenna said. “Allie’s having a girlfriend spend the night.”
Harrison’s lips compressed as he watched Travis Settler hop to the snow-crusted ground. A second later, his daughter, Dani, landed beside him.
“I’d better shove off.” He was already slipping his arms into his jacket and making his way to the back door.
“Oh, well, thanks again,” she said, as Harrison slid into his boots and started off to Seth Whitaker’s truck. Jenna saw him nod curtly to Travis just as feet clattered on the stairs and Allie ran pell-mell out the back door. Without a coat.
Jenna snagged her ski jacket from the back of the kitchen chair just as Dani and Allie burst into the room. They were laughing and giggling and racing each other up the stairs. “Can we have nachos?” Allie called over her shoulder, but didn’t wait for a response.
A second later, Travis slid through the open door. “You can tell that they’re all broken up about not going to school tomorrow.”
Jenna grinned. “I used to love it, too.”
“You had snow days in L.A.?”
“No.” She shook her head and laughed. “I grew up just outside of Seattle. I remember getting together with my girlfriends and sending up group prayers for snow.”
“Did it work?”
“Rarely, and never when a major assignment that I’d forgotten was due.” She heard the rumble of a truck’s engine and saw Seth Whitaker’s rig backing up.
“Did I chase away your company?”
“Nah,” she said, but wondered if she were lying. The passenger side of the big rig was visible, and Harrison Brennan was sitting stiffly inside while staring straight ahead. Or was he? He was too far away to tell, but she thought she caught him watching the house from the side-view mirror. Stop it! You’re imagining things! He’s just a nice neighbor trying to help out.
“Something wrong?” Travis asked, and Jenna was suddenly aware that he was standing near the table and staring at her.
“No…sorry…I guess I’ve been caught up in my problems.”
“Something I can help you with?” He seemed earnest, his blue eyes tinged with worry.
“Sure. How about conjuring up hot sand, aquamarine surf, lots of palm trees…and oh, yeah, don’t forget it should be ninety degrees in the shade.”
“Can I throw in a couple of margaritas?” he asked.
“Only if they’re blended and doubles.”
“Man, your fantasies are pretty damned specific.”
“Why dream if you don’t know what you want?” she tossed back and felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.
“Do you? Know what you want?”
“Mmm.” She nodded. “Most of the time. You?”
“I thought I did…a long time ago.” He lifted a shoulder. “Now I’m not so sure.” He seemed about to say more, but thought better of it, his smile fading and the warmth in his eyes suddenly chased by something cold and secret. “I’d better shove off,” he said. “Dani told me I shouldn’t overstay my welcome. Something about ‘letting her have her space.’ Call me if she’s a problem.”
“She won’t be.”
“Or if you feel stranded out here.” He looked out the window to the rolling acres edged in old-growth timber. “You’re a little isolated.”
“We’ll be fine,” she assured him, though his last words gave her pause. She’d chosen this place precisely for its remote location, but now, watching him walk to his rig, the snow slanting from the sky, the wind blowing wildly down the gorge, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. As he climbed into the cab she resisted the urge to run outside, flag him down, and beg him to stay, to admit that she wasn’t as strong as she appeared, that she liked the thought of another adult, a man, around when the forces of nature were so raw and threatening.
But she didn’t.
Wouldn’t admit that she couldn’t handle things on her own.
She felt a chill and rubbed her arms as he drove down the lane, his tires spinning in the rapidly piling snow, his headlights cutting across the white expanse of drifts.
The phone rang and she reached for the receiver.
“Hello?” she said, but no one answered. “Hello?” She heard the crackle of static, as if there were a bad cell connection, and something muted, something soft and melodic, like a song she should remember. “Hello? If you’re there I can’t hear you,” she said strongly. “Call back.”
She hung up and waited.
But no call came through.
The telephone remained silent and the house, too, seemed unnaturally quiet. The usual sounds—the hum of the refrigerator, the rumble of the furnace, the faint whisper from a television upstairs, were muted by the shriek of the wind that rattled the loose panes in an attic window. The lights quivered once more and Jenna swallowed hard as she realized what she’d heard on the phone. Not only had someone definitely been on the line, but the nearly indistinct melody she’d heard was the theme song from White Out, the last film she’d made, the film that had never been released. Though the theme song had become a hit, White Out had become a disaster of a project that had destroyed her marriage and killed her sister.
Now, she took a step backward. She caught sight of her ghost-like image in the windowpane and for a second she saw Jill. Beautiful, innocent Jill, whose physical appearance had been so much like Jenna’s they’d sometimes been mistaken for twins. Now dead.
Because of you.
She felt her eyes burn with the memory of thousands of tons of snow cascading in a deadly roar down the mountainside.
You should have died, not your sister.
The recriminations reverberated through her brain, just as they had for years. “Oh, God,” Jenna whispered, stumbling backward against a chair in the nook. The chair screeched against the hardwood floor, and Jenna managed to catch herself, though the strains from White Out’s theme song whispered through her mind. Who had called her and why had they played that music?
You’re not sure they did. You really couldn’t hear. It might have been some other song altogether. Or crossed wires. Look at the storm! There could be a glitch in the phone system. You’re imagining things, Jenna.
Quickly she picked up the receiver and read the caller ID message—private number. “Damn.” She dialed *69, hoping to hear the name of the last caller, but the recorded message repeated what caller ID had told her. Whoever had phoned remained anonymous.
Intentionally?
Or because he was hiding?
“You son of a bitch,” she hissed, slamming down the receiver and trembling inside.
She tried to tell herself she was overreacting. That nothing was wrong. That her all-too-vivid imagination was running away with her.
But, of course, she knew she was lying to herself.
Again.
“Get a grip,” she ordered, but knew that tonight, holding on to her frazzled emotions would prove impossible.
She was there, just on the other side of the frigid glass. Not as beautiful as Jenna Hughes, but enough like her that as he stared past the red and blue neon of a sizzling beer sign, he imagined she would do. Her body was about the same size, petite, though her breasts were smaller and her hips not quite rounded the same way. But close enough…for now. She was a blonde, but her hair color was unnatural, darker roots indicating that she’d been born brunette, but her hair was not as dark as Jenna’s black waves. Not that it mattered, he told himself, watching as she bussed her own tables, wiped her hands nervously on her apron, and glanced often to the windows and the raging storm.
As if she knew he was there.
As if she understood that her destiny lay in the dark, frigid night.
He smiled and felt a thrill zing through his bloodstream, an impulse so cold it reminded him of other times…of a faraway youth and an ice-crusted lake, of freezing water washing over his skin, of a shivering girl and dark, deadly water…images of long ago. For the briefest of seconds he closed his eyes and thought not of the past but to
the future. His imagination ran with him, called to him, painted vividly erotic images of the woman inside the diner…Faye…yes, Faye Tyler of Bystander—that’s who she was, hiding out here under an assumed name…
Beautiful.
Sexy.
Perfect.
Like Jenna.
Her name rang with the clarity of church bells through his mind and he licked his lips, feeling the cold upon his skin as he imagined her. Ached for her.
Jenna.
She was the one.
Like no other.
And tonight, through this other woman, this pale replica, she would be his.
CHAPTER 12
You should never drink alone.
Isn’t that what they say? Whoever they are.
Too bad. Jenna had just had one helluva day and she decided a cup of decaf coffee laced with a bit of Kahlua and Bailey’s Irish Cream wouldn’t kill her. She spied the aerosol whipped cream in the refrigerator and couldn’t resist. “In for a penny,” she told herself as she added a dollop of cream to her cup, then topped it all off with a dash of chocolate sprinkles. If her trainer Ron ever found out, he’d punish her with extra minutes on the treadmill, but so what? He was, after all, only twenty-six and certainly didn’t know about the soothing effects of chocolate and alcohol when it came to times of stress. Which this definitely was.
“Right?” she said to the dog, who had settled into his favorite spot under the table. Critter, if nothing else, was optimistic when it came to the thought of scraps being surreptitiously slipped in his direction. His tail thumped loudly on the floor as Jenna sat on a chair and pawed through her bag for the mail she’d picked up earlier. With everything else that had happened in her life today, she’d forgotten about the mail until just this moment. The girls had devoured pizza, salad, and ice cream and were upstairs in their rooms while Jenna contemplated a long, hot bath in the Jacuzzi.
As she sipped her drink, she sorted through the magazines, bills, and advertisements that had collected in her post office box during the last week. Until she came to the hand-addressed envelope. Her name was written in precise block letters and there was no return address. Using a letter opener, she slit the envelope open and noted that the postmark was Portland.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
A unique, single sheet of paper upon which was a short love poem, the words superimposed over a pale image of Jenna wearing a black sheath with a beaded neckline, a picture taken of her on the set of Resurrection. It had been a publicity shot taken of her in the role of the coolly seductive and psychotic killer, Anne Parks.
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.
Jenna’s heart nearly stopped. Ice congealed in her veins. “Oh, God,” she whispered and dropped the letter as if it burned her. Coffee from her cup sloshed onto the table, splashing over the sheet and envelope. Who had sent this to her? Why? Heart hammering, she glanced around the room, as if whoever had mailed the poem might appear.
Critter climbed to his feet and whined.
“It’s—it’s all right,” she said, though she could barely breathe. Someone knew her mailing address, realized she lived here. When she’d moved from L.A., she’d tried to start over, had asked that all of her fan mail be sent to her agent’s address…Her post office box here was supposed to be private.
It’s a small town.
The general public does know you live here.
You know this comes with the territory.
Relax.
But she couldn’t stop her pulse from racing. She’d received mail from obsessed fans before, but those incidents had been years ago. It was while she was married, when she’d lived in Southern California and was still making movies, still part of the industry, still a name that would come up time and again in the gossip columns. In the past year and a half, most of her mail had been screened and filtered by Monty Fenderson of the Fenderson Agency. She fought the absurd impulse to call him, to rant and rave, to scream that her privacy had been invaded.
Which was ludicrous.
The public knew that she lived in a small Oregon town. That was to be expected.
So a piece of mail from a sicko slipped through. So what?
Her nerves were just shot from the storm, all the talk of the murdered woman, her fights with her daughters…what she needed to do was calm down. Finish her drink. Take that bath…. Nonetheless, she walked around the house and though it was far from town, flanked by towering trees and the river, fenced off from the world, she walked from room to room and shut the blinds. A shiver slid down her spine as she read the last line again.
I will come for you.
Without a second thought, she walked to the wall where the alarm system was housed and pressed the code. A second later a tiny green light switched to red. It was a basic system, one that had been installed, the realtor had told her, long after the house was built, and was only wired to the doors. A buzzer went off when the system was engaged and a door opened; two minutes later, if the alarm hadn’t been deactivated, a siren began to shriek. But she wasn’t contracted with a security firm that notified the sheriff’s department if the alarm went off. Yet. She’d take care of that tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile she sat near the fire and warmed her hands. She had a crippled old dog and a shotgun with no ammunition for protection.
Don’t freak out. It’s just an anonymous letter…no big deal.
But it was mailed from Portland, less than an hour away.
From her.
From her children.
Inwardly, she turned ice cold.
I will come for you.
She took in a deep breath. Try it, she thought, anger overcoming fear. Tomorrow she’d not only sign up with the security company, she’d go to the outdoor store for some shotgun shells.
“Come on, Cass…it’ll be fun,” Josh insisted. “And besides, there’s no school tomorrow. Meet me in an hour at the usual spot.”
“If I get caught I’ll be so dead.” Cassie was burrowed deep in her bed, covers over her head, her cell phone against her ear. He wanted her to sneak out. Again. So soon after being caught. No…she couldn’t risk it.
“So what? Can she ground you any more?”
“She can make my life pretty damned miserable,” Cassie said and winced slightly. It was true her mom was bugging the hell out of her, always prying, always laying down rules, always treating her like a kid, but deep down, Cassie knew, Jenna was playing the part of disciplinarian because she thought it was the best thing for her daughters. Which was, of course, way wrong.
“You won’t get caught. By the time you leave, it’ll be after one. She’ll be asleep. Guaranteed. Dead to the world.”
Cassie hesitated, biting her lip before finally deciding. “I can’t. Really.”
“Oh, quit being a wuss. Lots of kids are going out tonight.”
“Their parents let them.”
“No, Cass. They just don’t let their parents boss them around, like you do. They’re not scared of their parents.”
“I’m not scared of my mom.”
“Sure you are.”
“No way.”
“Then why don’t you ask her to let you go out?”
“She’d say ‘no.’ I’m supposed to be grounded. Remember?” Sometimes he could be so dense!
“So how can she stop you?”
“For one thing, she turned on the security system tonight. I saw her from the landing of the stairs. She’s probably doing it just to keep me inside.”
“So turn it off. You know the code, don’t you?”
“Then the house would be unprotected.”
“So what?” he said with a laugh.
“Look, I just don’t want the hassle.”
“Because, like I said, you’re afraid of
your mom. You’ve given her that power over you. This really isn’t her problem. It’s yours.”
“Fine. But it’s not yours!” She snapped her cell phone shut and turned it off so that if Josh decided to call her again, she wouldn’t hear it. Sometimes he was so pushy. But his words taunted her. You’re afraid of your mom. You’ve given her that power over you. This isn’t her problem. It’s yours. So he thought she was weak. No, she wouldn’t buy into that. He was just trying to find a way to get her to do what he wanted. He was the one who was trying to exert his power over Cassie. Not her mother. She pushed herself from beneath the covers and clicked her remote so that her television came to life. It was too late for most shows, but there was a movie she could watch, one she’d missed because she’d been in the middle of the move from California at the time. Boy, had that been a mistake.
From the next bedroom, she heard laughter. Allie and her friend were really stoked about not going to school. They’d spent some time outdoors trying to build a snow fort. It had been too cold for that, so they’d gone to the stables, which were heated, to check on the horses, all of which were surviving just fine, and then they’d come inside for hot cocoa and popcorn and…Cassie let out a quiet little sob. Sometimes she felt so alone. Even Allie had a good friend. Jenna had the people at the local theater, even though some of them were beyond strange, but Cassie felt as if she hadn’t really connected with anyone since she’d moved up here.
Just Josh.
And he was suspect, his motives for being with her murky.
But he’s all you’ve got.
She considered calling her old friends in L.A. and Santa Monica, but it was late and she’d just feel worse. Besides, the last few times she’d talked to Paige, it had been awkward. Paige hadn’t really said anything, but she’d been quick to let Cassie know she was busy and was obviously eager to get off the phone. And Cassie didn’t really blame her. She would have been the same way if the situation had been reversed.
Tears threatened her eyes. The movie didn’t hold her attention. She flipped the channel and saw her mother. “Damn!” There Jenna Hughes was, not even as old as Cassie was now, playing the part of a teenaged prostitute in Innocence Lost. Angrily, Cassie hit the Power button on the remote and the image faded. There seemed no way to get away from her mother. Even in the solace of her room. She felt a tear drizzle from the corner of her eye and she swiped it away angrily. What was wrong with her? She glanced at the clock. It was almost one…and the house had become quiet. She stole into the hallway and peered into Allie’s room. Both girls were conked out on the floor on a couple of air mattresses and sleeping bags. She eased to the stairs and looked down to the landing and Jenna’s room. The door was closed, no sliver of light at the threshold.