Deep Freeze

  “Still searching.”

  “Find him. Find out all of his previous addresses. And when you start with the makeup studios and firms in L.A., start with the one hired for White Out.”

  “Will do,” she said as she left the office and Carter’s phone rang. As he picked up the receiver, he hoped he’d just gotten lucky.

  What was this?

  Dear Lord in heaven, what was going on?

  Lynnetta opened a bleary eye and shivered.

  It was so cold…freezing…Her skin was probably turning a dozen shades of blue. Yet there was a dullness to her, as if her brain was filled with mud. Blinking, she slowly looked around the vast room…or was it a warehouse?…She couldn’t tell from her position in a chair, a recliner of sorts. Somewhere music was playing, but it sounded far away and when she blinked, she saw women standing on a stage. Half of them faceless, naked, bald, but three dressed, their hair combed, their faces…Lynnetta swallowed hard. They were all Jenna Hughes! No, that couldn’t be. They were likenesses of Jenna, strange mannequins.

  What was this?

  She rolled her eyes upward. Above her head was the long, stainless-steel arm of a dentist’s drill…shining bright in the dim lights. Glinting like pure evil.

  No…this couldn’t be right. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong. She had to get a grip or wake up or…She heard a sound, a soft rasp that set her teeth on edge.

  She was groggy and certain that she, like Alice, had fallen down a rabbit hole. Everything was surreal. Bizarre. Topsy-turvy. She blinked again to clear her vision and her mind.

  But it didn’t hone the dullness.

  In her peripheral vision she saw him. The man who had startled her in the theater. But now he was naked.

  Oh, no.

  She remembered being in the theater under the stage. She’d heard a noise as she was putting away the dress she’d hemmed. Thinking the sound was just the cat nosing around where he shouldn’t, she’d called to him. As she’d rounded the corner to Rinda’s office, she’d come upon a man who had been waiting for her in the darkness. She’d thought he’d held a gun and had tried to run. But he’d grabbed her, placed the cold metal against her neck, then zapped her. Electricity had shot through her body. She’d crumpled, but he hadn’t been finished and slammed a needle into her arm.

  Fear slithered down her spine as she tried to see him more clearly, attempted to recoil. But she couldn’t escape; she was bound to this damned chair and realized with a sickening feeling that she, too, wore nothing. Her skin was pressed against cold leather. Oh, Lord, was he going to rape her? Why? What had she done to deserve such a wretched fate?

  Tears filled her eyes, but still, through the blur, she saw him, his genitals exposed, a tattoo she couldn’t make out upon his chest. He was holding something in his hand, something she couldn’t quite see.

  Help me, she silently pled. Please, God, help me.

  Who was this man? She thought she’d known him, had seen him in town, but he’d changed. He was slimmer than she’d remembered, his hair thinner and dyed a different color. As if he was wearing a disguise…or had worn one for all the time that she’d known him.

  Even his eyes were different. Cruel. Like glittering blue rocks set deep into his skull. The purest form of evil she’d ever witnessed.

  She swallowed hard as she stared at the contraption in his hand. It was a dental appliance, a rubber dam with stainless-steel frame, equipment that would force a mouth open.

  No! She began to panic, though her mind was mush. She had to get out of here! Now! Oh, God, there was no escape. She was bound to this chair. Over the music and the sound of her own frantic heartbeat, she heard a voice.

  Stay calm, Lynnetta, I am with you.

  Was it God’s voice she heard…yes? Or a hallucination from some weird psychedelic drug that was being piped into her bloodstream via the IV pierced into her wrist. She glanced down at her hand and for the first time noticed the bandage…a thick strip of gauze wound tight over her fingers, binding them together. What was that all about? There was a dark red stain…no doubt blood…on the gauze, seeping through from her ring finger…Yet she felt no pain and something about her hand seemed weird. Frantically attempting to wiggle her fingers, she failed. Probably because of whatever drug was flowing through the darned IV. There had to be something in the clear liquid that was keeping her mind fuzzy, dulling the pain.

  So why was her hand bandaged? Had she struggled? Fought? She couldn’t remember. Didn’t have time to think.

  He was coming closer.

  Fear screamed through her bloodstream.

  Trust in me. The Father’s voice again, trying to calm her, hoping that her faith would sustain her.

  Please, Father, have mercy, she prayed, closing her eyes as she felt Lucifer’s hot breath upon her cold face. She thought of the martyrs who had gone before her, the fearless souls who had accepted God’s fate. For some reason, The Father was testing her, but she would fear not…He would deliver her. She was certain of it.

  She thought of springtime and her dear, departed parents, then of Derwin, a hard-driven man, but a man who had loved her…and she thought of her son, Ian, not yet an adult, tempted by all that was available to youth these days. Be with them, dear Lord, she prayed, and despite whatever torture this evil incarnation of Satan had planned for her, she would never lose her faith. Never! Soon, she would be home. Soon, she would be with Him. She, like those before her, like Jesus who had suffered on the cross, would endure the agony on earth to accept her eternal reward.

  I’ll be with you soon. Sweet Jesus, I’ll be with you soon.

  Her eyes still shut, she complied as the monster roughly forced the rubber dam into her mouth, didn’t so much as squeak as he tightened it so that her jaw was opened painfully wide, her lips pulled harshly back, her tongue and teeth at his mercy. She flinched only slightly when she heard the hum of the drill, but closed her mind to everything other than her prayer.

  Our Father, who art in heaven…

  The drill squealed against her teeth, shrieking wildly as the scent of burning enamel filled her nostrils, and she knew it was only a matter of seconds before the ungodly drill bit hit a nerve.

  CHAPTER 36

  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 lif
e.

  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.