Deep Freeze

  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?

  Cold, cold mother.

  Living nearby.

  Some of his elation ebbed when he thought of her, a woman who didn’t even recognize her own child. He’d seen her on the street and she hadn’t so much as given him a second glance. A frozen-hearted bitch.

  Ironic that Jenna had chosen this part of the Northwest to claim as her own. As if fate had drawn her to the Columbia Gorge and its frozen winters.

  It had been perfect. He’d had no trouble finding a place close by, a private ski lodge that had been abandoned years earlier when the owner had gotten ill. After the owner had died, his heirs were anxious to get rid of what they’d considered an albatross. It hadn’t been difficult to convert the lodge into his own private quarters. He’d done the work himself, and in the summer, when the roads were clear, had been able to haul up all of his building materials and supplies. Then, of course, there were the black-market sources who had supplied him with everything he needed for his artwork, including the alginate as well as the drugs and syringes, tiny cameras, anything he needed. His contact in Portland could get him anything, no questions asked.

  The winch stopped and his truck was now twenty feet above the road, hidden by the trees. The only other access was around the mountain, a drive that would take forty minutes in normal conditions, and hours, if not longer, in a storm as fierce as this one.

  Not that he was afraid of anyone finding him.

  No one knew who he was.

  And they would never know.

  The answer was right in front of him. Carter was sure of it. While Rinda and Allie huddled in the den and officers from the OSP waited for the crime lab, he unrolled the printouts of the people who had visited Jenna’s Web site, her fan Web sites, rented or bought movies, came into contact with her here at the house and through the theater, people who owned property within a twenty-mile radius…His mind was moving fast, but time was ticking by.

  Merline Jacobosky and three associates from the State Crime Lab arrived after Shane had double-checked both the barn and the logging road to make sure that Jenna or Cassie weren’t in either place. A deputy had been posted at each of the killing sites, waiting in the cold.

  Carter had been on the phone with the OSP, asking for them to get in touch with the cell phone company that Jenna and her daughters used, hoping that the phones were still with the women and that the GPS chip would show their positions. He’d also asked for officers to check with Harrison Brennan, Travis Settler, Hans Dvorak, and Ron Falletti, two men who had dated her, her ranch hand and personal trainer, all of whom would know her routine. He’d discounted Wes Allen, who was, reported by a deputy, on his favorite stool at the Lucky Seven where the backup generator allowed the bar to remain open.

  And time was ticking by.

  “I wouldn’t have gotten here so quickly,” Jacobosky told Carter, “but we were working on the other side of Hood River. Looks like we won’t be able to get back to Portland tonight. The road’s impassable.”

  “I guess we got lucky.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. I think luck would be sitting around a fire at a lodge après ski and drinking mulled wine or hot toddies. But, of course, this would be my second choice, camping out in a town where most of the electricity is out and there are very few hotels,” she said dryly. “So where’s the first body?”

  “In the barn.” Carter filled her in and led the group to the crime scene in the barn.

  “Jesus,” Merline said under her breath as she ran the beam of her flashlight over the pool of blood, footprints and paw prints smeared on the worn plank flooring, then eyed what was left of Turnquist. “Looks like someone was waiting. Ready. Had the weapon with him. Probably slashed his throat, threw a rope around him and over the crossbeam, hauled him up, and gutted him. That’s unofficial, mind you. The M.E. will make a determination.” She ran the beam down Turnquist’s torso. “Cut cleanly, probably a hunting or th
at type of knife, maybe even a surgical blade. By the way he gutted the body, he’s done this before.” She shined her light on the entrails piled near an old barrel used for feed. “Nice,” she mocked. “Better scoop this up before the rats get to it.”

  “A hunter,” Carter observed, eyeing the bloody mess. What kind of psychotic would do this?

  “If he isn’t, he should be,” she said, her nose wrinkling in distaste beneath her rimless glasses. She looked pointedly at one of her assistants. “Maybe someone who’s had military training. That would be my guess.” She looked up. “Okay, guys, rope the entire area off…may as well keep everyone, including the damned dog, out of the barn at least until we sort out these prints and search for trace evidence.” She made some notes on the papers on her clipboard.

  “There’s another body, right?” she asked.

  “This way.” Together, collars turned up, gloved hands plunged deep in their pockets, they slogged through the snow and along the fence line to a spot where some of the snow had been churned up and flattened, now covered with a fresh layer. They climbed over, made their way through a copse of iced-over trees, and saw the truck, door still open, interior light feeble, warning bell dinging softly and slowly, the only noise other than the ever-present wind.

  Josh was lying on his back, his head lolled to one side and hanging off the edge of the seat. Snow and ice covered his face, but couldn’t disguise the deep red slash beneath his chin. His thin goatee and hockey-stick sideburns were crusted with frozen blood, his skin a ghostly white.

  Merline let out air between her teeth. “Just a kid. Anyone called his folks?”

  “Not yet,” Carter said, eyeing the pickup, his flashlight sweeping the ground where there were signs of a struggle, the snow disturbed, and Josh’s blood seeping down the seat, over the running board and into the snow.

  “As soon as the M.E.’s done, I’ll send someone out to the Sykes place.”

  “Helluva job that’ll be,” she whispered, then bent down to get a closer view of the body. She ran the beam of her flashlight over Josh’s throat. “Slit ear to ear. Doesn’t look like much of a struggle. Again, I’d guess the guy was lying in wait, the victim not having time to defend himself.”