“Oh, no?” he tossed back, and Jenna’s heart sank. Don’t push him, Cass, for God’s sake!
He set Jenna down on the floor—cold and smooth—cement, she guessed. It was so damned cold in here. She heard his footsteps moving away from her and risked the tiniest peek through her lashes.
Quickly, she saw that she was in a huge room. He’d left her in the middle of a stage with actresses posed across it. No, not actresses. Every one of them were replicas of herself in her movie roles. The clothes, jewelry, an umbrella hanging from Marnie Sylvane’s arm, nerdy glasses propped on Zoey Trammel’s nose, the missing faux pearl bracelet surrounding Paris Knowlton’s wrist. All were props from her movies. Even the two mannequins without faces could be identified by the wigs they wore, Katrina’s long, curling black tresses that fell over the shoulders of a sheer white teddy, the lace a perfect imitation of the costume Jenna wore in the role. The other faceless mannequin already wore a dog collar and held a butcher knife in one hand; no doubt she was soon to become a replica of Anne Parks.
Oh, this was sick…
A roiling nausea crept up her throat at the extent of this man’s depravity. What was this, a weird shrine? A house of wax where she was the only display? Panic gripped her, and she had to force her eyelids to remain almost closed, to keep herself from trembling as she surveyed the stage. A dentist’s chair was the only prop, a drill poised above it and dark stains…blood?…drizzled over the arm and headrest. What kind of sickness was this?
High overhead were pictures of her in her various roles or from magazines, blown up and stapled to the ceiling.
She took another quick look and located a computer room, lit by the glow of monitors, and from the hum, she guessed a generator was supplying energy.
But where was Cassie?
She chanced turning her head just a bit and when she did, she nearly screamed. In a far corner was a contraption that she couldn’t fully understand. A huge glass tub, and above it her daughter was naked, her head shaved and propped on some kind of beam, her hands yanked high over her head, her feet balanced on a slim footing.
Jenna nearly cried out when she saw her daughter. Doom clenched its fist around her.
Jenna had no doubt in her mind that this psycho was going to kill them both.
Upward. One agonizing foothold at a time. Shane worked his way up, digging in, hugging the icy falls, using his rope, feeling the wind tear and shriek at his back. Snow tumbled from the sky and it was still dark—early morning but far from dawn.
Despite his insulated wear, his teeth were chattering from the cold, his body covered in sweat from the exertion. He was making progress—slow, steady, unnerving progress, his thoughts spurring him on.
Jenna could be dead already.
Another person he loved, a casualty of the winter cold and a madman.
Cassie, too, had probably already been killed.
“You crazy son of a bitch,” he ground out, swinging his ice axe, making another niche in the frozen falls. He had less than twenty feet to climb—twenty agonizing feet.
Another gust of wind battered at his back, seemed to laugh at his futile attempts. He reached for the handhold. His fingers missed, his feet slipped. His body dropped, sliding along the icy wall.
“Shit!”
His rope grabbed.
Stopped his rapid descent.
Saved him from dangling or falling nearly three hundred feet to the icy ground below. For a second he thought of David. His heart pounded wildly as he eased back to the cliff face and the icy sheet that was his ladder.
Gritting his teeth, every muscle screaming, he forced himself against the face of frozen water and reached upward, making a handhold. “I’m coming, you son of a bitch,” he said through the frozen bristles of his moustache. “I’m coming.”
“Are you awake yet, Jenna?” he asked, and his voice seemed to come from everywhere, speakers hidden in the darkness. “This is my theater, dedicated to you. Wake up and see what I’ve done, the tribute I’ve made to you.”
“Tribute?” Cassie yelled, and Jenna willed her to be quiet. Don’t antagonize him.
“I know you’re awake…pretending. No need. Not any longer. You’re home with me. You know who I am, don’t you?”
“Who cares, you dumb shit!”
Cassie, no!
Through the veil of her lashes, she watched as he slowly unlaced his boots and stepped out of them. Somehow he lost four inches. Then he peeled off his clothes, insulated camouflage jacket—the kind hunters wear to hide in the fall brush—matching pants, and beneath the outerwear, insulated thermal pants and shirt. Off came the ski mask and hat and she nearly gasped.
Seth Whitaker.
The man she’d trusted to set up her alarm system. How many times had he “checked the wiring”? Oh, God, what a fool she’d been.
“You creep!” Cassie yelled.
He looked up at her. “You don’t even know who I really am,” and his voice changed slightly, was a tad higher. He pulled off his wig to reveal that he was nearly bald, short, blond fuzz over his head. Then he popped out contact lenses to reveal darker eyes. Eyes she’d seen before.
“Who are you?” Cassie asked as he removed his teeth and temporary implants along his jaw line so that he lost his jowls.
Jenna had seen him before. She was sure of it. When? California? He swung his face toward hers and she knew in an instant. One of the technicians on the set of White Out, one of the guys who’d been injured. The guy with the same name as one of the characters in her films. Steven White—that was it.
He tugged off his thermal wear and revealed a bodysuit. As he stripped it off, his thick waist disappeared, revealing a taut, corded body that looked honed by some kind of physical activity.
Seth Whitaker. Steven White. She wondered what his real name was.
Naked, he looked up at Cassie. “Now, Katrina, it’s time.”
“Are you talking to me? I’m not Katrina. Just get me down from here.”
“Always the feisty one,” he said, and walked into the computer room and typed on the keyboard. Instantly, music began to fill the room, music from Innocence Lost, the same music that had been played during the phone call she’d received.
While he was still in the computer room, she frantically tried to find a means of escape. She had to untie herself, but her hands were bound so tightly, she could barely move.
With a clank and a deep whir, the bar on which Cassie was suspended began to lower, slowly easing her toward the vat of the clear fluid. What was it? It looked like water but it could be anything horrible.
“Hey! No!” Cassie was screaming now, her bravado failing. “Let me down, please,” she cried, her voice cracking. “I’ve never done anything to you. Please, don’t do this!”
He returned from the computer room and stared at her. Didn’t say a word, and to Jenna’s horror, the closer Cassie got to the vat, the lower she got, his reaction was just the opposite: his dick started to rise.
The pervert was really getting off on this, staring at Cassie. While his back was turned on Jenna, she scooted closer to the mannequin meant to be Anne Parks, to the knife that was suspended from the mannequin’s hand. Only a few more inches, but she was running out of time; the pole on which Cassie was braced had reached the surface of the liquid. She saw Jenna move.
“Mom! No!”
He spun, eyes glittering.
It was now or never.
Jenna lunged for the mannequin, sending it toppling, the knife even farther from her. Anne’s arm hit Paris, and in a domino effect, all of the strange, lifelike replicas of her fell, thudding, jewelry and props skittering across the floor. One mannequin’s head twisted upward at an impossible angle.
“No!” he said, spinning, his eyes narrowing on the pile of crumpled mannequins. His hard-on shriveled. “Leave them alone!” He advanced toward Jenna and the pile of dummies. “Paris! Marnie! Faye!” he cried, his face twisting in pain before he glared furiously at Jenna. “Look
what you’ve done! This was your shrine, you thankless bitch!”
Jenna moved as quickly as possible, keeping eye contact with the madman, seeing, in her peripheral vision, the long-bladed knife mere feet away.
Walking swiftly, he seemed to have forgotten Cassie, who, as her toe hit the surface of the liquid, let out a screeching howl that echoed to the rafters.
“Let her go!” Jenna ordered. “It’s me you want. Obviously. So let her go.”
“I need you both.”
Cassie was inching into the liquid. Shivering. Her naked body trying to twist away. “Help!” she cried, then squealed in terror.
“Please, Seth,” Jenna said. “Let her go!”
“I’m not Seth.”
“Steven, then. Please!” She appeared to be moving closer to him, meeting him, supplicating. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Just let my daughter go.”
Oh, God, it was so cold, the water surrounding her felt thick, like gelatin, and was so cold. Cassie tried to shrink away, to shimmy backward up the pole, but it was no use. She sank lower and lower, her gaze darting from the freezing liquid to her mother and the monster and back to the tank.
Icy water—if that’s what it was—crawled up her legs, over her knees, up her thighs.
Carter pulled himself over the edge and rolled into the snowbank. He gasped for air, ice crystals stinging the exposed parts of his face. Drenched in sweat and shivering, he rolled to his feet, released his cleats, and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Through the trees, the old lodge appeared, a massive structure completely covered in snow. Only a few small windows remained, the larger ones boarded over.
He approached with caution, an eerie feeling of dread stealing through his blood as he surveyed the place. No pickup or truck, but a snowmobile was parked near a door and a rescue stretcher had been attached to it.
Grimly, he realized this was how Whitaker brought his victims here. A few lights glowed from the inside through the icy windows, and Carter’s guts felt like lead. He reached into his pocket, found his cell phone, and turned it on. Nothing. No signal.
Shit.
From his backpack he dragged out his walkie-talkie and hit the button. A crackle of noise erupted. “It’s Carter—I’m at the lodge, and I think Whitaker’s here. Send backup!”
He didn’t wait for a response, couldn’t risk the time. Stuffing his walkie-talkie into the pack again, he pulled out his sidearm and held it in one hand.
The fingers of his other hand gripped the ice axe.
A scream tore through the woods, a terrified wail erupting from within the building.
Carter didn’t think twice.
He kicked open the door, ducked inside, and with his weapon drawn, yelled, “Police! Freeze!”
What!
Whitaker heard the shout and turned. The lawman was standing in the doorway, gun drawn, aiming at him. Walking toward him as if he had the right.
Jenna let out a gasp of relief that curdled Whitaker’s stomach. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when he was so close.
He lunged to one side and hit the ground, rolling over and grabbing Jenna, holding her against him like a human shield. He had no weapon, but grabbed her neck and twisted.
She cried out.
“I’ll kill her, Carter,” he said calmly. “And then you can shoot the hell out of this place, kill me. It won’t matter—I’ll be with her.”
“Help!” Cassie cried, and Whitaker chanced a glance her way. She was almost submerged, gasping for breath, the freezing water slowing her reactions, hypothermia setting in.
“Shane, help her,” Jenna cried. “The controls are in the computer room.”
“Let her go.”
Carter trained his gun on him, but Whitaker didn’t care. He’d die with Jenna, take her with him, and he would have reached his goal. Here, with Jenna in his arms.
“I said ‘let her go,’” Carter repeated.
“Fuck off,” he growled, and while staring at Carter, held Jenna’s head twisted with one arm while fondling her breast with the other. It was heaven.
Gurgling sounds came from the other side of the room. Cassie was drowning, and the lawman couldn’t stop it.
Jenna bucked. All of her body convulsing, her tied hands flailing. Whitaker saw Carter shift, and he tightened his grip on Jenna, wrenching her neck.
The pain was excruciating, but Jenna didn’t care. Cassie was drowning. In front of her eyes. And the knife was only inches from her hand. She threw herself up at her attacker, throwing all of her weight against him, her hands scraping the concrete, breaking nails. She found the hilt of the knife, picked it up in both hands, and turned, slashing wildly, her head feeling as if it would fall off.
Whitaker yelped. Cassie sputtered.
The harsh grip relaxed for an instant.
A shot blasted through the room, reverberating against the walls, and Whitaker fell away.
“Save Cassie!” Jenna cried, stumbling to her feet. With his ice axe, Carter unbound Jenna’s wrists and ankles, and she ran blindly toward the computer room while Carter climbed the rigging.
Cassie was completely submerged, her body unmoving.
Carter didn’t wait. He aimed his gun at the glass tank.
Jenna screamed.
He pulled the trigger.
The gun fired.
Glass shattered as the tank exploded. Water, in a huge, cascading rush, flooded the room, pouring over the equipment, skimming over the floor.
Cassie lay still as Carter pulled on the rigging and the beam swung to a platform. With keys he found on the ledge, he unlocked her and she collapsed onto the ledge. “Look for blankets,” he yelled as he started mouth-to-mouth, forcing warm air into her lungs, then pressed on her chest. Come on, Cassie, breathe. He tried again. And again. Don’t do this, don’t die. Come on, fight. Don’t let that bastard win!
He heard Jenna climbing the ladder to the landing. “Oh, God, is she—”
With a jolt, Cassie spluttered and coughed, water spewing from her mouth and nose as she turned to her side. She gasped, dragging air into her lungs, and coughed again.
“Oh, honey!” Jenna kneeled over her, wrapped her in a blanket, and cradled her head. “Oh, baby, baby, baby…”
Cassie was crying, shaking, trying to understand, and as she did, her eyes took in Shane Carter standing a few paces behind Jenna. Shivering, she looked down at her naked body, and groggily must’ve put two and two together. “Oh, gross…” She wrapped the blanket closer around her. “Yuk.”
Carter, looking down at dummies of Jenna half-submerged in the icy water stained red from Whitaker’s wounds, couldn’t agree more. Jewelry and props, a broken umbrella and bracelets, floated in the murky red water that collected around the dentist’s chair. A pair of plastic glasses, their lenses shattered, skimmed along the water’s surface.
“I guess I’d better see if he’s still alive,” Carter said, but took his time getting to Whitaker, who stared up at the ceiling where posters of Jenna were tacked. Blood showed in the corners of his mouth and oozed from beneath his back.
Carter waded through the water, leaned down, and felt for a pulse at Whitaker’s throat.
There was none.
Seth Whitaker, aka Steven White, was dead.
Jenna and Cassie were alive.
Things could have ended up worse.
A whole lot worse.
EPILOGUE
“I thought you were through with ‘bullshit’ sessions,” Dr. Randall said nearly ten months later, when Carter arrived on his doorstep.
“I am.” He stepped into the room where he’d spilled his guts for so many months and frowned at the soft leather couch, pastel seascapes, oak bookcase filled with tomes on every kind of psychosis, mental disease or syndrome in the world.
A fern, near the corner, catching the late summer light through the window, flourished, showing off new green fronds.
Randall seemed pleased, as if his prodigal son had finally returned.
They both stood near the window overlooking the parking lot. “I don’t have time to see you right now. I’m on my way out.”
“That’s fine, I won’t need much of your time. I just want to remind you that I’ll be watching, okay? I’ve heard rumors that you’re writing a book.”
“Everyone’s dream.”
“Not mine.”
“Well, we can’t all be authors,” Randall said.
“I heard that it’s loosely based on Seth Whitaker’s obsession with Jenna Hughes.”
Randall touched the edge of his goatee, turned a palm toward the ceiling. “It’s about an unbalanced person obsessed with an ex-movie star.”
“And you’ve had some bites, right? An agent and publisher interested, even Hollywood knocking on your door.”
“Well…I don’t know about that.” Randall checked his watch and Carter hitched his chin toward the parking lot, suggesting the psychologist look through the window to the parking space where Jenna, seated at the wheel of her Jeep was waiting, the rig’s engine idling in the hot afternoon air.
“Things are working out for you, I see,” Randall observed with the tiniest of smiles. “Maybe winter isn’t so bad after all.”
“Maybe, and yeah, things are working out, but Jenna, she’s still got connections in L.A. and there are rumors that her ex is going to try and produce a story that sounds a helluva lot like yours.”
“Is that so?” Randall’s humorless eyes met his gaze and Carter noticed it then, that hint of superiority, the look of soft disdain for those less intelligent than Dean M. Randall, Ph.D. At least he hadn’t lied and denied it.
“I just thought you should know that I suspect you might have taped all my sessions with you.”
Randall frowned. “I taped your sessions?”
Again the non-lie. “And if there is anything, just a whiff of what I told you in confidence finding its way into your book, I’ll sue.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Of course not,” Carter said, allowing his mouth to stretch into its most disarming country-boy smile. “But I just want to forewarn you.”