CHAPTER 15.

"Trouble?" BJ asked, watching Jenna walk briskly through the desks toward the front door of the sheriff's office.

"Always." Carter, too, was eyeing Falls Crossing's most famous citizen's backside. Even hidden beneath fleece-lined layers, her a.s.s was definitely tight and oh, so female. He drew his eyes away, but figured BJ had seen his silent appraisal. "So, what's up?"

"Charley Perry. Apparently he likes being a celebrity. Station KBST has been offering up sound bites all morning about their 'exclusive interview' with him."

"Give me a break," Carter grumbled. "I thought I told him to keep his mouth shut."

"That's like telling a grizzly to be gentle when you're offering him a piece of steak."

"I suppose. Any news from missing persons about Jane Doe?"

"No matches yet."

Great, Carter thought, and found the remote to the small television that was balanced atop a filing cabinet. Just...great.

"What's this?" BJ was looking at the plastic envelope on Carter's desk.

"Looks like Jenna Hughes found herself another fan."

"You are every woman? You are one woman? Jesus, who does this guy think he is? Julio Iglesias?" She was studying the envelope.

"That's Enrique-you're dating yourself." He glanced at the note again and it bothered him. More than he wanted to admit. He considered her beautiful face. "Whoever sent it thinks he owns her."

"She have any idea who would do this?"

"Nope-but she did come up with the name of a stalker who chased her around a few years back. Vincent Paladin, some creep who hung out in video stores."

"Does he live around here?"

"Don't know. Yet." He tapped the desk and scowled. Was it just coincidence that Jenna Hughes received the note at the same time that a Jane Doe was discovered up at Catwalk Point and Sonja Hatch.e.l.l came up missing...the incidents seemed unrelated...or were they?

Jane Doe appeared to be the victim of a homicide that had occurred a while back.

Sonja Hatch.e.l.l was missing. But she could have taken off on her own, or been lost in the storm.

And now Jenna Hughes was being terrorized, if not stalked.

"Hey, what's going on?" BJ was staring at him. "I see gears grinding in that brain of yours."

"Just thinking about coincidence. You believe in it?"

"Never."

"Me neither," he said, and chewed on the edge of his moustache as he pointed the remote at his TV and clicked it on.

"Uh-oh, here we go." BJ was already staring at the small television screen and there, in all his glory, was Charley Perry, chatting up a reporter. Charley's white hair was combed, his beard trimmed, his plaid shirt clean and pressed. "Look at him, all gussied-up and dignified-looking."

"Idiot." Disgusted, Carter clicked up the volume and listened as Charley Perry shot off his mouth. "I should have his a.s.s arrested for impeding an investigation."

"And think of all the negative publicity the sheriff's department would get then." BJ winked at him. "Remember, you're an elected official, sworn and dedicated to upholding the law and-"

"Yeah, I get it." He watched Charley expound on his theory of what had happened to the unidentified woman, then tell the story of how he and his faithful dog, Tanzy, had found the remains. The screen had switched to the dog in question, a white-and-liver-spotted mutt that seemed to have some springer spaniel in her. Tanzy whimpered and hid behind Charley's bowed, jean-clad legs, avoiding a treat offered by the reporter. The segment was soon over, and Carter clicked off the set. "That was newsworthy," he groused.

"Charley's harmless."

"And a moron." Carter's mood darkened. With no news on the Jane Doe, Sonja Hatch.e.l.l's disappearance, Jenna Hughes's stalker, and Charley Perry mouthing off to the press, the day was going rapidly from bad to worse.

G.o.d, it's cold. So cold...and the music...where are the strains of music coming from?

Teeth chattering painfully, Sonja opened a bleary eye and struggled to stay awake. She'd been in and out of consciousness, she thought, though her mind was thick, her thoughts disjointed. She knew time had pa.s.sed, though she wasn't certain if it was in minutes, hours, or days. Her brief seconds of wakefulness had been without clarity. Vaguely she remembered being abducted, but she couldn't recall her captor-had it really happened? And there was a fragmented image of stripping her, but again, the memory was dreamlike...surreal. Then she remembered that the monster had not only shaved her head but filed her teeth...she tried to feel her incisors with her tongue, but tasted blood and felt only sharp little nubs where once her teeth had been.

Oh, G.o.d...it hadn't been a dream.

So where was she now? Why was she still alive?

She seemed weightless, but freezing...every inch of her skin felt as if it were cloaked in ice. Shadows crawled around her, colors that blurred and had no form or meaning in the vast, dark expanse.

Where am I?

Where the h.e.l.l am I?

This is wrong. So wrong. And weird as all get out!

She strained to see, but the shifting shadows were without form. Her ears were tuned to every noise, but all she heard were the plaintive notes of a ballad that seemed familiar, a song she should recognize.

Was it her imagination, or did she detect malice lurking in the surrounding murkiness, something or someone evil observing her?

Shivering, she tried to concentrate, to remember...to think. Beyond the cold. Beyond the fear that threatened her.

Come on, Sonja! What the h.e.l.l is this?

Fragments of memory, jagged shards like serrated icicles, cut through her brain.

Jesus, it's cold!

She stirred and everything around her shifted. Traces of dim light playing eerily around her naked body-yes, naked, she thought frantically and a new, horrifying dread began to pulse through her brain. Every inch of her skin was exposed and colder than it had ever been in her life. She struggled to breathe, felt as if the liquid in which she was nearly immersed was freezing her body from the outside in.

Don't panic! Just figure your way out of this.

She had the sensation that she was standing, though she felt no pressure on her nearly numb feet...as if she were suspended. Without wires.

Oh G.o.d, this was one weird trip...like LSD gone bad. Think, Sonja, think!

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her mind, hoping that the distorted images would disappear, but when she opened her eyes again, nothing had changed.

With every bit of strength she could muster, she strained to tilt her head and look down at her feet. Her bare feet. Her bare, frozen feet that stood on nothing. Dangling, but not moving. What the h.e.l.l? Her heart clutched as she tried to focus and looked straight ahead again, to the warped images, the odd play of bits of light. It was as if she were captive in some big tank...a huge gla.s.s vat filled with something clear and thick, like water about to freeze, and she did have some kind of straps holding her still, straps connected to a huge lifting device-a mechanical arm, stretched overhead; she just couldn't feel them, as she was so cold. What is this? What kind of weird sci-fi c.r.a.p is this? Frantic, she tried to look around. The tub of water itself was housed within a darkened building, a vast warehouse with faint light and shadows that wavered eerily. Through the curved gla.s.s, she saw women, softly backlit and unmoving, in odd poses, juxtaposed to each other. The mannequins! They were on the stage, but the dentist's chair and drill had been moved.

How long had she been out? She remembered him adjusting the IV drip, adding something with a hypodermic needle before pa.s.sing out and then...then she'd woken up here.

There was still music, a haunting melody from some movie, seeping through the cavernous room.

Desperately she tried to move, to propel herself to the side of the tank and try to climb up the sheer gla.s.s walls and over the rim. Move, Sonja. NOW!

She strained. Put every bit of strength into her efforts. Her heart pounded. Her blood pumped. But her arms and legs remained slack. Motionless. Unheeding.

No! Oh, no!

Again she tried. So hard, her filed teeth clenched and she felt as if a blood vessel might pop.

Nothing.

Oh, G.o.d.

Help! She tried to scream, but her voice came out in a squeak. As if already beginning to freeze.

Fear surged through her.

Adrenaline spurted through her near-frozen blood, and yet she didn't move. Couldn't so much as wiggle a finger.

Why the h.e.l.l couldn't she move or speak?

Why couldn't she scream?

What happened to her voice?

What the h.e.l.l is this?

Stay calm, she told herself, as the music reverberated through her head.

The water seemed even more dense as if it, along with her body, was slowly turning to ice. But that was crazy. Insane.

Suddenly the music halted.

There was silence, which was worse, and then footsteps, quiet but steady...deadly...approached. From behind.

Frantically, she tried to turn, to scream, to plead for help, but it was useless. Her neck wouldn't budge a fraction of an inch.

"Awake so soon?" The voice was a deep, male whisper. Yet it echoed through the room, bounced through her brain. The same voice she'd heard before. His voice.

Let me out of here, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

"I wondered if you'd come to, Jenna."

Jenna? I'm not Jenna! She tried to yell to tell him that he had the wrong woman, that this was all a mistake, but her voice failed her.

"Or should I call you Faye?"

Faye? No! I'm not Faye. I'm not Jenna. I'm no one you want, you idiot! Frantically she struggled, trying to move, but her brain was fast becoming as sluggish as the rest of her. She couldn't move, couldn't feel...she knew instinctively that if she were to let go, to allow herself to slide into the seductive blackness of unconsciousness, she would never reawaken, never breathe again, never see her boys...Let me go, please, oh, please...don't do this...it's a mistake! But even as her words came to her mind, even as she tried to scream, she felt herself slipping under, giving up her valiant struggle to maintain clarity, realizing that she was soon to embrace death.

She fought hard to stay awake, but her eyelids became heavy, her body numb, and as the man who had been only a disembodied voice stepped around the tub. She saw his face, distorted through the curved gla.s.s, the s.a.d.i.s.tic beast.

"Your time has come, Faye," he said softly, as if savoring each syllable, and as Sonja's gaze met his, she recognized the pure evil lurking in his icy, unblinking eyes.

CHAPTER 16.

They were getting nowhere fast. At least, that's the way it seemed to Carter as he threw his keys onto a shelf near the front door of his cabin. Physically he was dead tired, but his mind was working overtime, fueled by caffeine and the nicotine he'd inhaled when he'd b.u.mmed a couple of cigarettes from Jerri. He'd kicked the habit ten years earlier, but at times when he was dog tired and trying to work out a problem, or when he'd had more than two beers, he tended to fall off the wagon, though never enough to buy himself a pack. That's where Carter had drawn the line-paying for smokes. Even though he knew his rationale was foolish. The only person he was kidding was himself.

He unzipped his jacket and hung it on a hook, then kicked off his boots. His house was cold enough that his breath fogged, the frigid air seeping up from the old wood floor and penetrating his wool socks. He spent the next ten minutes stoking the fire and adding a couple of mossy chunks of oak he'd carried in yesterday.

Once the fire was crackling, heat beginning to radiate from the old stove, he rocked back on his heels and stared at the flames through the gla.s.s window set into the door.

The Oregon State Police Crime Lab hadn't come up with any more evidence to help identify Jane Doe. So far, from talking to the companies who manufactured alginate, no huge amounts of the gooey stuff were missing, nor had there been any record of a large amount being sold to individuals who weren't dentists or artists, or people who used the stuff legitimately in the past couple of years. But the detectives with the State Police were still checking with other distributors, some in Canada. Jane's face was being reconstructed by both a computer and police artist, but neither was complete as yet.

All these operations took time.

Sonja Hatch.e.l.l had now been missing for forty-eight hours, and the prospect of finding her was becoming more grim with each pa.s.sing minute. Deputies had organized volunteers in a search party that was continuing, but hampered by the inclement weather. All the roads and bridges that were pa.s.sable had been checked and double-checked. Still nothing. It was as if she and her car had fallen off the face of the earth.

Then there was still the issue of Jenna Hughes's missing things, frightening phone call, and anonymous letter, along with the ravages of a storm that hadn't yet abated. In the past couple of days the wind had died down and the snow had stopped just long enough to give the sanding crews a chance to catch up to the plows, then it had started all over again. There had been two more accidents on I-84 and the State Police had shut the Interstate down once again.

Homes without power had been evacuated, and all of the mountain streams had completely frozen over. Even the larger rivers were beginning to ice up. All in all, it was a mess, and the d.a.m.ned weather service kept predicting more of the same. The media, all dressed in their designer ski gear, gleefully reported the number of inches of snow, showed video images of kids sledding down city streets, cars sliding off roads, semis backed up because the truckers couldn't get across the mountains, and cross-country skiers making their way through the streets of Portland. Meanwhile, Carter and his overworked crew, along with the State Police, the department of transportation, and all the utility companies, were working around the clock to keep the roads and residents safe. Which was impossible.

G.o.d, he was tired.

Outside, the wind tore through the forest and Carter grumbled under his breath. He walked to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and ignored a man-sized dinner in favor of a tray of ice cubes and a bottle of Jack Daniels tucked away in the cupboard. With a flip of his wrist, he slapped the tray onto his counter, sent a few frozen cubes flying, then poured himself a drink. He was supposed to be off duty for the next two days but figured he'd be called in before daybreak.

But he still had time for a short one.

Sipping the whiskey, he hankered for another smoke, but ignored the craving as he sat at his desk and booted up the computer. His electricity flickered, and he had to try again, but the lights managed to stay on and he was able to access the Internet. Without hesitation, he called up a search engine and typed in Jenna Hughes's name.

The number of sites that could be accessed was astronomical. Especially for an actress who was no longer working, a once-upon-a-time star who should have fallen off the public's radar. Carter pulled up the first fan club site and found himself staring at a computer image of Jenna, the Internet's answer to an 8x10 glossy head shot. In the picture, she was half-turned toward the camera's lens, and a hint of a smile tugged at her full lips. There was a glimmer of naughtiness in her green eyes, a shadow of a s.e.xy imp beneath her serious facade. Shiny black hair fell in tangled disarray and framed her face coquettishly. Though the image was only of her shoulders and head, you had the feeling that she was naked in front of the camera, that she was teasing whoever had the audacity to stare at her.