Northwest: Deep Freeze Part 45

A door creaked open downstairs.

Jenna's heart stopped. "Shh!" She wrapped her arms around both of her girls.

"Jenna!" Turnquist's voice boomed through the house. His boots pounded on the stairs. "Jenna!"

Relief flooded through her. "Up here! In my room! It's okay!"

He flew into the room, his weapon in his hand. "I heard a scream."

"Another visitor," she said, and hitched her chin toward her jewelry box.

Turnquist strode across the room. "s.h.i.+t." He looked at the finger, but didn't touch it. "What the h.e.l.l is this?"

"It's fake, someone's idea of a sick joke."

"Or worse. The rings look real."

"They are," she whispered, "or d.a.m.ned good fakes." Her stomach was in knots, and she felt the urge to throw up at the depths of depravity of the person who had done this. "They look like Lynnetta Swaggert's engagement and wedding ring."

"No!" Ca.s.sie cried, her already-pale face losing its last hint of color. "Not her real ones, right? These are just...kind of the same."

"I noticed them the other day when Lynnetta was altering a dress. If these aren't Lynnetta's rings, then they're a d.a.m.ned good copy."

Allie's eyes grew wide. She wrapped her arms around her mother and Jenna held her close. "I'm scared, Mom."

"Me, too, baby. Me, too." For the first time in her life, Jenna didn't know what to do. Her home had been violated and was obviously unsafe. Whoever had been terrorizing her came and went at will. Despite the alarm system. Despite her contacts with the police. Despite her d.a.m.ned bodyguard.

She stared out the window to the snow falling, and she prayed the power wouldn't go out.

Where could she take her children? Where would there be a haven where her daughters wouldn't have to be in harm's way? And how would she get them out of here? The roads were nearly impa.s.sable and all the hotels in town were full. And the son of a b.i.t.c.h wanted her to run. That much was obvious. Why else try to scare her witless? Anger rode along the back of fear. Who the h.e.l.l was this b.a.s.t.a.r.d? What was he trying to do? "We'll be okay," she said firmly, stroking Allie's hair.

Ca.s.sie stared at her mother, silently accusing her of the lie. For once there wasn't a trace of anger, disrespect, or sarcasm in her gaze. Just plain, naked fear. "I think we should all go to L.A. for the holidays."

Jenna didn't argue, but said, "I think that's what he wants."

"He? Who? The sicko who did this?" Ca.s.sie asked.

"Yeah."

"Too bad-I still think we should leave. Go somewhere else. Mom, this kind of thing never happened in California."

That much was true. It was almost as if the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wanted her to return. Why? Did he feel threatened that she was up here? Wanted her gone? Or was he trying to push her back to California because he wanted her there? Why? To make more movies?

Robert.

He wants the kids closer.

"I'm calling the sheriff," Turnquist said. "He'll send out men, or get in touch with the Oregon State Police. I want this place gone over with a fine-tooth comb. Meanwhile, all of us, we stay together. In the den. When the police get here, I'm going to tear this place apart."

"Be my guest," Jenna said as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. She didn't care if he pulled the walls down. She just wanted the son of a b.i.t.c.h nailed.

Carter pushed the speed limit through the snow. He planned to explain that he'd seen someone snooping around Wes's shop, had taken off after the guy, called BJ on his cell, and then, after losing the suspect in the snowstorm, had returned to the scene, where he would meet up with Wes. That would explain a lot. Cover his lies.

He pulled into town and saw Wes's truck parked on the street by his electrician's shop. It was a hole in the wall, not much more than an office and a repair room where he kept spare parts and tools. Wes was inside, the lights on, standing in the middle of the office.

Carter walked in the open door.

"What the h.e.l.l's going on?" Wes demanded, his face furrowed and dark, the smell of beer and cigarette smoke clinging to him.

"I saw someone poking around."

"Who?"

"Couldn't tell."

"Nothing's missing. No window broken. Doors locked up tighter than a drum." Wes rested his hips on the old scarred desk.

"You were lucky."

"Was I?" Wes asked. "I've had this shop here for, oh, what? Nine years. Never a break-in, never anything stolen, and tonight you see someone you don't recognize, take off after him, lose him in the snow. That's what you're telling me?"

"That's what I'm telling you."

"You who had one dead body, three missing women, and all kinds of emergencies countywide were just cruising through town and saw someone poking around my place." He skewered Carter with a look that screamed bulls.h.i.+t.

"I was on my way home."

"You live in the other direction."

"I was on one last patrol, but hey, if you don't want my help, I'm outta here. Believe it or not, Wes, I've had a long day. I'm cold, tired, and don't need to take this c.r.a.p from you or anyone else." Carter was angry now and saw no reason to mince words. "As you pointed out, there are more important cases than this."

Wes rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, didn't seem the least chastised.

"Took you a h.e.l.luva long time to get back here."

Carter reached for the door. "I've got better things to do than listen to this. I thought you'd want to know that someone was hanging out at your shop. It seemed to me that he was intent on breaking in. Maybe I was wrong. See ya."

"Someone was at my house tonight."

"Who?" Carter asked calmly, every nerve ending alert.

"I'm not sure. But someone came in. I think I scared him off."

"How'd they enter? Break down a door? Through a window?"

Wes shook his head.

"No sign of forced entry?"

"Nope."

"Maybe you forgot to lock the place."

"Nope."

"Then what?"

Wes scowled darkly.

"Anything taken?" The pictures and videotape still in Carter's pocket felt like lead.

"Don't know yet."

"If you want, I could come out and look around. Go through the house. Find out what, if anything's, missing."

Wes blinked, then caught himself, but there was a trace of panic in his eyes that he quickly hid. "Maybe I was mistaken."

"You sure?"

"h.e.l.l, I'm not sure about anything anymore, Shane." His arms folded over his chest.

"Join the club. Now, unless you need me here, I'm leaving."

"I still think it's funny, you dragging me out in the middle of the night."

Carter lifted his eyebrows and played his trump card. "Maybe you shouldn't be driving."

"Why?"

"You smell like a brewery."

Wes's eyes narrowed. "You want to give me a sobriety test?" he asked, his voice low. "Your department f.u.c.kin' calls me down here on some bogus information and then you want to give me a G.o.dd.a.m.ned sobriety test. What the h.e.l.l is this, Shane? Some kind of setup?"

"I told you what happened."

"And I don't believe it."

Carter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't want to have to-"

"You don't have to do anything, Shane. Not a d.a.m.ned thing. I'll just go home and we'll forget all about this." He stood away from the desk and snagged his keys from the desk.

Carter pretended to be thinking it over.

Wes eased his way to the door. "It's late."

"That it is." Carter rolled his lips in on themselves as if he was pondering the weight of the world; then he caught Wes's guarded gaze and stared him down.

"Let's call it a night."

Carter nodded slowly, still appearing to think things through. "Tell ya what. You lock up here, go home, check things out, and, if something's missing, let me know. I'll send out a deputy, or you can fill out a report down at the station."

"Great," Wes muttered as he opened the door and a gust of icy air swept into the office. Carter walked outside and made his way to his truck.

"Take it easy on the drive home," he warned, as if he really thought Wes might be inebriated. He knew better, could tell that Wes might have a slight buzz, but he was far from over the limit. But Wes was just paranoid enough that Carter could play on his worries.

Wes turned his collar to the wind. "I'll be fine," he said, stalking to his truck.

Not if I have anything to say about it, Carter thought, climbing into his own rig and watching Wes drive away in the rearview mirror. He smiled grimly as he noticed Wes's particular attention to signaling, stopping for the requisite number of seconds at the flas.h.i.+ng light, and keeping his pickup under the speed limit.

Just to give Wes something to worry about, Carter followed him for six blocks before turning in the opposite direction and heading home. The streets were nearly empty and as he drove out of town, no vehicle was visible in his rearview mirror. Which was all the better.

Carter drove outside of town and caught 184, heading west. The traffic was nil as the road was officially closed, but he ignored the barriers, driving around the iced barricades and, within a few miles, turning onto the Bridge of the G.o.ds. He parked midspan. Leaving the truck to idle, he climbed out, walked to the side and pulled the videotape from his pocket. As he glanced down at the black case, he wondered what images of Carolyn had been caught on the d.a.m.ning video. Had she been naked? With Wes? In a compromising position? Or just a video of her fully clothed and smiling...who cared? He told himself he was better off not knowing and was surprised that so much of the old festering pain seemed to have disappeared. He really didn't give a d.a.m.n what Carolyn had done, but he sure as h.e.l.l didn't want it dredged up again.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

He wiped the tape case clean of any fingerprints and s.h.i.+vered in the cold. The wind blew harsh as a demon's breath, knifing through his clothes. Snow swirled wildly. Beneath the bridge, the inky waters of the swollen Columbia River raged.

Teeth chattering, Carter dropped the tape onto the slick asphalt of the bridge. He stomped on the casing with the heel of his boot, smas.h.i.+ng the plastic and shattering it into sharp black shards.

Not good enough.

He ripped the tape, stripping it from its spools; then he picked up the debris and hurled the whole d.a.m.ned mess into the dark, icy depths of the Columbia below. "Adios," he said into the screaming wind and felt an unlikely sense of freedom.

He would burn the pictures in his pocket in the woodstove at his house. Nothing ceremonial about it. He'd just throw the betraying shots onto the fire and wouldn't even watch them curl and hiss as they incinerated.

They would be destroyed. Forever. When Wes Allen's house was searched, no pictures of Carolyn would surface to bring up the old scandal again. And Carter didn't believe Wes would be stupid enough to mention to the police that someone had taken his prints or his video of another man's wife-the sheriff's dead wife. Even if he did, so what? Wes Allen wasn't just his ex-best friend and wife's lover; he was now Jenna Hughes's stalker.

He was going down.

Big time.

Over the howl of the wind, he heard his cell phone. Slipping on the ice-slickened asphalt, he hurried to his Blazer and jumped into the driver's seat. He managed to pick up the phone as he closed the door with his other hand.

"Carter," he said into the handset.

"It's Turnquist." The bodyguard's voice was barely audible.

Carter's muscles clenched.

"We've got a problem here at the Hughes place. Everyone's safe now, but security's been breached."

d.a.m.n. "How?" Carter demanded.

"I think the guy was in here. Don't know when. Probably sometime tonight."

"What? While you were there?"

"I don't know for sure, but yeah, I think so."