Northwest: Deep Freeze Part 54

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 G.o.d'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, relis.h.i.+ng 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 b.i.t.c.h who'd borne him and the father he'd never known, nor, he suspected, had she. Whoring s.l.u.t! 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 gla.s.s? 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 b.i.t.c.h.

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 a.s.sociates from the State Crime Lab arrived after Shane had double-checked both the barn and the logging road to make sure that Jenna or Ca.s.sie 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 impa.s.sable."

"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 apres 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 that type of knife, maybe even a surgical blade. By the way he gutted the body, he's done this before." She s.h.i.+ned 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 gla.s.ses. She looked pointedly at one of her a.s.sistants. "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 d.a.m.ned 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."

"h.e.l.luva 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."

Carter glanced at his watch, felt the urgency of the pa.s.sing of time. Where was the murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.d who had Jenna? If the weather were better, there could be helicopters or planes searching the surrounding hills, but as it was, they were forced to the ground, and with the storm, a search would be nearly impossible.

The crime techs went to work, and Shane trudged through the snow toward the house. He was wired. Anxious. Felt that time was slipping away and with it, Jenna's chances of survival.

What did he know about this guy?

Lived in the area.

Obsessed with Jenna Hughes.

Considered himself some kind of poet.

A hunter, someone strong.

Someone who was connected to Hollywood and worked with alginate to make masks.

Someone who knew the layout of the grounds, understood Jenna's routine. Knew about Ca.s.sie's trysts with her boyfriend. About the logging road.

Someone close...

Someone who called himself Steven White, after a character in Resurrection.

By the time Carter returned to the house, Lieutenant Sparks and another officer from the OSP had arrived. Sparks was standing near the fire in the den, talking on the phone. Rinda, Allie, and the dog were hunkered on the couch, a quilt tossed over them, and another technician from the Oregon State Police was searching the place. "Haven't heard on the GPS chips," Sparks said after hanging up, "and Brennan, Settler, Falletti, and Dvorak are all accounted for. I had officers check."

"Can we leave now?" Rinda asked. "Allie can come with me. I'll take care of her. But I've got to find Scott."

"He's missing?" Carter asked and remembered that Rinda's son could recite lines from Jenna's movies, that he was near the top of the list for rental/purchase of every piece of film she'd made.

"He went into Portland, and Jesus, Carter, don't give me that look. Scott's not a part of this. Just like Wes wasn't." When he didn't respond, she threw the cover off. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Shane, get a grip. You're grasping at straws!"

"Hey!" the technician shouted from the stairs. "Up here!"

"Stay with her," Carter ordered Rinda as he and Sparks headed up the steps, pa.s.sing the landing with its window. The tech was standing in the doorway; he led them into Jenna's closet and a pull-down ladder that opened to an attic s.p.a.ce above. Within the attic, beneath a thick layer of insulation, he pointed to a wire with a small, bulbous end. "A camera," he said, "not part of the normal wiring, back here." He showed them more of the same, hidden deep beneath the batting and run along a beam, barely noticeable, threading through the upper floor. "This is a professional job. Pretty high-tech, and he would have had to have time to do it. My guess, whoever wired this place did it before she moved in...like an inspector or someone hired to do work to bring it up to code. This insulation is pretty new, certainly added long after the house was built, probably before Ms. Hughes bought the place. So our guy, he does the legitimate electrical stuff, has the place inspected, then adds his own special little devices."

Shane thought about Scott Dalinsky. Yeah, the kid had some of the know-how, but not the opportunity. Wes Allen? Or someone else. Seth Whitaker came quickly to mind. And he was a transplant, wasn't he?

Shane whipped out his cell phone and called BJ. "Get to someone at city hall, find out who did the remodel work on Jenna Hughes's place, and where the h.e.l.l Seth Whitaker lives...Isn't it up past Juniper?"

"I know that one. I've been checking," BJ said. "He bought the Farris property about two and a half years back. Before Jenna Hughes plunked down her money."

"But she might have already been looking. Where's Whitaker's place?"

"Remember the private ski resort project that was abandoned? That's the spot."

Carter felt that sense of awareness, the p.r.i.c.kle of knowledge, a quick rush that accompanies cracking a particularly troublesome puzzle.

The acres surrounding the abandoned ski lodge overlooked this ranch. Located high upon a cliff, the very spot where Pious Falls started its furious descent, the acres set deep into the forest. The fact that some Arizona developer had actually thought about building a ski lodge up there had been considered folly by most of the locals. The access was nearly impossible, the permits unlikely, that side of the mountain ravaged by winter winds screaming down the gorge. The entire idea had fizzled before it had ever taken off. The man who'd dreamed up the crazy plan had died after some initial construction had been bogged down in red tape and red ink. His heirs had spent two or three years trying to unload the place.

Enter Seth Whitaker. The loner. A handyman. Electrician. Had he worked in L.A.? Was he connected to Jenna and her movies?

"You think Whitaker is involved?" BJ asked.

"I think he could be, yes. Check his alibis for the nights Sonja Hatch.e.l.l, Roxie Olmstead, and Lynnetta Swaggert were abducted, then see if he was in Medford last year, around the time Mavis Gette was thumbing her way to Oregon. It may take some time, but there may be some credit card receipts indicating he was in Southern Oregon or Northern California. I need to know if this guy has changed his name legally, or illegally, for that matter, if he ever lived in the L.A. area, was a.s.sociated with Hazzard Brothers or any other company that worked with Jenna Hughes's films. Find out everything you can about him."

"Tall order."

"In a short time. I need all this ASAP."

"I'll do what I can, but remember, you also thought Wes Allen was our man."

"Wishful thinking," he joked.

She didn't laugh.

"Dispatch a unit to Whitaker's place on the mountain, too."

"We don't have a unit, not so much as one deputy who isn't at another emergency," she said. "And wait a sec...the roads up on Wildcat Mountain are so steep, they're shut down. I just got the call. They're impa.s.sable up there, and a chopper won't work in this mess."

The mountain retreat was his lair...Carter felt it in his bones.

"Call the forest service. Get some of their equipment. Find a way to get up there and get back to me."

"Jesus, Carter, why not ask for the moon while you're at it?"

"Just do it, d.a.m.n it, BJ," he said, impatient. Every minute wasted was a minute Jenna Hughes was with the psycho.

He clicked off his phone and turned to Sparks. "It's Seth Whitaker. He's our guy."

"You're sure?" Sparks was skeptical as they walked into the den.

"He's an electrician. Lives fairly close. Has only been in town two or three years."

Sparks was shaking his head. "That's still real thin."

"No reason not to go visit him." At the bottom of the steps, Carter turned into the den. Jenna's daughter was seated in a corner of the couch, a hand-held video game in her lap, but her eyes turned toward the window. "Hey, Allie," Carter said, careful not to lead her to a conclusion. "Does the man who took your mom have the same build of anyone you know, anyone who might have been at the house?"

"Maybe." She was still scared to death, regarded Shane with wary eyes.

"Like who?"

"Like the bodyguard, big like him."

"Tall and muscular?"

"Yeah..." She turned away, scratched at her cheek.

"But you didn't recognize him?"

Her face squeezed together. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes.

"Leave her alone," Rinda said. "Carter, enough!"

She was right.

The kid had done all she could.

He walked into the kitchen. "Can you stay with them?" he asked Sparks. "Until I get back."

"I've got to be here for the M.E. and the D.A. As long as the crime scene team is here." His cell phone jangled and Sparks answered. The conversation was short. His dark eyes narrowed and he snapped the phone off. "GPS found the location of the phones, along with Turnquist's. Looks like they were ditched along Wildcat Road, east of here."

"On the way to Whitaker's place."

"On the way to a lot of places, but yeah." Larry nodded. "You think he's our guy?"

"I'd bet on it. Call the feds. Send backup."