Deep Freeze (12 page)

You should never drink alone.

Isn’t that what
they
say? Whoever
they
are.

Too bad. Jenna had just had one helluva day and she decided a cup of decaf coffee laced with a bit of Kahlua and Bailey’s Irish Cream wouldn’t kill her. She spied the aerosol whipped cream in the refrigerator and couldn’t resist. “In for a penny,” she told herself as she added a dollop of cream to her cup, then topped it all off with a dash of chocolate sprinkles. If her trainer Ron ever found out, he’d punish her with extra minutes on the treadmill, but so what? He was, after all, only twenty-six and certainly didn’t know about the soothing effects of chocolate and alcohol when it came to times of stress. Which this definitely was.

“Right?” she said to the dog, who had settled into his favorite spot under the table. Critter, if nothing else, was optimistic when it came to the thought of scraps being surreptitiously slipped in his direction. His tail thumped loudly on the floor as Jenna sat on a chair and pawed through her bag for the mail she’d picked up earlier. With everything else that had happened in her life today, she’d forgotten about the mail until just this moment. The girls had devoured pizza, salad, and ice cream and were upstairs in their rooms while Jenna contemplated a long, hot bath in the Jacuzzi.

As she sipped her drink, she sorted through the magazines, bills, and advertisements that had collected in her post office box during the last week. Until she came to the hand-addressed envelope. Her name was written in precise block letters and there was no return address. Using a letter opener, she slit the envelope open and noted that the postmark was Portland.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

A unique, single sheet of paper upon which was a short love poem, the words superimposed over a pale image of Jenna wearing a black sheath with a beaded neckline, a picture taken of her on the set of
Resurrection
. It had been a publicity shot taken of her in the role of the coolly seductive and psychotic killer, Anne Parks.

You are every woman.

Sensual. Strong. Erotic
.

You are one woman.

Searching. Wanting. Waiting.

You are my woman.

Today. Tomorrow. Endlessly.

I will come for you.

Jenna’s heart nearly stopped. Ice congealed in her veins. “Oh, God,” she whispered and dropped the letter as if it burned her. Coffee from her cup sloshed onto the table, splashing over the sheet and envelope. Who had sent this to her? Why? Heart hammering, she glanced around the room, as if whoever had mailed the poem might appear.

Critter climbed to his feet and whined.

“It’s—it’s all right,” she said, though she could barely breathe. Someone knew her mailing address, realized she lived here. When she’d moved from L.A., she’d tried to start over, had asked that all of her fan mail be sent to her agent’s address…Her post office box here was supposed to be private.

It’s a small town.

The general public does know you live here.

You know this comes with the territory.

Relax.

But she couldn’t stop her pulse from racing. She’d received mail from obsessed fans before, but those incidents had been years ago. It was while she was married, when she’d lived in Southern California and was still making movies, still part of the industry, still a name that would come up time and again in the gossip columns. In the past year and a half, most of her mail had been screened and filtered by Monty Fenderson of the Fenderson Agency. She fought the absurd impulse to call him, to rant and rave, to scream that her privacy had been invaded.

Which was ludicrous.

The public knew that she lived in a small Oregon town. That was to be expected.

So a piece of mail from a sicko slipped through. So what?

Her nerves were just shot from the storm, all the talk of the murdered woman, her fights with her daughters…what she needed to do was calm down. Finish her drink. Take that bath…. Nonetheless, she walked around the house and though it was far from town, flanked by towering trees and the river, fenced off from the world, she walked from room to room and shut the blinds. A shiver slid down her spine as she read the last line again.

I will come for you.

Without a second thought, she walked to the wall where the alarm system was housed and pressed the code. A second later a tiny green light switched to red. It was a basic system, one that had been installed, the realtor had told her, long after the house was built, and was only wired to the doors. A buzzer went off when the system was engaged and a door opened; two minutes later, if the alarm hadn’t been deactivated, a siren began to shriek. But she wasn’t contracted with a security firm that notified the sheriff’s department if the alarm went off. Yet. She’d take care of that tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile she sat near the fire and warmed her hands. She had a crippled old dog and a shotgun with no ammunition for protection.

Don’t freak out. It’s just an anonymous letter…no big deal.

But it was mailed from Portland, less than an hour away.

From her.

From her children.

Inwardly, she turned ice cold.

I will come for you.

She took in a deep breath.
Try it
, she thought, anger overcoming fear. Tomorrow she’d not only sign up with the security company, she’d go to the outdoor store for some shotgun shells.

“Come on, Cass…it’ll be fun,” Josh insisted. “And besides, there’s no school tomorrow. Meet me in an hour at the usual spot.”

“If I get caught I’ll be so dead.” Cassie was burrowed deep in her bed, covers over her head, her cell phone against her ear. He wanted her to sneak out. Again. So soon after being caught. No…she couldn’t risk it.

“So what? Can she ground you any more?”

“She can make my life pretty damned miserable,” Cassie said and winced slightly. It was true her mom was bugging the hell out of her, always prying, always laying down rules, always treating her like a kid, but deep down, Cassie knew, Jenna was playing the part of disciplinarian because she thought it was the best thing for her daughters. Which was, of course, way wrong.

“You won’t get caught. By the time you leave, it’ll be after one. She’ll be asleep. Guaranteed. Dead to the world.”

Cassie hesitated, biting her lip before finally deciding. “I can’t. Really.”

“Oh, quit being a wuss. Lots of kids are going out tonight.”

“Their parents let them.”

“No, Cass.
They
just don’t let their parents boss them around, like you do.
They’re
not scared of their parents.”

“I’m not scared of my mom.”

“Sure you are.”

“No way.”

“Then why don’t you ask her to let you go out?”

“She’d say ‘no.’ I’m supposed to be grounded. Remember?” Sometimes he could be so dense!

“So how can she stop you?”

“For one thing, she turned on the security system tonight. I saw her from the landing of the stairs. She’s probably doing it just to keep me inside.”

“So turn it off. You know the code, don’t you?”

“Then the house would be unprotected.”

“So what?” he said with a laugh.

“Look, I just don’t want the hassle.”

“Because, like I said, you’re afraid of your mom. You’ve given her that power over you. This really isn’t her problem. It’s yours.”

“Fine. But it’s not yours!” She snapped her cell phone shut and turned it off so that if Josh decided to call her again, she wouldn’t hear it. Sometimes he was so pushy. But his words taunted her.
You’re afraid of your mom. You’ve given her that power over you. This isn’t her problem. It’s yours.
So he thought she was weak. No, she wouldn’t buy into that.
He
was just trying to find a way to get her to do what
he
wanted. He was the one who was trying to exert
his
power over Cassie. Not her mother. She pushed herself from beneath the covers and clicked her remote so that her television came to life. It was too late for most shows, but there was a movie she could watch, one she’d missed because she’d been in the middle of the move from California at the time. Boy, had that been a mistake.

From the next bedroom, she heard laughter. Allie and her friend were really stoked about not going to school. They’d spent some time outdoors trying to build a snow fort. It had been too cold for that, so they’d gone to the stables, which were heated, to check on the horses, all of which were surviving just fine, and then they’d come inside for hot cocoa and popcorn and…Cassie let out a quiet little sob. Sometimes she felt so alone. Even Allie had a good friend. Jenna had the people at the local theater, even though some of them were beyond strange, but Cassie felt as if she hadn’t really connected with anyone since she’d moved up here.

Just Josh.

And he was suspect, his motives for being with her murky.

But he’s all you’ve got.

She considered calling her old friends in L.A. and Santa Monica, but it was late and she’d just feel worse. Besides, the last few times she’d talked to Paige, it had been awkward. Paige hadn’t really said anything, but she’d been quick to let Cassie know she was busy and was obviously eager to get off the phone. And Cassie didn’t really blame her. She would have been the same way if the situation had been reversed.

Tears threatened her eyes. The movie didn’t hold her attention. She flipped the channel and saw her mother. “Damn!” There Jenna Hughes was, not even as old as Cassie was now, playing the part of a teenaged prostitute in
Innocence Lost.
Angrily, Cassie hit the Power button on the remote and the image faded. There seemed no way to get away from her mother. Even in the solace of her room. She felt a tear drizzle from the corner of her eye and she swiped it away angrily. What was wrong with her? She glanced at the clock. It was almost one…and the house had become quiet. She stole into the hallway and peered into Allie’s room. Both girls were conked out on the floor on a couple of air mattresses and sleeping bags. She eased to the stairs and looked down to the landing and Jenna’s room. The door was closed, no sliver of light at the threshold.

Everyone was asleep.

Back in her room, she reached for her cell phone and flipped it on.

A new text message read:

I luv you.

Her tears started in earnest. Josh was the only person in this godforsaken town who even had an inkling about who she was, the only one who cared. Swallowing back more tears, she quickly typed a reply:

I’ll be at the gate in 20 min. Luv U 2.

“I’m sooo outta here,” Sonja announced, whipping off her apron and tossing it into the hamper in the back room as country-western music pulsed through the speakers.

Lou, the cook, grunted his approval as he scraped off the grill. The only other person in the back area of the diner was the busboy, a useless, lazy kid who was perennially petulant and usually high on some unknown substance. He was wearing earphones, listening to God-knew-what, making his usual statement against his Uncle Lou’s choice in music. Now, he managed to look up and sent Sonja a “so what?” glance as he swabbed a mop inefficiently over the tile floor.

Tonight she didn’t care. She just wanted to get home to her husband and three kids. The last customer had left fifteen minutes earlier, and Sonja had wanted to pry him off his bar stool and physically toss him out the door. Who in his right mind would be out on a night like this?

Only the regulars at Lou’s,
she decided, not for the first time, and made a mental note to find herself a better job.

She bundled into a ski jacket, wool hat, and gloves, then grabbed her beat-up backpack.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow, if the roads are passable,” she said, and elicited another grunt from Lou the Silent. Which was probably better than Lou the Chatterbox, or Lou the Know-It-All. Or Lou the Lech, she thought, as she fished through her purse, found her keys, then braced herself against the cold as she walked outside. “A damned Ice Age, that’s what it is,” she muttered.

The wind hit hard, slapped at her bare cheeks, and brought with it snow filled with hard little ice crystals.

To think she’d let Lester Hatchell convince her to move from Palm Desert to come up here. Palm-friggin’-Desert, where tonight it was probably seventy degrees—make that seventy degrees
above
zero. Unlike here on the shores of the Columbia Gorge. Beautiful? Yes. Even in winter. Livable? Hell, no! At least not in the middle of winter.
Lord, please, give me palm trees, hot sand, and a piña colada any day of the week. Make that a bucket of piña coladas! It beats the hell out of pine trees, drifting snow, and hot-damned-toddies. Winter wonderland, my ass!

The subfreezing wind cut through her heavy coat, and even the Christmas lights glimmering on the eaves of the diner looked weak and pathetic. Why had she ever let Lester sweet-talk her into moving to this god-awful, freeze-your-butt-off spot? Why?

God, what a night!

She trudged across the parking lot to her little hatchback, a four-wheel-drive Honda encrusted in ice. Even the lock that she thought she’d covered carefully with an insulated piece of cardboard was frozen solid.

Fortunately, she had one of those battery-operated keys that heated the locks when inserted; she forced her key into the lock and smiled to herself less than a minute later when the door opened. She was glad to be going home to Lester’s incessant snoring and the kids sleeping all willy-nilly in their bunk beds. She’d had a bad feeling about this night from the beginning, that something wasn’t right. The intensity of this cold front seemed unnatural, and the conversations she’d overheard in the diner over the past couple of days were all laced with talk that this particular winter would be the coldest in over a hundred years.