“I’d be more concerned if Amanda had said she’d seen a man in her room as well.” Jenna sighed. “Seeing her grandma after she died isn’t at all unusual. I used to see my folks everywhere, in the street, lining up in stores. I figured it was part of the grieving process.”
“I’ve never seen any of my dead relatives at the foot of my bed.” Rowley looked horrified. “Don’t want to either.”
Kane cleared his throat. “Mass hysteria or, in Amanda’s case, maybe wishful thinking – but the victims seeing two different apparitions doesn’t link the cases together. What does is the fact they both opened the door to a stranger and walked out into a cold night, for no apparent reason.”
“There has to be another link. We’ll need to speak to everyone in her group of friends, and the boy Luke mentioned. If he’s been stalking her he might have seen someone else hanging around her.” Jenna picked up the phone. “Maggie, could you send Julie back in please?” She waited for the girl to arrive. “The group of girls you mentioned, you said Lindy was one of them – are you friends with them as well?”
“Yeah, sort of, but they’re always hanging around the jocks and never stop talking about Mason. I prefer to go to the library than chase after sweaty gardeners.” Julie wrinkled her nose. “They all seem to have a thing about the men who work around the school – not the old ones.” She giggled. “The ones around twenty or maybe thirty, I guess.”
“Amanda as well?” Jenna smiled at her. “Did she like Mason Lancaster?”
“Him and anything male on two legs.” Julie blushed crimson. “Oh, please don’t tell my dad I told you, he’ll make me find new friends and it’s taken forever to fit into this school.”
Kane turned to her. “We don’t have to tell him the information came from you but maybe you should tell him what you know. Coming forward with this information is a good thing and if this group of girls are heading for trouble, perhaps finding new friends would be a mature thing to do.” He smiled at her. “I was an army brat too and I know what you’re going through but you’ve been here for some time now and it will be easier to expand your circle of friends.”
“Well, Sara is in the group too and she’s more like me. She likes art too and we both attend classes in the community hall.” Julie smiled. “Other girls from school go there as well. I’ll try to get to know them better.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Jenna nodded. “If you’d give Maggie a list of all the girls who hang around the workers at school and underline any who’ve had nightmares of men in their rooms, it would be a big help. We’d like to find out if there’s a person stalking these girls and we need a place to start.”
“Sure.” Julie headed for the door, and then looked back at Jenna. “I’ll make a list now.”
“Great.” Jenna nodded. “And ask Maggie to hunt down their addresses ASAP and send them to me.”
Kane waited for her to shut the door. “Now we have two girls who chased after Mason Lancaster. I figure we need another talk with him.”
“We’ll speak to Miller first, then Peter English. They’re in town. If Kittredge is working on one of the Glacial Heights ranches, we’ll check his whereabouts last night then we’ll head out to the school and tackle Lancaster. I want to cover as much ground as possible this afternoon.” Jenna’s phone rang. “Yeah, put him through.” She placed the phone on speaker. “Mr. Wilts, Sheriff Alton. What exactly did you see?”
“I live near Glacial Heights some ways from the Braxton ranch, I’m on the same road and my house is on the bend before Stanton Road. I was out walking my dog ’bout one last night and a big pickup came out of the dark then turned on the headlights and near blinded me as it went around the corner. It took off as if the devil himself was after it.”
“Did you get a plate?” Jenna lifted her pen and pulled her notebook toward her.
“Can’t say that I did.” Mr. Wilts sighed. “The lights gave me red spots in my eyes, I couldn’t see a darn thing but I know it was a pickup, maybe a Chevy Silverado or similar. Hard to tell the color in the dark but it did have something written on the door.”
“Okay, thank you for your help, Mr. Wilts. If you think of anything else or see the vehicle again, give me a call.” She disconnected and met Kane’s gaze. “Now we have to match the suspects with the vehicle.” She pushed to her feet. “Do you have everything under control here, Rowley?”
“Sure do, ma’am.” Rowley stood. “I’ll call you the moment anything useful comes in.” He left the room.
Kane pushed to his feet. “You know what’s eating at me?”
“What?” Jenna slipped into her Kevlar vest, and then shrugged on a jacket.
“I’m sure this is the same perp but he hasn’t contacted you with another countdown. Why has he suddenly changed the game?” Kane scratched his cheek. “It’s not logical for this stage of his behavior.”
“Huh?” Jenna stared at him with an astonished look on her face. “Since when do we consider anything a psychopath does logical?”
Kane zipped up his jacket and shrugged. “We don’t but he does. In his mind, everything he does is perfectly logical. He’d have a game plan, so why change it when it worked well the first time? He came close to killing us, Jenna.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, does he? This means he’s pl
aying by my rules now. And I plan to win.” Jenna led the way to the door.
Twenty-Seven
It was so cold Amanda’s bones ached. Disorientated and teeth chattering, she woke enclosed in darkness. Under her stiff muscles, cold seeped through her clothes from the unrelenting floor. Her cheek pressed against a rough wooden board and her head pounded. A jolt of fear shuddered through her as the memory of a man attacking her slammed into her. Too afraid to move, or brush away the grit digging into her flesh, she opened her eyes wide and scanned the blackness. Where am I?
A musty smell with the awful odor of rats surrounded her but pinpricks of light pierced the darkness. Outside it must be daylight; she’d been asleep or unconscious for hours. The stale air reminded her of her uncle’s log cabin in Stanton Forest before her mother opened all the windows. She’d often spent weekends there to go fishing with her family and recalled the way the moonlight peeped through the cracks in the shutters – but this was different. The light came through tiny holes in the walls. She listened but no sound of the man or anything else broke the silence. I’m alone.
Relieved the man hadn’t tied her up she rolled onto her knees and, running her palms over the rough floor in all directions, inched forward. Heart pounding, she shuffled across the filthy floor. A scuttling noise came from close by and a creature ran up her arm and over her back. Rats! She screamed, jumped to her feet and ran blindly, crashing into a wall and falling hard on her backside. Choking back a sob, she staggered to her feet then, arms outstretched, touched the wall.