“Jesus. Tell her to be careful.” Carter cruised down the main street, saw a few familiar faces and vehicles collecting near the diner. Hans Dvorak, Charley Perry, Seth Whitaker, Harrison Brennan, and Blanche Johnson were migrating toward the door of the Canyon Café, as they did each and every morning. He spotted Dr. Dean Randall, paper coffee cup in hand, heading toward the library, and Travis Settler walked into the hardware store. But Wes Allen wasn’t among those who were looking for a cup of coffee or pastry this morning. “What about the other women? Where was he when Roxie Olmstead and Lynnetta were abducted?”
“We’re still working on it.”
“Maybe he has an accomplice.”
“And maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree.”
No way, Carter thought as he hung up. But the doubt was still there, and a voice inside his head accused him of going after the man who had stolen his wife from him. Stolen? Or did you hand her to Wes Allen on a silver platter?
He pulled into the courthouse parking lot and locked his Blazer.
Inside, the heat was sweltering, rising three stories to settle in the sheriff’s department. He cracked a window and the cold air crackled inside, blowing on the wilting fronds of his Christmas cactus.
“Hey, are you out of your mind? What do you think you’re doing?” BJ asked as she settled into a desk chair. “Jesus, Carter, what happened to you last night?”
“I look that good, huh?”
“Better,” she said sarcastically.
“That’s what a night without sleep will do. Did you find anything else? What about Ruskin? And the makeup people. Especially whoever did the makeup for White Out. That’s the movie that connects everything. It’s the one that ended Jenna Hughes’s career, the one where the Ruskin phrase was supposed to be used for the promo, and the one with the musical score that she heard in the background of the crank call.”
“I’ll double-check. As far as the paper that the notes were written on, it’s standard stock, could be bought anywhere from wholesale office-supply outlets to smaller stores. Same with the ink and printer. Dead end.”
“So far.”
“What about the alginate?”
“Most of the stuff ships to California. The particular type found on Mavis Gette comes from a firm in Canada, and I’ve got a list of their clients for the last five years.”
His cell phone chir
ped and he reached into his pocket, tried to stop his galloping heart when he recognized Jenna’s number on the digital display. “Carter.”
“Hi, it’s Jenna.” Her voice was flat. Obviously she was still stung from her discovery of Carolyn’s pictures. Damn. “I thought I’d let you know that I just called Robert and wonder of wonders, he was in. I asked him about Ruskin. He never met the man, but someone had left a leaflet with Ruskin’s work on the set up at the ski resort.”
“Someone who worked on the film?” He swung a legal pad around on the desk and grabbed a pen.
“Most likely,” she said, and adrenaline rushed through Carter’s bloodstream. “Robert had seen the poem and liked the wording.”
“Did he get any legal releases to use the work?”
“It never got that far,” she said, her words clipped and impersonal. “Because of the accident and the movie being scrapped. He did say that the company he hired for makeup and special effects was a firm named Hazzard Brothers, the same company Robert used in a lot of his horror films. It’s a Burbank company owned by Del and Mack Hazzard and nearly went out of business after White Out because of the insurance claims. The families of the people who were killed and some of the workers who were injured sued the production company.”
“And they paid?”
“The insurance company for Hazzard Brothers did.”
“Thanks.”
“Does this help?”
“Of course it does.”
“Good.”
“Jenna—”
Click. She hung up.