He looked up at her. “You don’t even know who I really am,” and his voice changed slightly, was a tad higher. He pulled off his wig to reveal that he was nearly bald, short, blond fuzz over his head. Then he popped out contact lenses to reveal darker eyes. Eyes she’d seen before.
“Who are you?” Cassie asked as he removed his teeth and temporary implants along his jaw line so that he lost his jowls.
Jenna had seen him before. She was sure of it. When? California? He swung his face toward hers and she knew in an instant. One of the technicians on the set of White Out, one of the guys who’d been injured. The guy with the same name as one of the characters in her films. Steven White—that was it.
He tugged off his thermal wear and revealed a bodysuit. As he stripped it off, his thick waist disappeared, revealing a taut, corded body that looked honed by some kind of physical activity.
Seth Whitaker. Steven White. She wondered what his real name was.
Naked, he looked up at Cassie. “Now, Katrina, it’s time.”
“Are you talking to me? I’m not Katrina. Just get me down from here.”
“Always the feisty one,” he said, and walked into the computer room and typed on the keyboard. Instantly, music began to fill the room, music from Innocence Lost, the same music that had been played during the phone call she’d received.
While he was still in the computer room, she frantically tried to find a means of escape. She had to untie herself, but her hands were bound so tightly, she could barely move.
With a clank and a deep whir, the bar on which Cassie was suspended began to lower, slowly easing her toward the vat of the clear fluid. What was it? It looked like water but it could be anything horrible.
“Hey! No!” Cassie was screaming now, her bravado failing. “Let me down, please,” she cried, her voice cracking. “I’ve never done anything to you. Please, don’t do this!”
He returned from the computer room and stared at her. Didn’t say a word, and to Jenna’s horror, the closer Cassie got to the vat, the lower she got, his reaction was just the opposite: his dick started to rise.
The pervert was really getting off on this, staring at Cassie. While his back was turned on Jenna, she scooted closer to the mannequin meant to be Anne Parks, to the knife that was suspended from the mannequin’s hand. Only a few more inches, but she was running out of time; the pole on which Cassie was braced had reached the surface of the liquid. She saw Jenna move.
“Mom! No!”
He spun, eyes glittering.
It was now or never.
Jenna lunged for the mannequin, sending it toppling, the knife even farther from her. Anne’s arm hit Paris, and in a domino effect, all of the strange, lifelike replicas of her fell, thudding, jewelry and props skittering across the floor. One mannequin’s head twisted upward at an impossible angle.
“No!” he said, spinning, his eyes narrowing on the pile of crumpled mannequins. His hard-on shriveled. “Leave them alone!” He advanced toward Jenna and the pile of dummies. “Paris! Marnie! Faye!” he cried, his face twisting in pain before he glared furiously at Jenna. “Look
what you’ve done! This was your shrine, you thankless bitch!”
Jenna moved as quickly as possible, keeping eye contact with the madman, seeing, in her peripheral vision, the long-bladed knife mere feet away.
Walking swiftly, he seemed to have forgotten Cassie, who, as her toe hit the surface of the liquid, let out a screeching howl that echoed to the rafters.
“Let her go!” Jenna ordered. “It’s me you want. Obviously. So let her go.”
“I need you both.”
Cassie was inching into the liquid. Shivering. Her naked body trying to twist away. “Help!” she cried, then squealed in terror.
“Please, Seth,” Jenna said. “Let her go!”
“I’m not Seth.”
“Steven, then. Please!” She appeared to be moving closer to him, meeting him, supplicating. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Just let my daughter go.”
Oh, God, it was so cold, the water surrounding her felt thick, like gelatin, and was so cold. Cassie tried to shrink away, to shimmy backward up the pole, but it was no use. She sank lower and lower, her gaze darting from the freezing liquid to her mother and the monster and back to the tank.
Icy water—if that’s what it was—crawled up her legs, over her knees, up her thighs.
Carter pulled himself over the edge and rolled into the snowbank. He gasped for air, ice crystals stinging the exposed parts of his face. Drenched in sweat and shivering, he rolled to his feet, released his cleats, and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Through the trees, the old lodge appeared, a massive structure completely covered in snow. Only a few small windows remained, the larger ones boarded over.