He hadn’t said it, but that one word hung in the kitchen between them, unspoken but palpable. Jenna looked away and fought tears. Lynnetta. Why Lynnetta? There was a distinct chance Lynnetta Swaggert was dead. Just as there was an ever-increasing probability that Sonja Hatchell and Roxie Olmstead were no longer living.

“Lynnetta never phoned her husband?”

“No. He figured she was working late and started calling her around nine-thirty.”

“Just after we left,” she said, a little stronger now, her backbone once again rigid.

After Carter’s phone call had jolted her awake earlier this morning, she’d thrown on a pair of jeans and a sweater and clipped her hair onto the top of her head, hurrying down the stairs with the dog tagging after her just as Jake was letting the sheriff’s Blazer through the gates.

“There’s always the chance she left,” he said thoughtfully, though they both knew it was a platitude.

“Without a car in temperatures below freezing?”

“Someone could have picked her up. Someone she knew.” Along with a determination in his dark eyes, there was sadness.

“You don’t believe that.”

“Not for a minute,” he admitted, and finally, as if he just realized he was holding onto her arm, released it. “So let’s go over what happened last night. Who was at the theater, if Lynnetta took any calls, who stopped by, who phoned, if she used e-mail, if something seemed to be troubling her, that sort of thing. My guess is you’ll be called by the State Police, too, probably by Lieutenant Sparks. He’s a little intimidating at first, but is one of the good guys. I don’t know who will contact you from the FBI, but the field agent who works this territory knows her stuff. We’ll get this guy.”

“Before he abducts someone else?”

Carter’s lips tightened and she wished she could have recalled the sharp words. “That’s the plan.”

“You’ll have to work fast,” she said, and walked to the coffeemaker and ground some beans. “Whoever he is, he seems insatiable.” She poured water into the pot and hit the On switch.

Carter nodded. “It looks like he’s upping the stakes. Escalating.”

Critter gave a soft woof as the back door opened. “It’s me,” Turnquist called, and she peered down the short hallway to spy the bodyguard stopping near the laundry room to unlace his boots. “What’s up?”

Carter set his hat on the table and draped his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair. His shoulder holster and pistol were strapped on, reminding Jenna how dangerous her life, and the lives of the other citizens of Falls Crossing, had become.

As water dripped through the pot and the scent of Kenyan roast filled the room, Carter sat at the table and explained that Lynnetta Swaggert had never phoned her husband, wasn’t in the theater, and never went home. The reverend had called everyone he knew last night, searching for his wife, and Carter, along with the OSP, was checking everyone who had been in the theater or seen Lynnetta in the last few days.

“So he took her between the time I left and returned for Allie’s backpack,” Jenna said, knotting up inside. If only you and Rinda had stayed until Lynnetta had finished with whatever she was doing!

“Or he was there when you went back, inside the theater with her.”

Jenna cringed inside, remembering the feeling that she wasn’t alone while searching for the backpack, the sense that someone was nearby, breathing softly, moving noiselessly. To think that he might have been as near to her as Carter was now. And she’d blamed it on the cat. Her hands shook as she poured coffee and carried cups to the table, then sat across from the sheriff. As Carter took notes and sipped from his cup, Jenna told Carter everything she remembered from the night before, including the eerie sensation that someone had been in the theater. She also explained the few facts she knew about Lynnetta Swaggert—that she was devout, married to a preacher Jenna had met a few times but didn’t know, that Lynnetta had one son, who was a friend of Josh Sykes, and that she was an excellent seamstress who created or altered costumes for the troupe. Jenna thought Lynnetta was about thirty-eight, looked younger, had the energy of five women, and worked part time as a bookkeeper for a local accountant.

“What about her personal life?” Carter asked.

“I don’t think it was unhappy. Or if it was, she didn’t complain.” Jenna had never heard Lynnetta say that she was dissatisfied with her life, her husband, her job, or even her son, Ian. Jenna knew pitifully little about the woman, but Lynnetta had mentioned a brother in the Cincinnati area.

“…and that’s about it,” she said, rubbing her arms as if from a sudden chill. She felt terrible. Responsible. Even though she knew better.

Her coffee sat untouched in front of her.

“Do you have any clues?” she asked, when Carter had finished taking notes.

He hesitated and she expected him to give her some line about not being able to talk about the case. Instead, he frowned darkly into his cup before taking a long gulp. “Nothing yet. But there’s something else I wanted to ask you about.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you know any makeup people in Hollywood?”

“Of course. A lot.”

“I’m talking about the kind of individual who makes the masks that fit perfectly to an actor’s head, something that would make him change dramatically but retain his own facial features, the kind where they make a mold of the subject.”

Tags: Lisa Jackson West Coast Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net