The telephone remained silent and the house, too, seemed unnaturally quiet. The usual sounds—the hum of the refrigerator, the rumble of the furnace, the faint whisper from a television upstairs, were muted by the shriek of the wind that rattled the loose panes in an attic window. The lights quivered once more and Jenna swallowed hard as she realized what she’d heard on the phone. Not only had someone definitely been on the line, but the nearly indistinct melody she’d heard was the theme song from White Out, the last film she’d made, the film that had never been released. Though the theme song had become a hit, White Out had become a disaster of a project that had destroyed her marriage and killed her sister.
Now, she took a step backward. She caught sight of her ghost-like image in the windowpane and for a second she saw Jill. Beautiful, innocent Jill, whose physical appearance had been so much like Jenna’s they’d sometimes been mistaken for twins. Now dead.
Because of you.
She felt her eyes burn with the memory of thousands of tons of snow cascading in a deadly roar down the mountainside.
You should have died, not your sister.
The recriminations reverberated through her brain, just as they had for years. “Oh, God,” Jenna whispered, stumbling backward against a chair in the nook. The chair screeched against the hardwood floor, and Jenna managed to catch herself, though the strains from White Out’s theme song whispered through her mind. Who had called her and why had they played that music?
You’re not sure they did. You really couldn’t hear. It might have been some other song altogether. Or crossed wires. Look at the storm! There could be a glitch in the phone system. You’re imagining things, Jenna.
Quickly she picked up the receiver and read the caller ID message—private number. “Damn.” She dialed *69, hoping to hear the name of the last caller, but the recorded message repeated what caller ID had told her. Whoever had phoned remained anonymous.
Intentionally?
Or because he was hiding?
“You son of a bitch,” she hissed, slamming down the receiver and trembling inside.
She tried to tell herself she was overreacting. That nothing was wrong. That her all-too-vivid imagination was running away with her.
But, of course, she knew she was lying to herself.
Again.
“Get a grip,” she ordered, but knew that tonight, holding on to her frazzled emotions would prove impossible.
She was there, just on the other side of the frigid glass. Not as beautiful as Jenna Hughes, but enough like her that as he stared past the red and blue neon of a sizzling beer sign, he imagined she would do. Her body was about the same size, petite, though her breasts were smaller and her hips not quite rounded the same way. But close enough…for now. She was a blonde, but her hair color was unnatural, darker roots indicating that she’d been born brunette, but her hair was not as dark as Jenna’s black waves. Not that it mattered, he told himself, watching as she bussed her own tables, wiped her hands nervously on her apron, and glanced often to the windows and the raging storm.
As if she knew he was there.
As if she understood that her destiny lay in the dark, frigid night.
He smiled and felt a thrill zing through his bloodstream, an impulse so cold it reminded him of other times…of a faraway youth and an ice-crusted lake, of freezing water washing over his skin, of a shivering girl and dark, deadly water…images of long ago. For the briefest of seconds he closed his eyes and thought not of the past but to
the future. His imagination ran with him, called to him, painted vividly erotic images of the woman inside the diner…Faye…yes, Faye Tyler of Bystander—that’s who she was, hiding out here under an assumed name…
Beautiful.
Sexy.
Perfect.
Like Jenna.
Her name rang with the clarity of church bells through his mind and he licked his lips, feeling the cold upon his skin as he imagined her. Ached for her.
Jenna.
She was the one.
Like no other.
And tonight, through this other woman, this pale replica, she would be his.
CHAPTER 12