Deep Freeze (West Coast 1)

Help! She tried to scream, but her voice came out in a squeak. As if already beginning to freeze.

Fear surged through her.

Adrenaline spurted through her near-frozen blood, and yet she didn’t move. Couldn’t so much as wiggle a finger.

Why the hell couldn’t she move or speak?

Why couldn’t she scream?

What happened to her voice?

What the hell is this?

Stay calm, she told herself, as the music reverberated through her head.

The water seemed even more dense as if it, along with her body, was slowly turning to ice. But that was crazy. Insane.

Suddenly the music halted.

There was silence, which was worse, and then footsteps, quiet but steady…deadly…approached. From behind.

Frantically, she tried to turn, to scream, to plead for help, but it was useless. Her neck wouldn’t budge a fraction of an inch.

“Awake so soon?” The voice was a deep, male whisper. Yet it echoed through the room, bounced through her brain. The same voice she’d heard before. His voice.

Let me out of here, you bastard!

“I wondered if you’d come to, Jenna.”

Jenna? I’m not Jenna! She tried to yell to tell him that he had the wrong woman, that this was all a mistake, but her voice failed her.

“Or should I call you Faye?”

Faye? No! I’m not Faye. I’m not Jenna. I’m no one you want, you idiot! Frantically she struggled, trying to move, but her brain was fast becoming as sluggish as the rest of her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t feel…she knew instinctively that if she were to let go, to allow herself to slide into the seductive blackness of unconsciousness, she would never reawaken, never breathe again, never see her boys…Let me go, please, oh, please…don’t do this…it’s a mistake! But even as her words came to her mind, even as she tried to scream, she felt herself slipping under, giving up her valiant struggle to maintain clarity, realizing that she was soon to embrace death.

She fought hard to stay awake, but her eyelids became heavy, her body numb, and as the man who had been only a disembodied voice stepped around the tub. She saw his face, distorted through the curved glass, the sadistic beast.

“Your time has come, Faye,” he said softly, as if savoring each syllable, and as Sonja’s gaze met his, she recognized the pure evil lurking in his icy, unblinking eyes.

CHAPTER 16

They were getting nowhere fast. At least, that’s the way it seemed to Carter as he threw his keys onto a shelf near the front door of his cabin. Physically he was dead tired, but his mind was working overtime, fueled by caffeine and the nicotine he’d inhaled when he’d bummed a couple of cigarettes from Jerri. He’d kicked the habit ten years earlier, but at times when he was dog tired and trying to work out a problem, or when he’d had more than two beers, he tended to fall off the wagon, though never enough to buy himself a pack. That’s where Carter had drawn the line—paying for smokes. Even though he knew his rationale was foolish. The only person he was kidding was himself.

He unzipped his jacket and hung it on a hook, then kicked off his boots. His house was cold enough that his breath fogged, the frigid air seeping up from the old wood floor and penetrating his wool socks. He spent the next ten minutes stoking the fire and adding a couple of mossy chunks of oak he’d carried in yesterday.

Once the fire was crackling, heat beginning to radiate from the old stove, he rocked back on his heels and stared at the flames through the glass window set into the door.

The Oregon State Police Crime Lab hadn’t come up with any more evidence to help identify Jane Doe. So far, from talking to the companies who manufactured alginate, no huge amounts of the gooey stuff were missing, nor had there been any record of a large amount being sold to individuals who weren’t dentists or artists, or people who used the stuff legitimately in the past couple of years. But the detectives with the State Police were still checking with other distributors, some in Canada. Jane’s face was being reconstructed by both a computer and police artist, but neither was complete as yet.

All these operations took time.

Sonja Hatchell had now been missing for forty-eight hours, and the prospect of finding her was becoming more grim with each passing minute. Deputies had organized volunteers in a search party that was continuing, but hampered by the inclement weather. All the roads and brid

ges that were passable had been checked and double-checked. Still nothing. It was as if she and her car had fallen off the face of the earth.

Then there was still the issue of Jenna Hughes’s missing things, frightening phone call, and anonymous letter, along with the ravages of a storm that hadn’t yet abated. In the past couple of days the wind had died down and the snow had stopped just long enough to give the sanding crews a chance to catch up to the plows, then it had started all over again. There had been two more accidents on I-84 and the State Police had shut the Interstate down once again.

Homes without power had been evacuated, and all of the mountain streams had completely frozen over. Even the larger rivers were beginning to ice up. All in all, it was a mess, and the damned weather service kept predicting more of the same. The media, all dressed in their designer ski gear, gleefully reported the number of inches of snow, showed video images of kids sledding down city streets, cars sliding off roads, semis backed up because the truckers couldn’t get across the mountains, and cross-country skiers making their way through the streets of Portland. Meanwhile, Carter and his overworked crew, along with the State Police, the department of transportation, and all the utility companies, were working around the clock to keep the roads and residents safe. Which was impossible.