Deep Freeze (West Coast 1)

Yet.

“I can’t find the cool bracelet,” Allie grumbled the next day as she picked at her breakfast.

“What cool bracelet?” Jenna was seated at her desk in the den, searching the Internet for security services. She’d called three, none of which could come and replace her alarm system for nearly a month. They were all backed up. Jenna had even inquired about a bodyguard, taking Sheriff Carter’s suggestion to heart after her scare last night. Today, she was convinced the idiot riding her tail was Josh Sykes but she couldn’t prove it. Nor could she shake the feeling that she was being watched, that the things that kept breaking down on the ranch were more than just time and wear and tear. You’re being paranoid, she told herself, but decided paranoid sure beat the hell out of unsafe.

“You know the one,” Allie wheedled.

Jenna rolled her chair backward, so she could see beyond the last few steps of the staircase and into the kitchen where Allie was spreading peanut butter on an English muffin.

“It’s got black and white beads and kinda stretches.”

“Faux pearls,” Cassie clarified. She’d been in her room, ostensibly still cleaning up her continual mess, and, to her credit, was carrying down a full plastic bag of trash in one hand while balancing three plates and several stacked glasses in the other.

“I think it’s in my jewelry box, the one in the closet.” Jenna flipped to another Web site for a security “team.”

“No, it isn’t. I looked.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes!” Allie snapped, obviously angry that her mother didn’t believe her. They were all a little tense, trapped in the house for the most part, waiting for the storm to abate. Jenna’s nerves were strung taut, and Cassie was in a bad mood because she was still grounded. Her phone call to her father hadn’t helped, the only result being that Robert was quick to blame Jenna, and from what she could tell, his blood pressure was probably skyrocketing with the pressures in L.A. “I don’t need this right now,” he’d told Jenna when Cassie, near tears, had handed Allie the phone last night. Later, when she’d gotten on the line, Jenna had pointed out that Cassie’s behavior wasn’t about Robert, but he’d managed, as always, to turn the conversation around. She’d hung up feeling more fru

strated than ever. Even Allie, usually all smiles and enthusiasm, seemed bored and at loose ends. “I wanted to wear it over to Dani’s.”

As if Dani Settler would care. The kid was a tomboy’s tomboy.

“Let me see if I can find it.” Jenna walked up the stairs to her room and searched through her jewelry box. The bracelet was M.I.A., so she checked another, older box that housed costume jewelry she rarely wore. Not there. Where was the danged thing? The last time she’d seen it, she’d used it like a rubber band to pull her hair off her face, but she’d remembered putting it away. Of course, either of the girls could have “borrowed” it, but she’d thought the piece was in the box. Hadn’t she seen it there just last week?

Frowning, she searched through the bedrooms, even taking a quick look through the kids’ rooms as well as the guest room on the upper floor. She headed upstairs to a loft where Allie sometimes played. Still nothing.

So what? Things were misplaced every day, but she couldn’t help the niggle of worry that ate at her. Once again, the missing item was something she’d worn in one of her movies—in this case, as Marnie Sylvane in Summer’s End. Maybe that was significant, maybe not. She walked into her bedroom again and did a 360-degree turn, eyeing shelves and window ledges, her bedside tables, anywhere she’d sometimes left her things, but everything was where it should be and there was no bracelet.

She thought about calling her cleaning lady, Estella, but didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal. So another thing was missing…no—misplaced, not missing. Jenna would find it. Eventually. She sat on the edge of her bed and told herself to relax. She was just too uptight and a headache was building behind her eyes.

She walked into the bathroom, downed three ibuprofen with a glass of water, and returned to the bedroom. Out of habit, she opened her nightstand drawer and found the usual things she always kept there—change, a flashlight, a small package of Kleenex, and a paperback she’d been reading. Then she looked across her bed to the other bedside table, one she never used, a perfect match to the one on the side of the bed where she slept.

Of course there would be nothing in it, she told herself, but rolled across the bed and slid the drawer open. She peered inside.

Her heart dropped to her feet.

“Jesus,” she whispered, her skin crawling.

Inside the drawer was a single envelope.

Addressed to her.

In the same block letters she’d seen before.

Identical to the envelope she’d received in the mail a few days earlier.

She swallowed hard. Fought panic. How long had it been there? How had it been delivered? Had the person who had written it been here? In her house? In her bedroom?

A cold sweat broke out between her shoulder blades and it was all she could do not to scream. Fear prickled her skin.

“You son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath. “You can’t do this to me…I won’t let you.” But inside she was terrified. Quivering.

Carefully, using a tissue, she lifted the white envelope from the drawer and, using her fingernail, slit it open. A single letter fell out. Another poem. Superimposed over another photo, a promo shot for Bystander.

I am every man.