Deep Freeze (West Coast 1)

“I asked the girls before I left. Neither one of them had opened it.”

“Are they alone now?”

“No. I won’t do that anymore, even though my oldest is sixteen…” Her voice trailed off and her gaze clashed with Carter’s. He knew about Cassie already; he’d dragged her home the last time she’d snuck out. “Well, you’ve met Cassie. She thinks I’m treating her like a baby, but that’s too bad.”

“Isn’t that the mantra of most sixteen-year-olds?”

“Unfortunately.”

He read the note again. “Our poet repeats himself.”

“Limited vocabulary,” she cracked, but the joke fell flat.

“I’ll have the lab check this out,” he said. “I’ll send a deputy right now with a fingerprint kit, and I’ll be out later. We’ll talk to your neighbors and anyone who’s been at your place recently, see if anyone saw anything suspicious.”

“Wouldn’t they have said something already?”

“It could be they didn’t recognize it as suspicious. I’ll try to jog some memories.” His smile was hard, barely twitching the lips beneath his moustache. “As I said, I’ll stop by and hopefully have a couple of names of potential bodyguards.” He leaned back in the chair.

“Thanks,” she said, and feeling only slightly better, left the sheriff’s office and headed for the sporting goods store. She didn’t believe in guns, hated the thought of having a loaded one i

n the house, but now that her family was threatened, she decided she needed protection. She’d considered getting shotgun shells earlier and had been too busy. Now was the time.

You’ve never shot anything other than paper targets in your life.

“Yeah, well, there’s a first time for everything,” she muttered as she walked down the steps of the courthouse and tightened her wool scarf around her neck.

Carter watched her leave. She was scared and he didn’t blame her. She disappeared down the stairs and he stood and stretched, walking to the window and staring outside through the frosty panes to the parking lot below. Blazers, an Explorer, a truck, and two Crown Victorias were in the lot along with a few pedestrians, heads bent against the wind as they walked past. Across the street, at Danby’s, there was yet another sale, the advertising for this one including Santa painted on the storefront windows.

Small Town, U.S.A., he thought.

Small Town, U.S.A., with one missing woman and another woman found dead. Carter didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

Lieutenant Sparks had called earlier. The dental records for Mavis Gette were hard to match because of the filed teeth, so now they were waiting for DNA. That would take some time, but Gette’s cousin had confirmed that Mavis had once broken her collarbone—the clavicle that they’d found near the body had, according to the Medical Examiner, once been fractured. In Carter’s estimation, Jane Doe was Mavis Gette. The FBI agreed, according to Sparks, as he was dealing with the local field agents. So why had her teeth been filed down? Why the alginate in her hair? Was this guy some kind of weird, psychotic dentist? How did a woman who was last heard from in Medford end up at Catwalk Point?

He moved his head around, releasing the tension in the back of his neck and, from his vantage point, saw Jenna Hughes hurry across the parking lot. Her boots slid a bit and she had to catch herself on the fender of one of the Crown Vics.

It was funny how he felt about her. He’d assumed she was a Hollywood princess, pampered, used to the good life. But he’d been wrong. At least here, in Falls Crossing, she wasn’t a star—no, far from it. Here she was a single mother who was scared out of her wits. Mentally he considered all the ex-cops he knew who might be willing to come to her aid and hire on as a bodyguard. He rejected them all, and then gave himself a swift mental kick as he realized the reason. An unlikely spurt of envy that sped through his blood.

He didn’t like the idea of one of the people he knew looking after her.

However, the thought of her being unprotected was worse.

He couldn’t accept the job.

He had more than he could handle as it was.

His gaze followed her as she slid behind the wheel of her Jeep and eased out of the lot. The pathetic dog was sitting in the passenger seat.

“Don’t tell me.” BJ’s voice brought him up cold.

He turned to find her in the doorway, one shoulder braced against the jamb. “What?”

“You know what,” she chided. “You and every red-blooded male in this county—no, make that this country—have a hard-on for Jenna Hughes.”

He snorted.

“How about that? You don’t even deny it.” Her smile stretched wide. “I never thought I’d see the day.”