Northwest: Deep Freeze Part 21

At least as long as his client was alive.

CHAPTER 18.

"Sheriff? It's Montinello. Looks like we've got ourselves a little party up at Catwalk Point."

"A party?" Carter repeated, slowing his rig, then making a quick one-eighty on the plowed road. The snow had stopped for the time being, another lull that was only temporary, according to the weather service.

"Teenagers."

"Great. Hold 'em. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Shouldn't I call the State Police? This is their crime scene."

"I'll let Sparks know." He hung up and swore roundly. Dumb-a.s.s kids. What were they doing out in the middle of the night disturbing the scene of a murder investigation? He shifted down and took a turn into the foothills. There was always talk that the criminal returned to the scene of the crime. Maybe that was the case sometimes, but not in Carter's experience. Who would be so stupid? Teenagers. Of course.

One of them could be involved, or know someone who was. Maybe they'd overheard something.

Possibly, but he doubted it. He suspected these were kids just out s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around. Drinking, smoking a little dope. Getting high at the scene of the biggest crime to hit Falls Crossing in decades. Idiots. Carter decided to scare the liver out of them.

He called in his position, left a message for Sparks, and drove steadily upward, his tires slipping a bit, the four-wheel drive grinding through the steeper turns. For once it was clear, moonlight silvering the s...o...b..nks and heavily laden branches, but the temperature was still below freezing, as it had been for over a week.

As his Blazer crossed the bridge spanning Cougar Creek, he noticed that the waterfall was frozen solid, spectacular sprays of water crystalized to ice while tumbling downhill.

Just as the surrounding falls had been frozen the winter David died. Carter's eyes narrowed but he didn't see the road winding through the snow-laden trees. Instead, he saw another time and place, a frozen h.e.l.l where his best friend was a smart aleck with s.h.i.t for brains.

"I'm tellin'ya, man, this is a chance of a lifetime. We can be the first to climb this mother!" David had laughed as he'd tightened the strap of one of his gloves with his teeth. He and Shane had been standing at the base of the falls, staring up at the incredible frozen plumes of water.

Shane had eyed the cliffs over three hundred feet above. "I don't know."

But David hadn't been able to wait. A few seconds later, he was inching up the ice, higher and higher.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it," Shane had sworn, squinting upward while fumbling with his own equipment. "David, wait!"

"Can't do it, man!"

"s.h.i.t."

Shane's heart had been beating like a drum, and even in the frigid temperature, he'd been sweating beneath his layers of fleece and down.

David had always been fearless, the daredevil, the guy who grabbed life by the tail and swung it over his head. But this-climbing Pious Falls-was a d.a.m.ned fool's mission. Carter had known it, even though he'd barely pa.s.sed his sixteenth birthday.

"Jesus, Carter, don't be a wuss!" David had been inching up the gargantuan icicle, yelling over his shoulder to Shane standing at the base of the frozen waterfall.

Shane's head had been angled upward as he'd watched his friend's slow, steady progress up the sheer sheet of frozen spray. He hadn't wanted to climb. His boots were sliding as he tried to stand on the solid sheet of ice that had been a wide pool at the waterfall's base. As he glanced down, he noticed two dead trout frozen in the iced pool beneath his feet, staring up at him.

"What are you waiting for, ya dumb a.s.s! Come on!" David had yelled over his shoulder, his voice echoing through the silent, snow-crusted canyon. "This is the kind of thing you can tell your grandkids about!"

Those words had haunted Shane Carter ever since that gut-wrenching day.

Now, his radio crackled, bringing him crashing back to the present. A transformer had blown east of Falls Crossing and more residents were suddenly without power. From the chatter back and forth on the radio, he knew that emergency crews were on their way. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Carter swore, and feared the end of this G.o.d-awful weather was nowhere in sight. If the cold front didn't let up, there would be more homes without electricity, more people who would have to be evacuated, more stranded drivers, more ERs overcrowded.

His mood dark, he eased his rig up a final rise to Catwalk Point.

Blue and red lights strobed the surrounding forest in eerie colors.

Montinello's rig was parked in the middle of what had been the logging road, headlights shining on three other vehicles-two pickups and a Bronco-parked at odd angles near the crime scene. As Shane cut his engine, Montinello waved at the vehicles and a dispirited group of teenagers climbed out of their rides. The usual lot of underachievers, Carter thought, eyeing Josh Sykes, Ian Swaggert, and a few others who tried to keep their faces averted.

"Okay, they all say they were up here just hanging out. No big deal. Some claim they didn't know it was a crime scene."

"Yeah, right." Shane's breath fogged in the air as he looked pointedly at the yellow tape still strung from one copse of trees to another. "I guess they can't read."

That got him a snarly glare from Sykes.

Carter b.u.mmed a cigarette and lit up, feeling warm smoke curl through his lungs. "You get statements?"

"Such as they are. On tape."

"Rights read?"

"Yep."

"Good. Anything illegal besides them being up here?" he asked, as the wind knifed upward from the river far below. Two girls were in the group, huddled close to their motley group of boys.

"Minors in Possession. Alcohol. Marijuana. Some unidentified pills."

Great, Carter thought as he took another deep drag. Just what we need right now. "All the kids ID'd?"

"Yep."

In the distance, another rig's engine whined up the hill.

"Probably the state guys," Carter said. "I informed Sparks. This scene is the OSP's jurisdiction."

"Officially." Montinello stomped his feet and lit a cigarette. "A couple of the kids are underage. I mean, younger than eighteen. Two girls. One's BJ's kid. I already called her. She's madder'n a wet hen and on her way."

"Holy s.h.i.t," Shane growled under his breath. In his mind's eye, he could see the headlines in the Falls Crossing Tribune now: DAUGHTER OF DEPUTY CHARGED WITH CRIMINAL MISCHIEF. Except that since Megan was under eighteen, her name wouldn't appear in the paper. At least, he hoped. "BJ's gonna be fit to be tied."

"Already is, but wait, it gets better," Montinello a.s.sured him as another blast of wind rolled through the hills.

Carter braced himself. "How?"

"The other girl is Jenna Hughes's daughter." He motioned with a gloved finger to the taller girl. "The one in the purple stocking cap."

"h.e.l.l." Of course the daughter of Falls Crossing's most celebrated citizen would be involved. He looked over the group of kids huddled together, still copping att.i.tudes, even though their teeth were chattering, and they were hopped up on fear as much as anything else. His gaze landed on the Hughes girl. Daughter number one, who had been in the truck when he'd pulled Miss Hollywood over.

The kid's resemblance to her famous mother was remarkable. Same high cheekbones and dark, arched eyebrows. A larger nose but intense eyes. Unruly strands of streaked hair escaped from her knitted hat, blowing across a face that was already beautiful. Her jacket collar was turned up against the wind, and she was standing next to the Sykes kid, a big, gangly boy with a tough-guy att.i.tude and not much else going for him.

Carter had been a cop around here long enough to know Josh Sykes's family. On a professional level. The way he figured it, Josh was a poster child for what happens when a kid's neglected and left to his own devices. Josh wasn't a bad seed, just bored and in need of direction. Otherwise, he'd land himself into big trouble. And soon.

While Carter finished his cigarette, Lieutenant Sparks parked his rig. A big man with dark, curly hair and intense brown eyes, he took a look around, his state-issued uniform and bearing causing all the kids to watch him cautiously. He let out a long whistle of disappointment as he approached the shivering bunch of teenagers. "What in the h.e.l.l did you guys think you were doing?" he asked rhetorically and didn't wait for an answer. Shaking his head, he ordered the older kids hauled into town and allowed the two sixteen-year-olds to be cited and released to their parents.

Another big engine roared loudly through the woods. Bright headlight beams splashed against the trunks of the trees.

"Uh-oh," Montinello muttered.

A pickup belonging to BJ Stevens slid to a stop. She left the truck running, headlights drilling light through the darkness, and flew out of the cab. The proverbial wet hen.

In jeans, a sweatshirt, and an oversized ski jacket, she stomped through the snow. "What the h.e.l.l is going on up here?" she demanded, as she didn't so much as look at the men, but walked up to the small group of teenagers. Without makeup, devoid of sleep, fury radiating from her, she read her daughter the riot act.

"Jesus H. Christ, Megan, don't you have a brain in your head? This is a crime scene, for crying out loud!"

Megan stared at the ground.

"I'm a cop!"

Still no response.

"Come on, get in the truck. Now!"

As she herded her recalcitrant kid toward her idling vehicle, she paused at the group of men. "I don't know what to say," she admitted, her lips razor-thin, her skin as white as the snow covering the underbrush. "I'm sorry. I had no idea she'd snuck out."

"It happens," Sparks said.

"Yeah, well, I didn't think it happened to me, and believe me, it won't again! Throw the book at her. She deserves it. G.o.d, will she ever learn?" BJ said, and rolled her eyes toward the starless heavens.

"They all do," Carter said.

"Not all of them." BJ wasn't about to be patronized. "This is just what I need right now. Just what I friggin' need." She cast a weary glace at Carter. "You don't know how lucky you are that you don't have a teenager."

She took off toward the truck and said, "I mean it, Megan, this c.r.a.p has got to end. Right now!" With that, she opened the pa.s.senger door and waited as her silent, simmering daughter climbed inside.

"I don't believe this!" BJ said before rounding to the driver's side and stopping to glare over the hood at one of the boys. "Listen to me, Ian. No more. Got it?" BJ jabbed an angry finger in the frigid air, pointing at the group. "If this ever happens again, I'll take it up with your mom and that preacher dad of yours and you won't like what I have to say." With that, she turned, climbed into her idling truck, threw the big rig into reverse, then shoved it into first and roared away, snow spewing from beneath the tires as she hauled her wayward daughter with her.

"I'd hate to be Megan about now," Montinello thought aloud.

Or her mother, Carter silently agreed as BJ's vehicle's taillights winked out of view.

Sparks motioned to Ca.s.sie Kramer. "Can you see that she gets a ride home?" he asked Carter. "I was going to ask BJ, but she's got her hands full."

"And already out of here." Carter nodded. He wasn't keen on the idea, but everyone else was busy with the other kids and trying to preserve what was left of the crime scene. Fortunately, most of the evidence had been collected.

He motioned toward Ca.s.sie. "Hop in," he ordered, then asked for her home phone number. Before they took off, he dialed and his call was immediately switched to voice mail, where a computer-generated woman's voice instructed the caller to leave a message. He did.

"What about a cell?" he asked, and again Ca.s.sie rattled off a number that he quickly dialed. That connection, too, went directly to Jenna Hughes's voice mail. He didn't bother with a second message.

He'd hoped to soften the blow and not blindside Ca.s.sie's mother. If Jenna had already figured out the kid was AWOL, Carter wanted to relieve her worries quickly. If not, he wanted to prepare her before they showed up on her doorstep.

No such luck.

But, so far, this wasn't a night for luck.

As he started his Blazer, he glanced in the rearview mirror. The kid was okay. Huddled in a corner of the SUV and looking miserable, but okay.

He wondered how her mother would react, then remembered Jenna Hughes wearing tight ski pants and sitting in a chair at his desk while explaining about a stalker.

The stalker's poem came to mind again. You are every woman. Sensual. Strong. Erotic. Whoever had written it had gotten the sensual part right. But tonight, Carter suspected, Jenna Hughes was going to be just another distraught, worried-out-of-her-mind mother. Unless she didn't give a d.a.m.n about her kids. Unless she was the kind of parent who only considered children as accessories, who were so self-involved that their children were neglected, only brought out and worn like jewelry to be shown off.

Carter didn't think so. That wasn't the impression he'd gotten from the few times he'd met Jenna Hughes. Rumor was that she'd moved up here to get away from all the glitter and spotlights of Tinseltown. For her kids. He looked into the rearview mirror again and noticed that daughter number one kept her eyes pointedly averted, rebellion fairly seething from her.

Swearing silently, he rammed the Blazer into gear.

CHAPTER 19.

The night felt strange.

Disturbed, somehow.

Jenna opened an eye and strained to listen.

Beside the bed, Critter gave off a soft, disgruntled growl. He lifted his graying head as if he, too, sensed a change in the atmosphere, a shift in the noises of the night.

Then she heard it. The sound of a truck idling nearby. Close to the house.

She glanced at the clock: 3:53.

What the devil?

Quickly she slipped from the covers, threw on the robe she'd tossed over the end of her bed; then, stuffing her arms through the sleeves, she made her way to the window. She peered through the blinds and saw a vehicle from the sheriff's department parked near the garage.

Her heart froze.

"Oh, G.o.d," she whispered.