Part 55 (1/2)

”You're going up there?”

”No other choice,” Carter said and was out the door and into the freezing weather. ”Get me a search warrant.”

”Tonight?”

”That's right. Call Amanda Pratt with the D.A.'s office and let her know this is her big chance. She'll love it. Trust me, if there's a chance she can break this case open, she'll find a judge if she has to crawl into bed with one tonight. But I need to get into Seth Whitaker's property.”

”I'll see what I can do, but how the h.e.l.l you plan on getting to his place?” Sparks asked, his voice drowned by the wind.

”The only way I can,” Carter said, and opened the door to his Blazer.

He'd have to climb the d.a.m.ned falls.

CHAPTER 46.

The cold caressed him as he slid out of the pickup. Like a lover, it wrapped around him, sending icy thrills along his spine. He trudged to the back of the pickup and opened the tailgate. Jenna was lying as he'd left her, seemingly still unconscious, though she should be waking up.

Carefully, wary that she could be faking her state of unconsciousnes, he touched her leg. She didn't budge. Then he raised a fist as if to strike her, slamming it toward her face, only to pull his hand back before he touched her. She didn't so much as flinch.

Satisfied that she was still out, he carefully untied the cord holding her in place from the pickup's grommets.

Her black hair tumbled over her face, her ebony lashes swept the crest of her sculpted cheeks, and he imagined what she'd look like as Anne Parks...well, he knew. He'd watched Resurrection so many times that he could recite the dialogue from memory, knew every nuance of her gestures, antic.i.p.ated her actions.

But before he created Anne, he had one more lifelike mannequin to create, compliments of the woman who looked so much like Jenna that she stole the breath from his lungs. Ca.s.sie Kramer, Jenna's firstborn, would be the perfect mold for Katrina in Innocence Lost. Her features were spot-on with her mother's, only her hair needed to be a darker color.

Once he'd finished with Ca.s.sie, he'd create his replication of Anne Parks by using Jenna, herself, as the mold. She would be immortalized, caught in her most beautiful role forever.

His shrine would be complete-the only character that would be missing would be Rebecca Lange of White Out. That part he'd reserved for Jenna's sister, Jill, but he'd fouled up years before and caused an accident he hadn't meant to. Not that the idea of an avalanche hadn't been an erotic fantasy, with snow and ice exploding down the hillside in a thunderous, rolling plume. But he hadn't meant to kill a woman who would have been ideal for the lifelike replica of Rebecca Lange from White Out, though of course, at that time, his shrine had only been a far-flung and half-formed plan. Only in the tragedy's aftermath, when he'd been injured and collected an insurance settlement, had he first thought of his special tribute to her. The movie had been sc.r.a.pped and Jenna's marriage had broken up. She had pulled away from the glitter of Hollywood and had started talking about leaving L.A. Upon learning that she wanted to move north, he took it as an omen. Fate. That they were destined to be together. One. An incredibly perfect union of bodies and minds.

And now she was his.

Alone.

But he was running out of time. Could feel it. Had even altered his routine a bit, and that angered him. There had been no time to file down Ca.s.sie Kramer's teeth...

Not good. A bad sign. Things should be planned.

He gathered her gently from the truck and carried her, like a bridegroom lifting his new bride over a threshold, to the waiting snowmobile with its webbed stretcher behind, the same kind of stretcher used to transport the injured off a ski run.

As the wind whispered through the trees, he gently placed her into the stretcher's cradle. ”It won't be long now,” he promised.

Jenna waited. It was all she could do not to hurl herself at the madman, but she knew that if she blew it now, she wouldn't be able to disarm him. Nor would she be able to locate Ca.s.sie.

Be patient, she told herself as she felt him strap her into a webbed canoe of sorts, fire up an engine, and take off. She didn't dare even chance the slit of an eye opening until she felt the sharp tug; the stretcher shuddered, then slid across the snow. A rush of cold air swept past her, and only then did she risk viewing the snow-crusted trees and brush flying by in a blur, old-growth timber rising high above her. She was strapped into some kind of sled that was anch.o.r.ed to a snowmobile, spraying snow.

Fear clawed its way through her, but she gritted her teeth. She would suffer through whatever he had planned.

Just take me to Ca.s.sie, you freak, then we'll see.

The equipment was old. Ropes and crampons and an ice pick that he hadn't used since the accident that had taken David Landis's life. Carter had never planned to use the ice-climbing gear again, but had kept it in the garage, never understanding the reason why. Tonight he piled everything in the back of his Blazer and headed to the logging road that intersected the falls about two hundred feet off the valley floor. He wore boots with cleats, gloves that were flexible yet warm, his body-fitting ski gear, and he never questioned his mission.

BJ was right-the road to Whitaker's land was closed, a back forest-service access road miles out of the way. Up the falls was dangerous as h.e.l.l, but it was the quickest and stealthiest way to Whitaker's door.

He drove as far as he could up an abandoned logging road, where his tires spun in the snow and his Blazer lurched and lunged, four-wheel drive forcing the SUV upward, the engine grinding. He nosed his rig along the ancient road, driving as fast as he dared, as quickly as the Blazer would go, past trees that knifed into the cloudy sky, and steep, sheer canyons that fell away from the narrow road.

He stared through the winds.h.i.+eld, trying to make out where the road was stable and where the bluff, hidden by snow, gave way. His teeth ground together, his jaw aching, every minute antic.i.p.ating a wheel sliding off the gravel, sending snow and rocks over the edge, his truck pitching into the darkness, but still he climbed. Upward. Lurching. Grinding. Clawing, the Blazer roared upward until the road ran out.

Carter didn't so much as think twice. He set the emergency brake and grabbed the gear from the back of his rig, then slogged through the snow. The hike was severe, ever upward through the deep snow, following a narrow trail that switched back and forth before it reached the falls and ended abruptly.

In the darkness, Carter s.h.i.+ned his flashlight on the silvery sheen of thick ice-water frozen in time as it tumbled down the rocky cliffs to the gorge. In an instant he saw David Landis climbing up this very stretch of frozen water, heard his taunts as he'd scaled the sheer, slippery slope, the same taunts that had echoed through his head for so many years.

”Don't tell me you're afraid.”

h.e.l.l, yes, I'm afraid.

”The ultimate chickens.h.i.+t? p.u.s.s.y-to-the-max?”

Carter's guts knotted as he remembered the fall...how he couldn't save David. And now, the wind whispered through the trees, seeming to echo David's jeers.

”Don't tell me you're afraid.”

Carter set his jaw.

Strapped on his crampons and didn't look down.

He'd either save Jenna, or die trying.

They slowed and the snowmobile's engine died.

Jenna told herself to relax, to feign being unconscious, to keep up the act. So far, it had worked.

Oh, yeah, like a charm. Now you're a million miles away from anyone, trapped with a psycho.

She heard him stow the snowmobile, then felt him lift her again and it was all she could do not to recoil at the feel of him carrying her. She let her head loll back over his arm, felt her hair falling free and catching in the frigid wind.

He paused. Stopped dead in his tracks. As if he sensed something was wrong.

Breathe normally. Remain limp. You're Raggedy Ann. Don't s.h.i.+ver, don't look, don't so much as lift an eyebrow.

”Jesus, you're beautiful,” he whispered, and she thought she recognized his voice. Inwardly, she cringed. Outwardly, she didn't react. ”I've waited so long.” He s.h.i.+fted, lifted her higher, and she felt his hot breath against her face.

Don't move, Jenna. Whatever he does, do NOT react.

”You are every woman...my woman...”

She thought she might get sick.