And so she’d ended up hating winter and Christmas.
So why did you move up here to the land of cold winters with the largest mountain in the state almost in your back yard? Why do you still take the girls skiing? To punish yourself, or to overcome your fears and grief?
A good question, one not answered in the year of counseling.
To this day, Jenna felt the guilt and pain at the loss of her sister. It had been Jenna who had gotten Jill into acting. Jenna, who by taking the role of Katrina in Innocence Lost, a part not unlike Brooke Shields’s in Pretty Baby, had propelled herself to fame at an early age. From that point, she’d taken on roles of gritty, hard-as-nails heroines and had found some respect in a business that had little. Jill had willingly followed in Jenna’s golden footsteps, only to lose her life.
It had been so pointless, and now, staring into the stormy night, she felt that same little niggle of doubt that had eaten at her since the accident. Not that it made any sense, but Jenna had always wondered if the tragedy was planned, if the accident on the set of White Out had somehow been cruelly orchestrated. Could someone have deliberately caused the avalanche? But why? A police probe into the accident had proved nothing, not even negligence, in her sister’s death, and the entire catastrophe had been ruled accidental. But the rumors had abounded, and secretly there had been allegations that the movie had been sabotaged deliberately when explosives that were to be used in another scene had gone off prematurely, thereby putting an end to a movie that had already been hopelessly over budget. There had even been talk that the “accident” was a way of creating some buzz about the film, a macabre enticement to moviegoers.
But Jenna had pulled the plug on any expectation of profits made from her sister’s death by quitting and letting the lawyers fight it out.
She watched as Jake managed to force the gates open and Carter drove his SUV through the drifts to the garage. A surge of relief swept through her, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of him, a tall, rangy lawman to whom she was now affixing the unwanted role of personal hero. Which was ludicrous. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from rushing into the kitchen and throwing open the door at his arrival. Silly as it was, she threw herself at him and his big arms crushed her to his body. “Thank God you’re here,” she said, perilously close to tears as the rush of bitter wind forced its way inside.
“Hey, calm down.” His breath fanned her hair as he kicked the door shut, but Carter didn’t let go of her, held her tight and hard against him. And she, damn it, was grateful for his strong body. His firm male presence. The feel of bone, gristle, flesh, and raw determination all wrapped in waterproofed down. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Her knees nearly buckled and she clung to him. “Thank you.” Her face was upturned, her lips touching the rim of his ear.
His jaw hardened. “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a lunatic to locate.”
“That we do.” Reluctantly, she extracted herself from those oh-so-safe arms and blinked back tears that had no right to sting her eyes.
“By the way, have you ever met a poet named Leo Ruskin?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“He lived in Southern California a few years back and it was his line, ‘Today…Tomorrow…Endlessly,’ that was going to be used in the promotion of White Out.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said earnestly, “but there was a lot I didn’t know back then, as Robert and I were barely speaking. I spent my days on the set, my evenings with the kids, and I left all of the financial matters—the promotion, development, all of it—with him. Have you talked to Ruskin?”
“Can’t find him. Not yet. But we will.” He paused. “I think we should ask your ex about him, the promo line, and whoever was contracted to do the makeup for the movie.”
“The makeup?”
“Yeah. I assume a makeup artist or some company handled all the changes to your face.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think whoever did that could have had something to do with the finger we found.”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to think, and I don’t remember the name of the company, but I’ll call Robert. He must have records.”
“You’d think.”
The bac
k door opened again and Turnquist, stomping his boots and blowing on his gloved hands, strode in with another gust of frigid winter air. He glanced at the remains of Jenna and Carter’s embrace and his thin mouth pulled down at the corners. “Why don’t you stay here, and I’ll search the place.”
“I thought you did that already, when you first hired on.”
“I mean I’m gonna rip up the floorboards. Somehow that son of a bitch knows what’s happening in this house.”
“Wait for the OSP. I called them on the way over.”
Turnquist’s already flushed face grew redder. “I can handle it.”
“Can you? I haven’t seen much evidence of that so far,” Carter snapped. “I don’t want any evidence compromised. Tell me exactly what went on here, then wait for the state guys.”
“That could be hours.”