“Wes Allen. See what kind of an alibi he has for the nights the women were abducted.”
“You think he’s involved?”
“Wes?” Jenna asked, stunned. She shot to her feet. “Wait a minute. He’s a friend of mine.”
Carter ignored her. Held Sparks’s stare. “Double-check, would you?”
“You got it.”
“I said ‘he’s a friend of mine,’” she protested.
“Then he’ll have nothing to hide.”
As Sparks closed the door behind him, Carter locked it, turned on the alarm system, then watched through the curtain of snow as the state vehicle left and Turnquist forced the gate shut. It was nearly two in the morning.
“Why do you suspect Wes?”
“I suspect everyone.”
“But you didn’t have everyone’s alibi checked.”
He ran a tired hand around the back of his neck. “Jenna, there are things I can’t discuss.”
“This is my life, Carter. My girls’ lives! You damned well better tell me what’s going on.”
“I will. Soon.”
She wasn’t about to be mollified. Stood toe-to-toe with the tall sheriff. “I have the right to know. What is it that makes you think Wes is involved? Wes is Rinda’s brother!”
“And I’ve known him all my life. I’m just eliminating people.”
“By what means?”
His lips tightened and his eyes glittered darkly. “I’ll explain it all soon, okay? But I can’t tell you anything that might compromise the investigation.”
“Now, wait a minute, Carter—you can’t just drop this kind of bomb and then ask me to be patient. Not after what’s been going on. Why Wes?”
He hesitated, bit at the fringe of his moustache, and finally swore. “Oh, hell. You deserve to know.”
“Damned straight!”
“But I can’t tell you everything. I’m not going to compromise this investigation.”
“Of course not, but give me a clue here.”
A muscle worked overtime in his jaw. “For one thing, he’s the person who has rented and bought more of your videos and DVDs than anyone in town.”
“So?” she said, shaken nonetheless. The thought of Wes Allen viewing her in the privacy of his home over and over again made her uncomfortable, but it would with anyone she knew. Though she considered her roles on film, her career, work she was certainly not ashamed of, her art could easily be twisted into someone’s particular form of depravity.
“And he visits all your fan sites. Often.”
“A lot of people do.” Again she had a sense of unease and remembered all the times Wes had tried to get close to her in the theater. “I would think since I moved here there’s been a lot of interest in my work. Lots of copies rented and bought.”
“But Wes Allen seems to be your biggest customer—number one fan. We’re just
ruling him out.”
She thought about all the times she’d been around Wes Allen. How close he’d stood. How often he’d touched her shoulder, or arm. Friendly? Interested? Or obsessed? “I can’t believe it,” she whispered, but a part of her readily accepted what Carter had suggested, the part that caused the taste of bile to rise in the back of her throat.