“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 Cassie 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 Cassie. “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 w
oman’s voice instructed the caller to leave a message. He did.
“What about a cell?” he asked, and again Cassie 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 Cassie’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 damn 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, God,” she whispered.
What was wrong? Why was the sheriff here?
The stalker? Had he found who had written the note…or was the guy here? Panic tore through her.
Critter growled. The hairs on his back sprang to agitated attention.