He just couldn’t sleep.
Maybe it was the weather.
Maybe it was Jane Doe and Sonja Hatchell.
And maybe it was Jenna Hughes, who had, though she didn’t know it, invaded his life. He’d studied the note sent to her, made inquiries about her missing things, checked e-Bay and talked to the pawn shops in Portland, even looked up her fan sites online and come up with nothing. He’d checked with video rental and sales companies, asked for lists of customers who had asked for Jenna Hughes movies, but so far hadn’t come up with anyone suspicious. Worse yet, though he wouldn’t admit it to a soul, he’d started dreaming about her. Scenes from her movies had invaded his nights and he’d woken up sweating, hard as granite, and feeling every bit the fool he was.
He’d called her twice, and though she’d received no more threatening notes and no more of her personal items were missing, she had managed to get her security system and electronic gates working.
He drove into town where the street lamps were just winking off; colored holiday lights blazed in all the storefronts, and as he passed by the local theater, he automatically checked for Jenna’s Jeep. There were no vehicles in the snow-covered lot, just a back-lit sign announcing tickets were on sale for the next play, It’s a Wonderful Life, which would be performed near the end of December.
At the courthouse, he pulled into his reserved spot, braced himself, and headed inside. He grabbed a cup of coffee before settling into his office and sorting through reports, mail, phone messages, and e-mail.
BJ showed up around ten and seemed relieved. Her daughter and friends had been cited with misdemeanors for their part in the party up at Catwalk Point. As it turned out, nothing was disturbed, none of the kids had any link to the crime, or so it seemed, and there was no harm done to the crime scene or the case. Sparks had decided to go easy on the group, citing the young ones with breaking the curfew and the older ones with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, then having the D.A. drop the charges in exchange for some community service. It seemed fair enough, though Carter feared it would do nothing to change any of the delinquents’ behavior.
BJ, however, thought it was for the best. “No one was hurt, so the parents should deal with their own kids. Megan knows where Jim and I stand.” Carter wasn’t certain this was the right tack. He remembered interrogating Josh Sykes while the insolent kid had sat leaning back in the metal chair, his scraggly bearded chin belligerently thrust forward, eyes at half-mast, almost daring Carter to make a move that would result in a lawsuit. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Josh had repeated over and over again, and Carter had wondered what Cassie Kramer saw in the young punk.
Now, BJ settled into the chair facing his desk, suddenly got to her feet, left the room, and returned with a cup of water which she poured around the near-dead plant on a corner of his desk. “This Christmas cactus should be blooming,” she reprimanded. “Just give
it a little TLC.”
“Fresh out,” Carter grumbled. “I just received the word on Vincent Paladin, the guy who stalked Jenna Hughes in the past.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s in Florida. On parole. Being a good boy and visiting his parole officer every week. He was in Tampa on the day the letter was mailed from Portland.”
“He could have an accomplice.”
Carter finished his coffee in a final gulp, then crushed the paper cup in his fingers. “Don’t think so…these guys, stalkers, they’re usually loners.”
“So you’re ruling him out?”
“I’m not ruling anyone out,” he said quickly.
One of BJ’s eyebrows arched. “Get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?”
“Don’t I every morning?”
“Yeah, but lately it’s been more obvious.”
He snorted. “Maybe it’s just that I don’t like the cold.”
“Then your mood isn’t going to improve much, is it? The weather service claims we’re in for a whole lot more of this. Guess we’d better get used to it.”
Never, he thought, but kept his mouth shut.
The evening rehearsal had turned into a complete disaster. Two actors hadn’t shown up—one woman claiming her car wouldn’t start, another staying home because he was recovering from a sprained ankle after slipping and falling on the ice. The other cast members were alternately cold or hot, depending upon the whims of the furnace, and only a few remembered their lines. The piano seemed out of tune, and there were the continuous problems with the lighting and sound systems.
By the time the two-hour rehearsal was over and the last of the would-be performers had left the theater, Jenna was ready to tear out her hair. She’d volunteered as the acting coach and after tonight, regretted the decision. Why had she agreed to help Rinda put on this production? What kind of masochist was she? Was she so desperate to fit into this community that she’d put herself through this torture for the next few weeks? Never again, she silently vowed as she and the rest of the staff were gathering their things and discussing the performance.
Blanche, at the piano near the stage, was picking up her things while Lynnetta, who was hemming a costume, sat in a back pew. Wes and Scott were presumably overhead, working on the faulty lights, while Jenna, Rinda, and Yolanda Fisher sat on the edge of the stage where once there had been a pulpit.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Blanche said, picking up her sheet music from the piano and pressing it into a folder.
“No,” Rinda said glumly. “‘Bad’ would be an improvement.”
Blanche zipped the sheet music into a leather briefcase. “Oh, that’s what you always say about this time in each production.”