"He was in the audio booth half an hour ago. I"ll go check." Wes was already flying up the stairs and Jenna told herself there was no reason to get worked up. Scott was always out of step, just a little out of sync with the rest of the world. But Rinda was working her way up to an emotional point somewhere between irritation and panic.
"Not up here!" Wes called down over the speaker system, his voice reverberating through the vast room. "Scott...you"re M.I.A. and your mom wants to leave!"
"He"s got to be here," Rinda said, heading for the stairs leading behind the stage to the bas.e.m.e.nt dressing area when he appeared in the doorway. "Oh! G.o.d, you scared me," Rinda cried, a hand flying up to cover her heart.
"I thought you were looking for me." Scott"s pimply face was the picture of innocence. Around his neck dangled a set of headphones from which rap music was audible several feet away.
"I was, but...where the devil were you?"
"Downstairs, cleaning...isn"t that what you wanted me to do?"
"Oh...Well...Yes...I guess," she said, slightly confused. "Look, it doesn"t matter, and it"s late-let"s get a move on..." Rinda"s anger dissipated as she threw on her coat and hat, then shepherded her son out the door.
Jenna grabbed her things and followed, leaving Wes and Lynnetta to lock up.
Outside, the night was calm, nerve-stretchingly so, only a few snowflakes falling from a dark, starless sky. Hands in her pockets, Jenna glanced back at the theater with its tall spire and narrow stained-gla.s.s windows and felt a chill as deep as the night. Her eyes were drawn upward, to the top of the tower and the sharp roof where once church bells had tolled. She saw a movement, a fleeting shadow, and had the strange feeling that something or someone was standing in the tower, hiding in the frigid darkness, staring down at her.
But that was nuts.
Paranoid.
No one was in the theater but Wes and Lynnetta...unless Wes had quickly climbed the rickety stairs to the top of the spire.
She was about to say something to Rinda and Scott, but they had already climbed into their car. Scott was behind the wheel and Rinda gave a quick wave as they eased out of the parking lot. Once at the street, Scott gunned it and the car fishtailed before settling into the right lane. Twenty-four years old and acting as if he were sixteen, the kind of kid whose emotional growth had been stunted somehow and had never really matured. Still living at home with an overprotective mother.
Who are you to criticize-think about your own daughter. Ca.s.sie"s not exactly an angel.
Jenna unlocked her Jeep and slid inside.
She"d just pulled out of the parking lot when her cell phone jangled. She picked it up and eased down the street. "h.e.l.lo?"
"Mom, can you pick up a pizza?" Allie asked.
She smiled at the sound of her younger daughter"s voice. "You know, that would be a good idea. If the pizza parlor"s open."
"And can I go to Dani"s?"
"Now?" She glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty. "Isn"t there school tomorrow?"
"I mean after school. Tomorrow."
"You have piano lessons I think, depending on the weather."
"I hate piano lessons."
A picture of Blanche in her beret and boots galloped through Jenna"s mind. The woman was a couple of steps beyond odd. "How about on Friday, if it"s okay with Mr. Settler?"
"Oh, you"re supposed to call him."
"Am I?"
"Yeah-he called."
"When?"
"Uhhhhh...after you left."
"Tonight?"
"Yeah."
"I"ll call him back and we"ll get things straight about the weekend," she said as she pulled up to a stop sign, then looked down the street. "Hey, you"re in luck. Martino"s is open. What would you like?"
"Pepperoni."
"And-?"
"Just pepperoni."
"Okay, put Ca.s.sie on the phone and I"ll see if she wants anything else."
"She"s in the shower."
"Pepperoni it is," Jenna said. "I"ll be home soon."
Jenna clicked off her cell and pulled into the snowplowed lot, where she parked between a black van and a red pickup with tires so big it could have entered in one of those monster-truck compet.i.tions. Music was blaring from the speakers, a ba.s.s thrumming so loudly that even though the windows were only barely cracked, the hip-hop song vibrated through the air. Three boys wearing backward-facing baseball caps sat inside the king cab, laughing, talking, and smoking.
One of the kids was Josh Sykes.
Jenna"s good mood evaporated. She considered confronting him right then and there, but decided against it. Humiliating him in front of his friends would serve no purpose. Biting her tongue, she hiked the collar of her ski jacket tighter, hurried inside, and ordered her pizza and a Diet c.o.ke.
While waiting for the pizza, she took a seat in one of the empty booths and sipped her soda. Two other booths were occupied, but no one so much as glanced in her direction. Anonymity, she thought, savoring the feeling of freedom it brought.
Within minutes, Josh and his friends, carbon copies of each other, sauntered in. Jenna"s peace of mind dissipated immediately.
One of the boys, dressed in baggy jeans, serious gold chains, and a jacket three sizes too big, leaned an elbow on the counter and tried to flirt with the girl taking orders; another propped himself against the windows and stared outside as if he were waiting for someone, and Josh, spotting Jenna, had the good sense to quit joking around. Their gazes clashed and she thought she saw his Adam"s apple bobble a bit before he donned his usual I-don"t-give-a-c.r.a.p-about-anything demeanor.
She supposed she should leave well enough alone, but she couldn"t. Not when an opportunity like this dropped into her lap. Leaving her soft drink sweating on the table, she sauntered up to Ca.s.sie"s punk of a boyfriend. "Hi, Josh."
He didn"t respond until she was standing directly in front of him. "Hullo."
"How are you doing?"
A wariness flashed in his eyes. He didn"t trust her friendliness one bit. So maybe he wasn"t as stupid as she"d thought. "Fine. Just gettin" a pizza."
"Me, too." She glanced at his two friends, who had turned to face the confrontation. "Why don"t you come over to my booth where we can talk. I"ll buy you a soda."
"I"m, uh, not thirsty."
"Then just come over for a few minutes, okay? Since we"re both here waiting. It"s a little like fate, wouldn"t you say?"
He didn"t. Just followed her to the table while his friends tried to swallow their smirks. Jenna didn"t care. She was trying to keep her cool, knew that flying off the handle would only make him defensive and angry, and those emotions, running rampant in a kid his age, would only serve to make him want to prove her wrong and go against whatever law or threat she laid down. So, despite the fact that her blood was boiling and she wanted to wring his scruffy neck, she motioned him into a seat and sat opposite him. "You"re sure you don"t want anything?"
"Nah." He looked down at his clasped hands. Set them on the table. Almost like he was praying.
"Okay, so here"s the deal. I know you care about Ca.s.sie and she cares about you."
He looked up to see if she was joking. She wasn"t.
"So it seems to me that you"d want to take care of her, kind of protect her." She had to force the words out; they clogged her throat because the last thing she believed in was a man protecting a woman. And Josh was the least likely white knight she"d ever come across.
"Yeah..." he said tenuously, as if he didn"t believe what he was hearing.
"So, I"d think that you"d want what"s best for her and, you know, asking her to sneak out and go to the scene of a crime and then drink and use drugs...it"s just not the best thing." She tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of her words, but a little slipped through.
"We weren"t doing anything wrong," he said, then caught the warning look in her eye and changed his tack. "We wanted to have some fun, that"s all."
"I know." She said it as if she believed it. Josh"s problem was his lack of imagination, of coming from a family that didn"t give a d.a.m.n about him, and boredom at the prospect of what was the rest of his life, though he couldn"t seem to see beyond the signposts of this small town. "But the kind of fun where you"re doing dangerous things, or chancing being arrested-that"s not what"s best for Ca.s.sie. Or for you. Look, I"m going to be honest here, okay? I was really angry at Ca.s.sie and at you, but I"m trying not to go off the deep end and do anything that all of us would regret."
He glanced up again and she held his gaze steadily, made sure he understood her intent, that beneath her empathetic words, there was a veiled threat. Josh needed to know that legally she had the upper hand and that she knew it. "So let"s all try to work this out. Come over to the house. Visit Ca.s.s. Take her out, but no more sneaking out, okay? It"s just not safe and I"m sure the last thing you would want to do is compromise Ca.s.sie"s safety and well-being."
"Yeah...but..."
"Pizza for Hughes," the girl behind the counter said, and Jenna rose quickly.
"Thanks, Josh," she said, leaving her barely touched soda and an astounded Josh in the booth. She forced a smile that would have won her an Academy Award on Josh"s two friends, then scooped up the cardboard box and left Martino"s.
So she"d had a run-in with Josh; she was certain it wouldn"t be her last.
CHAPTER 22.
Snow was falling again, blowing in windy swirls.
Jenna managed to climb into her rig and start the Jeep"s engine. Once she"d reversed out of Martino"s parking lot, she chanced another glance at the window of the pizza parlor. All three boys were now staring at her through the cold, frosty gla.s.s. No wonder she"d felt their gazes drilling into her back.
With a wave, and a smile as fake as fool"s gold, she drove away. "h.o.r.n.y, self-involved idiots," she muttered through her plastered-on grin, then silently chastised herself for being a fraud. Yet she"d always lived by the credo of catching more flies with sugar than vinegar, so she didn"t beat herself up about being two-faced. "A means to an end," she reminded herself, and the end was Ca.s.sie"s safety and well-being.
As she pa.s.sed the courthouse, a three-storied, yellow-and-brown brick building constructed nearly a hundred years earlier, she glanced at the glowing windows, picked out the one that belonged to Carter, and noticed the lamps were burning. Of the few cars parked in the lot, she picked out his Chevy Blazer. So he was still on the job. She"d heard that about him, that he worked around the clock, that ever since his wife had died he"d thrown himself into his job. Local gossip had it that his wife was the victim of a one-car accident that had occurred during another harsh winter, but Jenna tried to temper every rumor she heard as being embellished over the years.
She flipped on her wipers, as the snow was coming down steadily now. Fiddling with the radio, she was hoping to find a weather report and instead landed upon a static-riddled Jimmy Buffett tune that conjured up hot sand, tropical water, and frothy drinks.
It sounded like heaven.
She hummed along. Her cell phone rang and she expected that Allie, whose patience was sometimes close to nil, was calling and checking on the pizza. She flipped open her phone and saw an L.A. phone number.
Robert.
Her stomach dropped as she answered. "h.e.l.lo?"
"Hi, Jen." Robert"s smooth baritone was interrupted by static. "I hear...we...trouble...Ca.s.sie called...and..."
"Robert, I can"t hear you. You"re breaking up."
"...d.a.m.ned cell...call..." His words were spotty and crackled.
"Can you hear me?"
"...breaking..."
"Yeah, you"re breaking up, too. I"ll call you back...when I get home to a land line. Got it?"
"...Ca.s.s..."
"I can"t hear you!" she shouted as she reached a sharp corner and slowed down without hitting the brakes. The tires slid and she swung wide, into the oncoming lane. "d.a.m.n!" She dropped the phone and it slid onto the floor. The pizza carton, too, careened onto the pa.s.senger-side floor mats.
Adrenaline shot through her system as she tightened her grip over the wheel and rode out the slide, swerving as she eased back into her lane, where the tires slid again. "Oh, G.o.d," she whispered as she shifted down, slowing the engine, feeling the tires try to grip. The cell phone crackled. She let it die and concentrated on the road, an icy ribbon of asphalt.
Snow was falling harder now, and she carefully flipped on the wipers. The cell phone rang again. She ignored it. Robert could call back or not. She didn"t really care. She just needed to get home in one piece. Besides, she was used to being a single parent. It had been nearly a week since Ca.s.sie had been caught sneaking out and her father had finally deigned to return her call. What a guy!
She had the Jeep under control finally, but her blood was still pounding, her nerves stretched tight as the road dipped and curved, edging ever closer to the Columbia River, a fierce, dark snake of frigid water tumbling madly through the gorge.
She couldn"t wait to get home, to stoke the fire, to bite into a piece of tangy pizza topped with stringy cheese and spicy pepperoni.
Maybe she"d take a bath and read the paperback she had at her bedside.
Headlights flashed in her rearview mirror.
Thank G.o.d. At least she was no longer alone. Some other idiot was driving along this isolated stretch of road winding by the river. It was comforting somehow.
She glanced back, squinting as the vehicle behind her accelerated fast, its headlights on high beam, blinding as they drew near.
Jenna took the next corner. The vehicle-a truck?-lagged behind as she took a corner, then straightened out.
On the straightaway, things changed. Quickly. The vehicle behind bore down on her. Fast. Too fast for the icy conditions. "What in the world?" Jenna lightly touched her brakes. A warning for the driver to back off. No such luck. Bright headlights dimmed off and on, flashing back. As if it were some kind of game.
The driver was messing with her? When the roads were freezing? But that was crazy.
Heart pounding with fear, she thought of Josh Sykes. Had she embarra.s.sed him in front of his friends and now he was getting his jollies by scaring her half to death? This was nuts. The car behind was so close, its headlights blinding. Jenna slowed down, hoping the guy would take a hint. No. He just hung on her b.u.mper, begging for an accident.
"Cretin," Jenna muttered, beginning to sweat. She thought of all the warnings about predators who intentionally rear-ended a woman alone in a car to force her to pull over. When the potential victim took the bait and stopped, hopping out of her car, intent on reaming the guy out and offering to exchange insurance information, she was abducted at gun-or knife-point, to disappear or be found later, raped or dead.