My daughter’s punky clothing and knobby knees, but pasted over her face, it’s Jenna Ford’s.
Hundreds of cutouts of Jenna’s face, meticulously trimmed down and pasted over my daughter’s until Jenna lives again in these sick doctored photos.
They paint a clear picture.
One that makes me want to vomit.
Justin was obsessed with Jenna, even though he’d have been so young when she was alive she probably never noticed him as an awkward teenager.
Obsessed with all of us.
They call us saviors, heroes, but we didn’t save the woman he idolized.
Or his mother.
And now he’s transferred his warped obsession to my daughter.
Fuck isn’t strong enough a word.
I can’t decide if I’m more pissed off or freaked. If he’s willing to punish us by fire, if he can play the victim so easy that even I was fooled into taking him under my wing...
I don’t even want to think what he’d do to feed his obsession with Andrea.
I just know I’ve got to protect her.
And I’ve got no fucking time to lose.
19
Broken Pitch (Peace)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Andrea looking so despondent.
I’m trying to practice backstage, but it’s hard when she’s dragging around looking like the apocalypse just hit.
I feel for her.
Truly.
Justin’s vanished, and she can’t do the safety presentation on her own. She needs someone official backing it up from the town fire crew.
“Hey,” I say, trying to catch her attention. “It’ll be all right. Blake will totally find him in time.”
“Yeah, sure.” She rolls her eyes, sighing heavily as she flops down on one of the benches backstage. “I should just give up now.”
“No way,” I say softly. “Listen, honey, if it comes right down to it, and he doesn’t make it back in time, I’ll wiggle into Blake’s coveralls and do it up there with you.”
“You don’t know it.” She smiles wryly. “But thanks for offering.”
“Plan B. Dead serious. I’ve been around enough showy fireworks and circuses to know how to give a spiel. Nobody’ll ever know.” I wink at her.
She stares right through me, letting out a deflated laugh.
There’s a tired maturity in Andrea’s smile that hurts to see.
She shouldn’t have to deal with this crap. She shouldn’t be so used to disappointment that she learns to accept it.
And when she stands, coming over to squeeze my shoulder, I decide I won’t let her.
Catching her hand, I grip it tight for a moment, before she pulls away.
“I’m gonna go find a bathroom, okay?” she says. “Yell if he ever shows up.”
“Will do,” I say, watching her straggle off before I bow over my guitar again.
She’s not the only one with jitters today. Playing at The Nest was a sliver of this crowd.
I try to shake off my nerves, losing myself in practice chords. That song about my gold-hearted desperado still rolls real easy off my tongue.
It’s now or never.
It seems especially fitting right now, when the whole town is honoring Blake and his friends. I guess they’ll all see the heroes of Heart’s Edge in the song, though I’m really just singing it for one very special man.
My man.
I’m so lost in the melody and lyrics I don’t realize how much time blurs by until one of the stagehands ducks in the back. “Uh, Peace? Hey, it’s almost time for that fire safety thing? Where are they?”
Oh.
I lift my head, looking around.
No sign of Andrea. No Justin. No Blake.
It’s just me back here, all by my lonesome with my guitar.
I flash the stagehand a distracted smile. “Let me see if I can find them.”
My heart throbs sadly. I bet Andrea just moped off somewhere to give up.
Poor girl.
Maybe Blake and I can take her out for a special dinner tomorrow to make up for the disappointment.
I’m still thinking of things I can do to help her feel better as I head off toward the row of temporary bathrooms backstage that aren’t much better than port-a-potties, just cleaner.
But I don’t start worrying until my foot catches something.
I look down and recognize the ragged patchwork colors of Andrea’s neon-stitched messenger bag. There’s a scrap of blue notepaper poking out of it I can’t help but recognize.
“No!” I whisper, my hands already starting to shake.
My vision flashes, a sudden hot rush of panic, vertigo, adrenaline.
And as I bend down, slow with dread, to pluck the paper out, I see the familiar, scratchy handwriting.
The same handwriting on the notes left by the monster.
Hey, babe, let’s make up. Meet me out beyond the fence. I’ll be waiting. You were right. Love you. -Clark
Clark didn’t write this.
No flipping way did Clark Patten write a single word.
The tone is too adult, the script too obvious, and why would Clark say love you when they aren’t even technically dating?
My heart pounds so hard it’s making me sick.
There’s a time to meet scribbled below his signature.
Fifteen minutes ago, and Andrea’s still not back.
I feel like I’ve just swallowed razors.
Quickly, I look up, darting my gaze around. I’m in a narrow corridor leading out beyond the backstage staging area and around to the dressing areas, the bathrooms, other little enclosed bits of the ice palace that were thrown together for construction and maintenance.
I’m alone.
No Andrea.
No anyone.
I need to find Blake, before the worst happens.
His daughter needs him.
I need him.
And maybe this whole town needs him. Again.
Because whoever wrote this note...I think they want to hurt way more people than just Andrea.
Choking back the sickly panic in my throat, I spin on my heel, darting to the exit.
That’s how I slam right into something solid and warm.
I stumble backward, reeling, my vision crossed for a second.
Then my eyes refocus, and I’m staring up into a masked face. A pair of murky hazel eyes I recognize now with a horrible familiar chill.
A single dark, Grecian curl escapes the mask, drifting across his eyes.
And I don’t even get a chance to scream the horror rising up from my darkest depths before he’s on me, his hand clapped over my mouth.
A foul, acrid smell washes over me.
Everything goes cloudy, dark, distant, and I’m gone.
I wake to a pounding headache, brutal nausea, and the deepest cold I’ve ever felt in my life.
It’s like I’ve been sleeping on a slab of liquid nitrogen.
As my vision clears, the clarity coming back in the darkness, I realize I’m close to the truth.
I don’t quite recognize where I am.
Only that it’s dark and closed off with billowing cloth walls. There are chunks of ice everywhere. Stacked and tumbled in towering crumbles, slabs the size and weight of two or three men, many of them dirty or broken in half.
It’s the leftovers from building the ice palace. The mistakes, the unclean bits, the oddly shaped bricks.