Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(75)

Clara held still for a moment, then pushed the door.

The curtains were drawn over the windows; they were heavy, made for a place where the sun barely ever set for a season.

It was bright outside—but not in here. All that illuminated the room was the very pale glow of light that filtered in from the hallway.

She looked in. There was a form she could just make out on the bed.

It appeared that Becca Marle was sleeping peacefully. In fact, Clara almost stepped back out of the room, thinking that Becca was fine and needed that sleep.

But something compelled her to move forward.

She walked over to the bed, becoming aware of a strange odor, something that had a wet smell about it.

As she neared Becca, she almost balked—she was suddenly afraid of what she would find.

She froze in the middle of the room.

She tried to scream; her first effort was pale. She managed to shout out one word at last.

“Thor!”

He was there in a moment; a light flashed on in the room as he hit the switch.

And she saw what she wished she had never seen...

It was a tableau, set out to shock and to horrify.

Becca was there... Rather, the remains of Becca were there, and yet it was hard to say for certain that it was Becca.

Her nose had been slashed. She lay to one side. The bedside table held...things.

Body parts and pieces.

And all she could do was remember the picture she had seen in the trash basket at the cabin rented by Connie Shaw.

A picture of a long-ago murder.

That of Mary Kelly...known as Jack the Ripper’s last victim.

Except that this hadn’t happened long ago.

Becca Marle had been killed and mutilated in the hours just passed...

With her and Jackson and policemen and women...just a hundred yards away.

She screamed; her scream was loud and piercing and filled with horror.

And it took a long, long time after Thor rushed in, held her, shook her gently and spoke over and over again, for his words to sink in.

“It’s not real, Clara. Not real. It’s staged. This isn’t Becca Marle. It’s a dummy. It’s staged—this is another scene that has been staged!”

He turned her around to look at him, to see the truth in his eyes. “It’s not real, Clara. It’s not real—it’s not real.”

*

Thor was furious at himself, as were the others.

Whatever the hell had happened, had happened with all of them right there! With police patrolling the property. With a cop in the hall, an agent on the sofa!

“It’s not f*cking real. Another staged scene. Why the hell would Becca do such a thing?” It was Tommy Marchant who exploded with the words.

He just as quickly rescinded his words. “No! Becca wouldn’t do this!”

It had only been minutes since they’d discovered the “murder” scene in the bedroom. Since there hadn’t been a scream, a sound—nothing at all heard by anyone outside the room—the logical assumption was that Becca Marle had created the scene herself, and then slipped away.

But had she? Or had someone somehow gotten into that room with her?

“But what the hell, how the hell...and where is Becca?” Tommy said.

Thor was furious and frustrated. And he knew that Jackson and Mike were feeling the same way—even while being grateful that the scene that had been left for them wasn’t real.

It had been artfully staged. Just like the carnage the Wickedly Weird crew had set up at the Mansion. The woman left in Becca’s place—chopped to ribbons and covered with stage blood—had been a fabrication. Thor had done a cursory inspection of the room while Mike had watched over the inhabitants of the Alaska Hut and Jackson had searched outside.

No prints. There had been a powdery snow last night—light, but enough to cover someone’s tracks. Someone who knew Alaska and had probably known the weather report for the island.

Thor cursed, because he hadn’t seen or heard anything. He tried not to hate himself too much because he knew that there had been a policeman on duty right there in the hallway.

Mike Aklaq had been just feet away from the door.

One of them had been there through the night.

And he still wouldn’t have known—none of them would have known—if it hadn’t been for his dream about Mandy Brandt.

A dream he had apparently shared with Jackson; once again, he knew it. He saw it in his ex-partner’s eyes.

“Becca didn’t do this—she wouldn’t do this!” Nate swore. “You can think what you want about reality TV and bad taste, but we’re just the workforce. Most of us have worked on movies—good movies, some that mattered. This is just what we do for a living, what we’re told to do. The whole blood and guts thing was Natalie’s idea, not ours! Becca wasn’t into it from the start. And that said, you ought to be worried about her. I know I am.”

“We are worried. We’re heading out to find her,” Thor told him flatly.

Nate and Tommy began to protest, both speaking over one another. Thor looked at Jackson and Mike and then nodded to the policeman to stay on top of everyone as he moved back into the room. Jackson, he knew, would head out and speak to the officers on patrol around the house.

Mike would stay with the cop, watching those in the room.

Whoever had been in the room wasn’t invisible; no one had gone by the cop or Mike Aklaq as he’d set himself up for hours of guard duty on the sofa.