had seemed so good. And so they had all headed up to Seward. She’d heard about the beauty of Alaska for years from other performers with whom she’d worked. Clara had come as soon as possible—longing to see as much as she could of Seward before going into the long days and nights of rehearsals. She’d spent time at the museum, learning about the native people, the first Russians on the scene, “Seward’s Folly,” the quake that had devastated the area in 1964, and more. She’d been able to take a small local cruise to see the majesty of the glaciers, giant whales breeching, the power of falling ice...but there was so much more she wanted to discover. The wildlife, dogsled races, the raw geography of the area, Kenai Fjords National Park—everything that made Alaska so special and different. And, eventually, she would find the time, but then...
The time she had given herself just hadn’t been enough.
Rehearsals had started, and then Celtic American had contacted her and some of the others about filming for Vacation USA and she had met with Natalie Fontaine and agreed to head out on the ferry and meet her at the Mansion, and then the blood and guts that had been fake and now...
Now the blood and guts that were real.
Simon, slim, young and earnest, reached over for her hand. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah,” Ralph said. “None of us blames you.”
“Blames me!” she repeated, staring at him, her temper rising. “Blames me? For what? Hey—you guys were out of a job. The ship was being held for months. I found out about this opportunity and told you about it!”
“I could have been playing that new role on Broadway,” Ralph said.
Clara felt the frown that gripped her brow. “That role is being played by Jeff Goldblum. I don’t think you should have counted on it—no offense, Ralph. Mr. Goldblum does have one hell of a résumé.”
Ralph sniffed.
“Hey—I’m happy. I’m out of the chorus,” Simon said. He smiled at Clara. “And I know I wouldn’t have any role on Broadway!”
“That didn’t come out right,” Ralph murmured. “I’m sorry, Clara. Really. I mean, this is going to be okay. This doesn’t have to do with us. This has to do with someone who really, really, really hates reality TV.”
Clara was silent. She prayed it went beyond that. One woman decapitated; one woman cut in half. That seemed like a lot more than anger.
“Miss Avery?”
She looked up. It was the wall of an FBI man who had pitched her down into the snow—and scared her out of ten years of life. She realized that she hadn’t been thinking FBI because these guys looked so different. He’d been bundled up in an official parka; now, he had doffed the jacket and he looked like a Norse lumberjack. He was Norse—he had said so. Norse American, obviously. He was very tall—possibly six-four or six-five—and definitely built like a logger. But then, she’d spent enough time with Jude McCoy and Jackson Crow of the FBI to know that they took their work seriously. They went to the gun range frequently, and they went regularly to the gym, since their strength and agility in the field could be just as important as tools of their trade.
“Your turn for the grill—I guess we come right after you,” Ralph murmured.
She supposed that they would. The state cops who had arrived first on the scene with a second FBI man had stayed with the cast where they were grouped together at the kitchen table. Clara knew that, a little more than a hundred yards away, police, FBI, techs and whoever else, were still working on the crime scene. So far the living film crew on the island—Nate Mahoney, Becca Marle and Tommy Marchant—had been questioned at the Alaska Hut. Clara felt bad for them; she’d only met Natalie Fontaine and Amelia Carson once. But that crew had worked with the two women hand in hand for several years.
Now, she wondered where the three of them had gone—or if law enforcement was purposely keeping them all apart.
Or, if they were lucky, and are already off this wretched island.
“Miss Avery?”
He had to repeat her name. She rose and followed him out of the kitchen. She passed through the dining room and the cozy parlor with its raw wood furniture and huge stone hearth to the office straight across from the kitchen.
There, Special Agent Thor Erikson indicated that she take a chair.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“Just great,” she replied. “Nothing like being taken with a bunch of fake blood—and nearly plowing into a pool of the real stuff.”
“If it makes you feel better, there was less blood than there could have been,” he said. “Miss Carson was apparently killed elsewhere—and dumped where she was found.”
Clara didn’t react in any way; she didn’t know the proper reaction to such words.
“Why were you running?” he asked her.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked.
“No,” he said very seriously. “I don’t kid under circumstances like this.”
Well, of course you don’t.
She almost snapped the words out, but refrained. “Surely, sir, you’re aware that I was at the Mansion. And I believe you saw the Mansion?”
“Fake,” he said. “All for the cameras.”
“Yes, well, Agent Erikson, you knew that. I did not.”
“But why did you run out here?”
“The hut is out here! I hoped to God I’d find friends at the hut, film crew, people—anyone other than whoever did that!”
“You acted as if you were being chased.”
“I was being chased.”
“By who?”
“By whoever killed all those people—I assumed,” she said.
“Did you have reason to believe someone was after you?” he asked her, frowning.
“Yes, I heard something,” she said.
“Heard it from where?” he asked her.
“In the house—the Mansion. I didn’t go in very far. I came up the front steps. I opened the door to the mudroom, and then to the foyer. And then...then I stared in horror at what I thought was a massacre.”
“You didn’t call out—you didn’t scream?”
She shook her head. “I was too—too terrified to scream. Then I started to back out of the house and...yes! I’m certain that I heard someone upstairs. And by what I saw...it might have been whoever did this. So I turned to run out and as I did so...yes! Yes, I heard someone on the stairs. So I started to run as hard as I could. I figured my only hope for help was the Alaska Hut. I didn’t know what had happened at the Mansion, only that no one—no one living—was there to meet me. And I knew that part of the filming was supposed to be at the Alaska Hut. I figured people had to be
