She returned to the cab and gave him the address before settling into the well-worn seat. As she pulled the door shut, she hazarded one last glance over her shoulder to spy Mercy Hospital, a blend of old brick and new glass, perched on its hill. Good riddance, she thought, her gaze drifting up to the fourth floor and the older part of the building where she’d spent the last few weeks. She thought she spied her room, saw a shadow within, and for just a second imagined she spied the taciturn nurse from another generation in the window. Before she could really focus, the cab turned and headed downhill, passing trees that blocked her view of the brick edifice.
She didn’t have much of a plan, just knew that she was getting better in the hospital and that the cops’ search for Allie hadn’t turned up anything so far. Cassie chewed on her lower lip and tapped her fingers against the window of the cab. Where was her sister? What had happened? How had she disappeared? And how would Nurse Santa Fe, or whoever she was, know that she was alive? It seemed unlikely and yet Rinko had produced the earring. God, it was all so bizarre and surreal.
Her mother was frantic with fear for her younger daughter. Robert, too, was worried about Allie. Cassie knew because she’d talked to both of her parents at length. And she knew how they felt. She, too, was obsessed with finding her sister.
A headache formed behind her eyes as she considered her splintered family. Her mother and stepfather, a sheriff, no less, resided in Oregon, while her much-married father lived in LA with his current wife, Felicia, twenty years his junior and, of course, a gorgeous would-be actress. As they all had been.
Not that it mattered.
Closing her eyes, Cassie tried to place her thoughts in some kind of order. For months she’d been a zombie. A patient in a hospital, who’d been told what to do, when to do it, and where to be. Now, she was on her own. No more hiding away and licking wounds and feeling bad. No more coddling herself. It was time for action and answers.
First order—she needed a place to crash. She didn’t know for how long. A car would help. Also, she had to get her cell phone up and running. Right now the battery life was nil.
You need some kind of plan, she told herself as the cab driver negotiated the narrow street that wound down this section of the West Hills. Fir, maple, and oak trees canopied over the pavement where a walking path was cut along the roadway. Intrepid joggers and bikers vied for space along the steep asphalt trail. Every once in a while, through gaps in the forest, she caught peekaboo views of Portland sprawled along the banks of the Willamette.
She was no longer an actress. She’d given up that dream once her younger sister had come onto the scene and literally upstaged her. Cassie didn’t need harsh reviews to remind her of the fact, and Allie had been a natural while she’d struggled. The camera loved Allie and she shined bright, whatever residual shyness from her youth disappearing as she lost herself in a role. The irony of it all was that it had been Cassie who had lured her younger sister to the bright lights of Hollywood. Cassie who’d suggested she move out of Falls Crossing, Oregon, as soon as Allie graduated from high school.
So all of this was, in some way, her fault.
Get over it. Wallowing in guilt and self-pity won’t help anything, now, will it?
The cab reached the bottom of the hill and found the freeway, a wide swath of concrete that ran the length of the westernmost states and beyond. Here in Portland I-5 was often a snarl, the traffic not a whole lot better than the loaded freeways of LA, but today they lucked out and the cab was able to sail across the wide span of the Marquam Bridge to the east side of the river.
Fifteen minutes later she was filling out paperwork for a rental car, a compact that turned out to be a white Nissan. Tonight, she’d stay in a hotel. Tomorrow, worry about something more permanent.
And then she was going to find out what the hell had happened to her sister.
CHAPTER 3
The hotel room was basic—two beds with matching quilts, a couple of pictures, a TV, desk, and chair with an ottoman. The bathroom was fitted with a tub/shower and toilet and sink, all squeezed into an impossibly small space. The “suite” would do. For now. Cassie eyed the phone on the bedside table, thought about calling her mother, then shoved aside the jab of guilt that cut through her heart. She’d wait to tell Jenna where she’d landed, otherwise she’d be sucked into that maternal vortex that didn’t seem to let go. It wasn’t that Jenna played the guilt card, or at least not very often, it was that Cassie couldn’t really deal with her mother and stepfather and their ranch sprawling along the banks of the Columbia River. It was all too bucolic or rustic or Podunk for her, and the place brought back a never-ending tidal wave of memories she’d rather keep buried—the bloody, brutal images that were better off forgotten, or at the very least tamped down, until they reared up in horrific, ugly Technicolor in her nightmares.
“Head case,” she muttered, grabbing up her cell phone. It was barely alive after being charged for less than fifteen minutes, but it was all the time she could afford. Ever since leaving the hospital she felt that time was slipping through her fingers. She’d been cooped up for what seemed like forever but had only actually been a few weeks, and now she needed to get moving.
Once behind the Nissan’s steering wheel, she Googled the name of the rehabilitation center were Lucinda Rinaldi was recovering. Allie’s body double had pulled through several surgeries, which included removing part of her spleen, and some liver damage, along with spinal injuries, all of which were on the mend, thank God.
She negotiated the grid of streets that were East Portland and found Meadow Brook Rehabilitation Center, where there seemed to be no meadow, nor brook, anywhere nearby. The long, low, tan building just off Fifty-Second had been constructed in the fifties or sixties from the looks of it, a bank of glass windows facing the street, the reception area under a jutting peak in the otherwise unbroken roofline. An asphalt parking lot in need of resurfacing flanked one side of the sidewalk, a rose garden gone to seed on the other.
Cassie was met by a hefty receptionist with a gravelly voice and easy smile who checked a computer screen and asked, “You’re a relative?”
“Friend.”
“Don’t see your name on the visitor list.”
“I’ve been out of town.”
“She’s in physical therapy now.”
“I’ll wait,” Cassie said brightly. Before the woman could argue her phone rang, her concentration broken as whoever was on the other end of the connection commanded all of her attention.
“Now, hold on,” she said into the phone. “Who is this? What kind of emergency?” Her brow knitted and she started typing on her keyboard, so Cassie pretended to be taking a seat on one of the worn chairs near the window. As soon as the receptionist’s back was turned, she hurried down a short hallway and followed the signs to physical therapy. If the receptionist figured out that she’d been thwarted and chased Cassie down, or called security, Cassie would deal with it then.
For now, she stepped quickly through the doorway into a large room that smelled of sweat, plastic, and antiseptic.
; Lucinda, dressed in sweats, was working at walking between two parallel bars, a therapist at her side. Her hair was scraped back with a headband, unkempt curls showing dark roots. She was concentrating hard as she inched her way down the length of the apparatus. Her face was flushed, sweat making her skin sheen under the fluorescent lighting.
As if sensing someone’s presence, Lucinda looked into the mirrors lining one wall and caught sight of Cassie’s reflection. She stumbled, but the aide who was with her was quick to grab her as Lucinda caught her balance again, her lips flattened with unrepressed fury.