After She's Gone (West Coast 3)

Turning to leave, she nearly tripped over another woman in a walker. “Sorry,” she said as the woman stopped short.

“Watch where you’re going,” was the gruff response.

She couldn’t get out of the rehab center fast enough. Pushing open the front door, she drew in a long breath of damp Portland air, then made her way to the parking lot. As she did, Lucinda’s accusations followed after her. The truth was, they didn’t ring false. She and Allie had always had a love/hate relationship, one that drove their mother crazy. In her teenage years, Cassie had been rebellious and thwarted Jenna at every turn. She’d been angry and hurt over her parents’ separation and divorce, had never adjusted to life away from Southern California, and generally hated everything to do with Falls Crossing, Oregon. Aside from her boyfriend, Josh Sykes, who was three years older. Jenna, of course, hadn’t approved of the relationship, but she wasn’t exactly a shining example when it came to finding Mr. Right.

Allie, too, hadn’t liked their parents’ divorce and her mother’s subsequent move north, but she’d been more introverted, more of a baby in Cassie’s estimation, more of an “odd duck” who had hated anything to do with Harrison Elementary. It wasn’t until she’d entered high school that she’d turned on to education and spent the next few years outshining all of her peers.

Cassie had been flummoxed. Suddenly, shy, babyish Allie had become a stellar student and athlete, with college prospects and scholarship opportunities. Their mother had been so proud and Cassie, struggling to make it in Hollywood, had been more than a little jealous. Even now, she felt it, that burning rage that boiled up when she remembered their mother bragging up her younger child, mentioning the schools to which Allie had applied.

It had been surreal.

And just plain wrong.

Cassie had intervened, and it had probably been a mistake.

Allie might have been content to live a more “normal” life if Cassie hadn’t butted in. As Cassie thought about that now, how stupid she’d been to insist her younger sister follow her, she felt the old rage raise its ugly head and her blood begin to boil. All her plans had backfired! Allie, too, had anger issues with her sibling. There had been times when they’d loved each other and other times when their feelings had bordered on hatred.

“Story of my life,” she said as she climbed into the rental car and threw the little Nissan into reverse. A horn blasted and she jumped, standing on the brake pedal and jerking to a stop. In her mirror she caught the blur of a smart car flash by, the driver obviously using the parking lot as a cut-through to avoid waiting at a traffic light.

Cassie wanted to flip the driver off, but didn’t. Her hands clenched over the wheel and her heart rate was still somewhere in the stratosphere. “For the love of God. Don’t lose your cool. Do not.” Drawing a deep breath she scanned the area again and caught sight of the gravel-voiced receptionist walking along the sidewalk as she smoked a cigarette. She threw Cassie a suspicious glance, which Cassie steadfastly ignored as she backed out of the slot. Ramming the Nissan into drive, Cassie drove to the exit. The smart car was long gone and Cassie melded into the flow of traffic without any other problems.

Visiting Lucinda Rinaldi had been a total bust, she decided. She consulted the GPS app on her phone before heading back to the hotel to regroup and come up with a better plan to locate her sister.

CHAPTER 4

Cassie’s phone rang the second she turned into the lot of the hotel. She glanced at the caller ID and recognized her mother’s cell number displayed on the small screen. She let the call go to voice mail as she parked around the corner from the main entrance. She’d caught sight of a Starbucks on her way, so she’d waited in line at the drive-through window, ordered a latte and a raspberry scone, and had nearly finished her drink by the time she reached the parking area of her temporary home.

“Very temporary,” she reminded herself a

s she took the elevator to her room, where she turned on the television, managed a quick shower, then once she’d thrown on clean jeans and a sweater, ate the scone at the small desk where her cell phone was plugged in and charging. She was still hungry when she threw the wrapper and bag into the trash, but she’d deal with a real meal later.

She needed a better plan than her hastily-put-together notion of leaving the hospital to find Allie. She’d accomplished phase one, the hospital was in her rearview, but discovering what had happened to her sister would take some serious doing, if locating Allie were even possible. There were dozens of cases of people who had just disappeared, seemingly to vanish off the face of the earth. But she didn’t believe for a second that her sister was one. First of all, the timing was too perfect. It was almost as if Allie had known there would be some kind of accident on the set of Dead Heat that day, that she was a target and that’s why she hadn’t shown up.

Far-fetched?

Maybe.

But with Allie, Cassie had learned, anything was possible. Even faking her own disappearance.

You don’t know that. Sure, Allie’s capable of a lot of things, but would she really vanish intentionally? Because she had advance knowledge about the attack, or “accident” as it was being called? Who would try to kill her and why?

The questions, without answers, buzzed through her brain, like darting insects that never quite landed, never settled, never slowed down long enough to be examined and understood.

And there was no getting around that it had been Cassie’s fault. Along with her father, she’d encouraged Allie to give up her academic dreams, those scholarships and dorm rooms, or at least put them on hold, for the glitter and allure of Hollywood. Robert had insisted that they could become a successful team, the three of them, and Cassie had been so eager for his attention, she’d gone along with his plan. The ink had barely dried on her own high school diploma when Cassie had turned her car south, hit the accelerator, and drove with only two stops in eighteen hours. Filled with dreams of stardom and anxious to shake the dust of stupid Falls Crossing from her shoes, she’d beelined down the Five.

She’d landed in LA ready for her big break and ended up with big disappointment. Her roles had been few and far between. And then she’d talked Allie into joining her in California and things had only gotten worse.

She flopped down on one of the beds and considered calling her mother back, but decided she wasn’t in the mood. She needed to calm down before she dealt with Jenna, or, for that matter Shane Carter, her stepfather. The ex-sheriff. She’d never liked him, still didn’t. Too backwoodsy. And come on. A cop? Who marries a cop?

Your mother, that’s who!

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said aloud, her mind returning back to the sibling rivalry that escalated when both she and Allie vied for the same roles, which Cassie inevitably lost.

Even now the old jealousy raised its hateful head, and she punched the extra pillow. She had to rein in her rapidly escaping control over her emotions and she couldn’t risk that, didn’t want to return to the hospital on the very day she’d signed herself out. She had to avoid hallucinating again and couldn’t afford to black out and lose hours of her life.

With an effort, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. She’d been out of the mental hospital less than twelve hours—hell, less than six—and she couldn’t let the fear take over, wouldn’t allow it to gnaw away at her tentative hold on reality.

Breathe in.