She fidgeted at her desk, playing distractedly with a paper clip as she considered the multifaceted sides to this case. Not only had Cassie Kramer had a fight with her sister, but she’d also suffered a mental breakdown on the day after the shooting on the set. She’d actually committed herself. Why? Was she really that unstable? What exactly was her diagnosis? Paranoia? Schizophrenia? Was she seriously depressed? Was she afraid of harming herself? Or others? Or was it some other condition? Nash couldn’t help but wonder if checking into the psychiatric wing of Mercy was all part of Cassie’s plan, just in case she needed a quick insanity defense should her sister’s body show up.
Too many loose ends for Nash’s satisfaction.
“Watch out.” A deep voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up to see Kowalski passing by the opening to her cubicle. His work space was located across a passageway with an eighties glamour shot of his wife, Marcia, situated on the corner of his desk, angled so that Marcia, in a glittery boa, looking over hands folded under her strong chin, seemed to be staring at Nash. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” He started a rumbling laugh that was rough from years of cigarettes.
Nash dropped the paper clip as he walked into his own cubicle and settled his heft into a desk chair that groaned in protest.
Asshole, she thought without heat as she turned back to her computer.
A few minutes later, she heard her partner arrive before she saw him. Talking into his cell phone in one hand, balancing a cup of coffee in the other, Tyronne Thompson, or Double T as he was known around the bureau, strolled into the Homicide Division. With a nod to Nash, he plopped himself into his desk chair, his cubicle catty-corner from hers, and took an experimental sip from the cup which, she knew, was usually filled with something like five shots of espresso from the coffee shop down the block, what he referred to as his “high-octane kick start” for the morning.
His head was shaved, his bald pate gleaming a deep mocha color under the lights strung high overhead. With the build of an NFL tight end, Double T was usually affable, but had a temper that could spark when crossed. Fortunately he didn’t lose control all that much. He peeled off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair before stepping into the opening to her work area. “Guess who checked herself out of the hospital?”
“Let me see . . .” She pretended to think. “How about our infamous actress who swears she doesn’t have a clue as to what happened to her sister?”
A wide smile stretched across Double T’s defined jaw and his dark eyes gleamed. “You already heard,” he charged.
With a shake of her head she said, “We only have one person we’re interested in who was in a hospital.” She lifted one side of her mouth. “See. I’m just displaying my awesome powers of deduction. By the way, Cassie Kramer booked herself on a flight to LA as well.”
“More awesomeness displayed,” he said, leaning a hip against her desk. “You can’t seem to control it.”
“Oh, I know.”
“And you’re a liar. What tipped you off?”
“Who. Whitney Stone.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Justice: Stone Cold.”
Recognition flared in his eyes. “Oh. That one. Just what we need.”
“Mmm.”
“So what do you think our runaway is doing?”
Nash shrugged. “Good question. Cassie Kramer does live in LA, or at least she did. Maybe she’s just going home and trying to rebuild her life.”
“As an actress?”
“I don’t think so. Unless all this publicity about her missing sister gives her more Hollywood cred, she’s not getting any parts. Nothing major anyway, for quite a while. She’s trying to be a writer, got a couple of scripts written.” Double T’s eyebrows raised but Nash shook her head. “Hasn’t sold anything that I could find.”
“She any good?”
“Who knows? The jury’s still out.”
“And there’s still that missing sister.”
“Uh-huh.”
Double T asked, “You got a tail on the sister? In LA?”
Nash felt herself smile. “What do you think?” She then pulled up a link on her computer. “Take a look at this,” she said, indicating the monitor where a close-up of Allie Kramer’s beautiful face appeared along with a tense music score. Her expression was coy, a sly smile, eyes flashing with mischief, her skin appearing flawless as the camera pushed in more closely to focus the reflection of light in one of Allie’s eyes, the striations of color becoming clearer, the pupil enlarging and the speck of light growing, showing colors and movement within. Blurry images sharpened, then the screen was filled with the image of a frantically running woman, racing as if terror-driven, her shoes pounding the wet pavement, her breathing ragged, her face twisted in horror as heart-pounding music swelled.
The woman was Allie Kramer.
A shot rang out.
Abruptly the image on the screen faded to black.
With the sound of following shots, letters began to appear, spelling out DEAD HEAT. A final bang and the date of the movie’s release came into view and then the blackness behind the lettering evaporated into gray skies and Allie Kramer’s watery image before fading completely.