After She's Gone (West Coast 3)

Sonja stared at him as if he were an idiot. “Jeeezus Keerist! Didn’t I just say so?”

Calm as ever, Sparks fished in his pocket for a card and withdrew it, offering it to Sonja. “Would you have her give us a call?”

“Sure,” she said, opening the door a crack to snatch the card from his fingers. Not that he figured it would do any good. As they left, Carter had the distinct impression Sonja Watkins would toss the number into the trash and hope she never saw hide nor hair of them again.

ACT V

Everything was coming together.

She could feel it.

She slid on the long negligee worn in the boudoir scene of Dead Heat. How well it fit. Like the proverbial glove.

No surprise there, she thought as she surveyed her reflection in the long mirror she’d placed in the corner between the posters that still covered the walls of her dressing area. She frowned as her gaze moved from one of the elaborate pictures promoting various movies to the next.

Of course they were marred. Sliced by her own hand when she was in a rage which, it seemed, was happening more often these days. Was it because of the movie’s premiere, or was it just a natural progression? She didn’t know but felt more out of control than ever, the insecurities and fury more impossible to ignore. She wasn’t always so volatile and now, gazing at the posters that had been taped painstakingly back together, she told herself she was sane; she’d always been sane, the doctors were wrong. As long as she kept herself in control and only gave way to the violent impulses according to her plan, she would be all right. In fact, everything would be as it should be. Once her nemesis was dealt with forever, then there would be calm and recognition and . . . a new life, a life, she deserved.

Again, she viewed the posters and in many, the heroine’s face was a little off, distorted because of the jagged tears. Those, the disfigured images were what she used for the masks she created, the false images that always hid the real person beneath the cool facade.

Soon though, it would all be over.

But there was a new problem to deal with. All very irritating. Just when she’d thought she was home free. No worries, she told herself. She would handle it. Just as she’d handled everything all of her life.

Walking closer to the mirror, she examined herself with a trained eye, then scowled, noticing a tiny wrinkle between her eyes when she frowned. Though she’d told herself differently, age had started to show itself a bit. Her breasts, though full, weren’t as perky as they once had been and, though she was loath to admit it, she was a tad thicker in the middle than nubile Annie Melrose had been in the movie. But still . . . not bad. That film had been shot nearly five years earlier, so a little extra flesh was to be expected. And there was always plastic surgery. Tummy tucks. Breast lifts. Whatever. When the time came.

She felt a new energy when she thought to the night ahead. The premiere party for Dead Heat. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to make her entrance.

She walked to the tiny window and looked outside to the Hollywood Hills and the sign visible through her window. This should have been her time. Her star should have risen, but, because of Jenna Hughes, it hadn’t soared as high as she’d expected. “Thanks,” she snarled under her breath at the woman in the poster. “You miserable self-serving bitch.”

CHAPTER 31

“I’ll be damned,” Nash said under her breath as she stared at her computer screen on her desk. Lieutenant Sparks had called earlier and given her a short rundown on his trip to Molalla where he’d interviewed a woman by the name of Sonja Watkins. He and ex-sheriff Carter had been trying to locate Belva Nelson, Watkins’s aunt and a retired nurse who had supposedly “visited” Cassie Kramer in the hospital, where, dressed in a costume straight out of the fifties, good old Aunt Belva had assured Cassie that her sister was just fine and dandy. Their tip had come from a mental patient who’d seen an SUV that didn’t belong in the hospital lot. Nash had thought the story beyond far-fetched, but Sparks was a good cop, as Carter had been a good sheriff. Reluctantly Nash had done a little follow-up.

She’d asked Natalie Jenkins, a junior detective, to research the name Belva Nelson on the off-chance that not only was there such a person, but that she was a nurse and had some connection to Mercy Hospital, or Cassie Kramer, or both. Nash wanted anything Jenkins could find. And she wanted it now.

So far, lo and behold, Sparks’s and Carter’s information held up. Belva Mae Watkins Nelson, a widow, was indeed a retired nurse who lived in the small community of Molalla. Her work history included several clinics and hospitals in the Portland area, including a very short stint at Mercy Hospital over thirty years earlier. Nash had already called the hospital, talked to the records department, and requested a full history of Belva Nelson’s employment. She’d been given some double-talk about the hospital being sold several times over the past years, its records archived, if said documents still existed at all. Nash accepted no excuses and told the records clerk to put her manager on the line, or if that didn’t work, Nash wanted to talk to hospital administration. Upon realizing Detective Nash wasn’t about to be sidetracked, the clerk had quickly lost her snippy it’s-too-much-trouble attitude and promised to look into the request. Nash had told her she’d be by to pick up the information, if it weren’t faxed over to the police department by eight the next morning. Just to keep the clerk on task.

Since Belva Nelson, in her seventies, was no longer working, what was she doing at the hospital in the middle of the night in Cassie Kramer’s room? Initially Nash had thought Cassie Kramer was a liar, somehow trying to save her own skin, or else was certifiable, suffering from some mental health problem that caused her to be delusional and hallucinate. Now, Nash wasn’t convinced. Could it be that Cassie Kramer was telling the truth? Then who was behind the bizarre murders? Who, Nash wondered, would have it in for Cassie Kramer so deeply that he or she would go to such lengths to make Cassie either go crazy or appear guilty?

The name that kept nagging at Nash’s mind was Allie Kramer. Was it possible she was still alive, as the retired nurse had suggested? Was she sending random texts out just to mess with Cassie’s head? Did she hate her sister so much as to set her up for murder? How off the rails was Allie and, above all else, was she capable of homicide? Nash hadn’t yet talked to Brandon McNary. He’d been a ghost and hadn’t returned her calls, but she was determined to track him down and find out about the text message he’d received, purportedly from the same number as Cassie.

First things first, though.

With a dozen questions running through her mind, she scooted her desk chair back and walked to Double T’s cubicle. He was staring at his own computer monitor while talking on his desk phone. Though he never so much as glanced her way, he must’ve seen her in his peripheral vision as he held up a finger to silently tell her to “hold on.”

“. . . yeah, that’s right. Tyronne with two ns. Thompson with a p . . . uh-huh. Okay . . . yeah, I’ll be there.”

He hung up and twirled his desk chair to face her. “Mix-up at the doctor’s office. Seems there’s actually two Tyronne Thompsons, but the

other guy?” he said, flashing a wicked grin. “He spells his name wrong.”

“He probably doesn’t think so. Besides, I thought they used birth dates.”

He shrugged. “Somehow this other dude got called for my appointment with the ENT. Guess we all have sinus issues. The climate.”

“Right.” She hitched her head toward the door. “Got time for a quick trip?”

“To?”