After She's Gone (West Coast 3)

Nash pushed the speed limit.

She was pissed.

The trip to Molalla had been a bust, Nash thought as she drove up the familiar road to Mercy Hospital.

Nash and Double T had been given the same warm welcome as Sparks and Carter had earlier. They, too, had been left to stand on the front porch of a small house, a broken-down screen door between them and Sonja Watkins while she avoided questions and smoked three cigarettes. She’d been nervous as hell and hadn’t divulged where her aunt could be found, but Nash would bet her badge and a year’s salary that the woman had been lying.

Nash couldn’t help feeling she was spinning her wheels.

She had spent all day going over the autopsy reports on Holly Dennison and now, due to the rush that was put on it, Brandi Potts. She’d read the interviews of friends and family, witnesses and anyone close to the victims. She’d called with follow-up questions.

And she’d come up with a big, fat zero.

No big insurance payouts upon either woman’s death.

In Potts’s case, no other woman lay waiting in the wings for her boyfriend to become single, at least none that Nash, nor Jenkins had yet rooted out.

No enemies with deep grudges against the women had emerged. So far.

No gun-toting ex-lovers had been discovered lurking in the background.

Nothing about this case had been easy or normal.

At least so far. Sometimes the other women, monetary gain, ex-boyfriends, or psychotic enemies weren’t initially noticed, but eventually floated to the surface like the scum they were. So far, nary a ripple.

Nash slowed for an S curve, then gunned her little car as she rounded the final corner. She felt the “usual suspects” didn’t apply in this case. She kept coming back to the only connection she could find between the two victims which was, of course, Dead Heat, and therefore it seemed, Allie Kramer’s disappearance.

What bothered her about it, was that it was almost too obvious. The masks. Really? It was as if the police were being given a road map.

To where?

Cassie Kramer.

Or maybe Allie?

With one hand, Nash drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Who bore the Sisters Kramer and their mother such ill will? For a moment her mind sauntered down the jagged pathway leading to their father and his new family, but she did a quick U-turn. Robert Kramer was too self-serving. Yeah, out for himself, but not a killer.

So who was?

“That’s the question,” she said as she turned through the gates of the hospital and the white edifice flanked by lush gardens came into view. Despite the marble and brick facade and the huge columns, the hospital appeared austere and cold, almost foreboding, but then she’d had an aversion to any kind of medical buildings since losing her daughter. Refusing to let her mind wander down that painful path, she pulled into a parking space in the designated area, cut the engine, and with an eye to the gray skies, hurried toward the main entrance of Mercy Hospital. Her heels clicked loudly on the smooth floor of the grand reception area where she was met with all the warmth of an iceberg by the receptionist, who, after demanding to see Nash’s badge, finally released the packet that was supposed to hold Belva Nelson’s employment records. Nash opened the envelope in the reception area, just to make certain it was the information she needed and after confirming that copies of the records were enclosed, stuffed the packet into her case and left the hospital.

She swung by her house, grabbed a change of clothes and headed back to the office. A quick check on her dash told her it was after five.

Dean Arnette’s party for the cast and crew was scheduled for seven and though, of course, she hadn’t been sent an invitation, she thought she’d wander over to the Hotel Danvers, have a drink in the bar and see if she could find a way inside the ballroom where the event, a private party, was to be held. Of course the press had been invited. Since the manager was a friend of a friend, the department had come to the hotel’s aid on more than one occasion and Nash hoped to see some of the players in the drama that was her case. Especially the elusive and slippery Brandon McNary. For some reason Dead Heat’s bad-boy star seemed to be steadfastly avoiding her.

That would have to end.

Tonight.

She tugged at her collar at a red light and tried to ignore the bothersome feeling that she was missing something important, something, she sensed, that had to do with the damned film. Staring through her windshield where the steady drizzle was being slapped away by her wipers, she decided she needed to change up her game to solve this case. Aside from going through the routine motions of the investigation of the

homicides, she needed to think outside of the box. The masks and the movie were the connections between the murders of Holly Dennison in LA and Brandi Potts, here, in Portland. There was no doubt in Nash’s mind that they were killed by the same person, but they were also part of a bigger plan that included Cassie Kramer, if she were to be believed about how she ended up with yet another similar bizarre mask.

Had Cassie gotten the mask as a warning? Did the killer leave them with the intended victims before actually murdering them? Had Cassie Kramer just gotten lucky and escaped California before the killer could strike? If that were the case, why not take her out up here in Portland? Why kill Brandi? And why hadn’t either of the victims reported receiving them?

She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a row of headlights. A delivery van idled beside her in the next lane, but she barely noticed she was so caught up in her own thoughts.

How did the masks and murders fit in with the disappearance of Allie Kramer? Was Allie, too, a victim, possibly already dead, maybe even wearing one of those obscene masks and left somewhere obscure, not yet found? Or was she behind the homicides?