After She's Gone (West Coast 3)

Really? From a rising star in Hollywood to homicidal maniac?

That didn’t pencil out.

And why put her own distorted image on her victims?

Again—it didn’t make any sense.

The light changed.

Nash punched the accelerator, cut in front of the slow-moving van and drove through the rain to the office. She parked across the street, waited impatiently for the pedestrian light to change, then feeling as if she were running out of time, hurried through the crush of people. She jogged into the building and after catching an elevator car, tapped her foot impatiently as it slowly climbed to the floor for the Homicide Division.

Once in the office again, she hung up her wet coat, then, in her cubicle, settled into her desk chair where she opened the packet from Mercy Hospital again and studied the information. It wasn’t much, but she did glean that Belva Nelson had been little more than a part-time employee over a span of five years. The hospital had been called St. Mary’s at the time, some thirty years ago, and Belva had been hired to cover shifts in neurology, surgery, recovery, and maternity.

Nash felt a little sizzle in her blood as she stared at the list. There was the neurological link. Cassie had mental issues; perhaps they’d been inherited from someone in her family. Her father? Mother? And then there was the maternity listing.

She did quick mental calculations.

As far as she knew, Jenna Hughes did not grow up in Portland, but what if she had gotten pregnant, been a girl “in trouble”? The timing would be about right if Jenna had been a teen, and though it seemed a stretch, maybe not so much. Nash’s eyes narrowed. Today’s morals weren’t the same as they had been thirty to forty years ago. Teen mothers weren’t as likely to keep their babies. Oftentimes pregnancies were hidden, girls giving up their babies after leaving school.

Was it possible?

Did Jenna have another child?

One born before Cassie?

Nash’s heartbeat ticked up. She sensed she might be onto something. Then again, she could be wrong in many ways. Even if Jenna had given a baby up for adoption, what would that child have to do with any of this? Could he or she be involved? A killer? An accomplice?

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don’t go jumping off the deep end here. You need facts. Cold, hard facts. Not some ill-founded concept straight out of one of Edwina’s soap operas. Think, Rhonda, think.

She tapped her fingers on the edge of her desk and stared at the information a few more seconds before punching out the number for vital records. If Jenna Hughes had borne a child in Oregon, there would be some record of it. Nash just had to look.

“Seek and ye shall find,” she whispered.

For the first time in a week, Nash actually smiled.

“What’s this all about?” Trent asked as Cassie, behind the wheel of her Honda, turned into the lane leading to her mother’s house. They were on their way to Portland to Dean Arnette’s party, but Jenna had called and insisted that they stop by her house first.

“Don’t know,” Cassie said as she pulled up to the rambling house she’d called home for most of her teens, a home she’d once hated. She still had ambivalent feelings toward the rustic, now renovated, ranch house. “But it sounded urgent. Jenna wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Believe me, I tried to beg off, but, uh-uh. No dice.” Yanking her keys from the ignition, she felt more than a little trepidation. Jenna had been insistent. And there hadn’t been an iota of levity in her request, no, make that demand.

“Please, Cassie, do this,” she’d said.

“But we’re already late.”

“I don’t care.” Jenna had sighed, played the trump “Mom” card. “Look, I don’t ask for much. Do me this one favor.”

So Cassie had buckled and here she was, walking across the porch to the front door. Her breath caught as she spied her grim-faced mother peering out the window. An icy feeling of déjà vu crawled through her mind. Whitney Stone’s footage had shown Allie at that very window, peeking out, then disappearing as she headed for the front door.

Oh, Jesus. Something happened. Allie!

Heart in her throat, Cassie was about to reach for the handle when the door flew open and Jenna, pale as death, sailed over the threshold to hug her daughter fiercely, as if she were afraid Cassie would disappear into thin air.

Like Allie.

“Hey. Mom. Are you okay? What happened?” she asked.

Jenna was actually shaking.

“Mom?” she asked, still in her mother’s embrace. Looking over Jenna’s shoulder, Cassie caught Trent’s eye and cast him an I-don’t-get-this glance, then saw movement on the other side of the door when Carter, unshaven, his jaw set, appeared in the hallway.