Holly giggled.
Cassie let the car idle as Holly reached for the door handle. As she clambered out, she said, “Hey! Have you seen the trailer? For Dead Heat?”
“It’s out already?” Cassie asked, a chill running through her as she thought about seeing Allie on the screen. She didn’t want to think it, didn’t want to believe it, but there was a chance that the movie might be the last time Allie’s image would ever be caught on film. She’s not dead.
The nurse in the old uniform’s words came back to her and she clung to them.
“Just out,” Holly was saying. She looked over her shoulder as she pushed the door open and stepped outside. “I caught it last night, before one of the late shows.”
“And?”
“It was okay. Even good, I think.” She leaned into the interior. “But it was weird, you know. Seeing Allie up on the screen. So . . . vibrant. So alive.” Holly appeared to sober up a bit as her gaze met Cassie’s for a second. “I just wish I knew what happened to her.”
Cassie nodded and her mood darkened even more. “We all do.”
“I know, I know.” Holly was nodding. She cleared her throat as if she, too, were emotional. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem.”
Holly closed the door, then veered a lit
tle unsteadily toward the side entrance.
Attempting to shake her thoughts from Allie, Cassie managed to turn her car around in the tight parking lot and eventually eased her Honda into the steady stream of traffic. Night was falling and in the dusk, streetlights began to illuminate the city, a place she’d called home as a child and then again after she’d fled Falls Crossing. She’d never felt at home in the small town, the horror of her captivity by a lunatic only adding to her hatred of all things Oregon. The night terrors and fears, the feeling of abject vulnerability and, yes, paranoia, hadn’t left her when she’d headed south after her high school graduation.
Maybe that’s why she’d wanted Allie to join her. Familiarity. Safety. And maybe that’s why she’d fallen for Trent, whom she’d met in Oregon. Maybe that’s why she’d foolishly ended up marrying him.
“Don’t go there,” she warned herself, checking the rearview to catch the clouds in her eyes before looking farther back, to the street and the headlights crowding behind her. She felt that same little prickle of anxiety skitter up her neck and burrow into her hairline, digging deep into her brain. Was a car following? Maybe a silver SUV of some kind? Or was she mistaken? How could she tell in the sea of vehicles that swelled around her?
Impossible.
And fruitless. Ten cars could be tailing her and she wouldn’t know which they were, not in this throng of vehicles.
“Get over your scaredy self,” she warned.
She tried to concentrate on the road ahead but found herself eyeing her rearview mirror several times, making certain that someone wasn’t silently tracking. The eerie feeling of someone watching her had been explained, at least when she was leaving the airport. Holly had seen her and tried to chase her down. There was no danger here.
She took the side streets near her home.
No car followed.
No vehicle slowed at the corner, then kept going.
No suspicious van kept a long distance from her, then cruised by the massive house that sheltered her apartment from the street.
No. It was all in her mind.
Letting out her breath, she parked, locked the car on the fly, and felt more at ease than she had in days. She walked back through her apartment door, dropped her keys onto the kitchen counter, then found a glass and poured herself a drink of water from the faucet over the sink. She made a note to herself to get some bottled water as she took a long swallow. Then she took out her phone, leaned against the counter, and listened to the message from Trent again.
The sound of his voice called up memories best forgotten. The deep timbre, the slight bit of a drawl reminding her of his Texas childhood, his inflection.
Her hand tightened on the phone as she reminded herself that she despised him. When the message finished, she considered playing it once more, just to hear him and allow herself to be taken back to a time when they’d been happy. Before he’d been tempted by Allie. Before he’d admitted as much. Before she’d realized their marriage had no chance. Before her sister had disappeared. Her throat thickened. Unshed tears burned behind her eyes.
“Idiot,” she whispered, not knowing if she was thinking of him or herself as she quickly erased the message. It irritated the hell out of her that he had the gall to phone on behalf of her mother.
Nonetheless, before her cell’s battery completely gave up the ghost, she punched in the digits of a familiar number.
It was time for that talk Jenna wanted so desperately.