After She's Gone (16 page)

A recording stated: “You have reached the voice mail of Dr. Virginia Sherling. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message and I’ll get back to you.”

Dr. Sherling? Cassie’s own psychiatrist at Mercy Hospital? Why would she send a cryptic text? That couldn’t be right. But there was no way Cassie was going to leave a message back and risk talking to the doctor who would try to convince her to return to the hospital.

At the sound of the beep, Cassie disconnected.

Through the windshield she watched the older boy push the little girl into the water with enough force to send her sprawling. The girl screamed bloody murder, then got up and gave him a reciprocal shove while the nanny, caught up in her texting, looked up sharply. Scowling, the nanny reluctantly slid the phone into a huge bag then marched her charges out of the spurting fountain while they both cried and balked, blaming each other in true sibling fashion.

Like she and Allie had done.

Rather than take a melancholy trip down memory lane, Cassie finished her coffee, wadded up her empty bag and cup, then climbed out of her car in search of a trash can. The nanny was bundling the kids into their double stroller. The breeze had died, and in the distance Cassie heard the steady hum of traffic on the freeway. She thought she caught a whiff of smoke, but the nanny was long over her cigarette and halfway to her car.

Odd.

She made her way to the garbage can the nanny had used that was positioned near the restrooms and a covered picnic area. Glancing around, she searched for the source of the scent. No one else was in the park except two people who were seated in a silver SUV, a Toyota with tinted windows, and parked several spaces away from her Honda. It must’ve pulled up when she was lost in thought, she decided, as she hadn’t noticed it pull in. She shot a look its way and noticed that the driver was a woman in sunglasses who, like Cassie, had been staring through the windshield observing the action, or now, lack thereof, in the park. The SUV’s windows were rolled down. Cassie caught a glimpse of the occupant in the passenger seat, a burly man whose hairy arm was stretched through the open window, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. His eyes, too, were shaded.

The hairs on the back of Cassie’s neck rose. She sensed both occupants of the Toyota were staring at her, following her with their shaded eyes, not moving their heads, not saying a word.

Cassie checked the park and her heart sank. The nanny and kids had almost disappeared through a far entrance, the jogger long gone, the woman who’d been feeding the birds already driving away.

Still, she felt uneasy as she headed back toward her car.

As she did a door clicked open and the woman stepped out of the SUV.

She was slim. Attractive. With thick black hair cut at an angle, her oversize sunglasses hiding her face. She raised a hand. “Cassie?” she called and her voice was vaguely familiar. “Cassie Kramer?” Two inches shorter than Cassie, she walked purposely across the spaces separating their vehicles. Before she said, “Whitney Stone,” Cassie recognized the reporter.

And her heart nosedived.

She braced herself.

Whitney Stone was smiling, white teeth flashing above a pointed chin, her arm outstretched as if she and Cassie were long-lost friends or at the very least acquaintances.

Cassie ignored the friendly hand reaching for hers and saw the tiny tightening of the corners of Whitney Stone’s mouth. In her free hand was a microphone. “I’m the producer and reporter for
Justice: Stone Cold
.”

Cassie didn’t need to know what the reporter wanted. She could guess because the subject of interest never changed: Allie. Always Allie. Interest in Cassie was limited to the fact that she was Allie Kramer’s sister and, of course, Jenna Hughes’s daughter. Now that Allie was missing, even Jenna had become an adjunct to the real matter of interest, the “story.”

From the corner of her eye Cassie witnessed the guy in the passenger seat toss his cigarette out the window, climb out of the SUV, and, while crushing the smoldering butt with his shoe, head their way. A bruiser in jeans and a black T-shirt, with huge biceps, receding hairline, and a swagger, he was carrying a shoulder camera as if it weighed nothing.

“I’d like a few minutes with you,” Whitney was saying as her companion hoisted his camera to his shoulder. “We’re doing a series on the mystery surrounding Allie Kramer’s disappearance.”

“No, thanks.” Cassie was firm.

Whitney Stone barreled on, “Since you’re Allie Kramer’s sister and are rumored to be the last person to see her before she vanished, I think your input is necessary.”

“Not interested.” Cassie started moving toward her car.

Whitney offered that well-practiced smile again as she eased between Cassie and her car. “I’d just like to talk to you about your sister. It could be helpful, I think, in finding her.” Whitney Stone was scrambling now. “I know you want to know what happened to her and together we could—”

“I said I wasn’t interested and I’m not.” By now Cassie had angled to her car but she saw that the cameraman had positioned his camera so that it was focused on her, its red light a beacon warning that he was filming.
Bastard!

“The public wants to know—”

“About Allie? Yeah, I know, but I have nothing to say.” She was aware of the cameraman, moving in closer, focusing on her face. “Don’t,” she warned him.

“Nothing?” Whitney repeated as a gust of wind kicked up, pushing a bit of trash across the parking lot and causing Whitney’s sleek hair to ruffle. “You don’t want to say anything to the public, to find a way to locate your sister?”

Cassie ignored the barb with an effort and kept walking.

“Come on, you two were close at least at one time, that’s what I’m told.”

“Who told you that?” Cassie blurted while trying and failing to hold her tongue. She was tired and cranky from lack of sleep and she didn’t need Whitney Stone’s questions or her innuendos.

“Common knowledge.”

Was it? Cassie didn’t think so and there was something smarmy about Whitney that really got under her skin. And wasn’t she based out of Portland? Cassie thought she’d heard that from someone, a producer who had worked on her show. “Why are you in LA?” she asked. And then she got it, everything that wasn’t making sense fell easily into place. “Oh, God, no. You’re here at this park because of me. You found out that I . . .” She was going to say “checked out of the hospital,” but caught herself. Instead she swung her arm in a wide arc to include herself, her car, and the park in general. “How did you know I’d be here?” When Whitney wasn’t quick with an answer, Cassie guessed the answer. “You followed me here? To California? You . . . what? Flew down here? Staked out my place?” Her mind was running now, imagining how the reporter had located her at this random park.

Again she was met with righteous silence, as if Whitney Friggin’ Stone had the right to invade and stomp on her privacy. “I can’t believe it,” Cassie whispered, stunned. It hadn’t been Holly Dennison she’d felt eyeing her at the airport at all. It was the woman standing before her, microphone in hand. Damn! And that silver SUV she’d caught a glimpse of in her rearview mirror? Hadn’t it been identical to the Toyota 4Runner parked a stone’s throw from her own car?

“I called,” Whitney said.

“I got your messages,” Cassie shot back, “but I thought you were in Portland.”

“What does it matter? I’m mobile.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t, matter that is. I don’t have anything to say. No interview.” But it might have already been too late as the goon was filming away, the tiny red light glowing steadily on the shoulder cam.

“But I’ve already started the series.”

“Your problem, not mine.” She turned on the stocky cameraman.

“Don’t film me,” she said. “Did you hear me? I’m serious. Turn the camera off!”

“This is a public park,” Whitney reminded her, as if she were playing by some kind of legal rules.

“Turn it off!”

“Are you afraid to talk to me, Ms. Kramer?” Whitney persisted.

“No.”

“Do you prefer to be called Ms. Kramer or Mrs. Kittle? You’re still legally married to Trent Kittle, right?”

“Leave him out of this,” she said, horrified that Trent’s name had come up. Oh, God, what if this aired? What if he saw the program? She knew that Whitney Stone was already airing segments about Allie. God, what a mess! What if Whitney edited her pieces to make it look like Cassie was somehow a part of Allie’s disappearance? That
Trent
was? She told herself not to panic, but she felt a wave start to envelop her as the camera kept rolling, catching her doe-in-the-headlights look while Whitney twisted the truth.

“But you are still married to him,” Whitney pressed.

“I don’t want to talk about—”

“And it’s been reported that he was with your sister, Allie Kramer, as well, that his relationship with her is the reason you two separated.”

“There was no relationship between Trent and Allie,” she shot back before biting her tongue. There was an almost imperceptible smile on the reporter’s lips. This had to end.

“But he was seen at her apartment. Alone. During the time she was broken up with Brandon McNary.”

“As I said, I have nothing to say to you.”

“Your marriage failed because of your sister and then she goes missing.”

“For the love of God . . .” Cassie tried to step away.

“Isn’t it true that your sister, your
baby
sister, was having an affair with your husband?”

“No!” The word felt like acid on her tongue. Whitney Stone was voicing her own darkest fears that Trent, like everyone else in America, had fallen in love with Allie Kramer. She needed to stop talking and end this interview, but the hook had been set and Cassie’s temper, always a problem, took over. “I warned you not to—”

“Warned me not to what?” Whitney asked innocently.

“I’m just trying to help,” Whitney wheedled.

Cassie withdrew her own phone and hit the camera app. “Then you won’t mind me filming you, like you’re filming me.” She depressed the button to start recording the entire interview, turning the phone’s camera toward the reporter.

“What’re you doing?”

“Just ensuring that your reporting is accurate,” she said, rotating slightly to show the intimidating cameraman before returning to Whitney Stone. “I asked you not to film, and you ignored me. I told you I know nothing more about Allie Kramer’s disappearance, but you kept at me. So I repeat: I don’t have anything to say to you.”

For a moment Whitney looked stunned, but the reporter quickly got hold of her unspooling composure. “Your sister disappeared under suspicious circumstances. You and your family must be devastated.”

“Any questions you have about my sister’s disappearance should be directed to the Portland Police Department. Detective Nash is investigating the case. Now, we’re done.” She moved around the reporter and, with her phone still aimed at Whitney Stone, opened the door of her car.

“You went through a horrific tragedy before, when your mother was stalked by that maniac. You were nearly killed and Allie witnessed—”

“Don’t even go there!”

“It’s part of your history. Of Allie’s history. Certainly of Jenna Hughes’s history, and there’s a new interest in what happened then.”

“No,” Cassie said through clenched teeth. Her darkest fears were coming to light. She couldn’t relive the horror.

“You lost a boyfriend,” Whitney went on, and Cassie felt a numbing cold when she realized the story had already been researched. “He was murdered.”

“I don’t know why you want to bring this up now.”

“Because the public wants to know and they’re going to. I’m doing a report on what happened ten years ago.”

Knowing it would do no good, Cassie couldn’t help herself from begging. “No . . . please. There’s no reason to dredge all that up again.” Images of ice and snow, blood and freezing water, frozen visages of Jenna in her most popular roles sped through her memory. But the image that was most indelibly painted in her mind: Josh, slumped behind the wheel of his truck, a dark oozing gash visible on his throat. She could still hear the loud music pulsing through the frigid night, still recall the pure fear and shock she’d felt.

Her knees threatened to buckle. She felt suddenly cold to the bone as she thought of the madman who’d terrorized them, how close she and Jenna had come to becoming his final victims. She was shaking so badly she leaned against her car for support.

Watching her, Whitney seemed to pull back with genuine concern. “The story about Jenna’s stalker airs this week. I just thought you might want to add something that I could edit in.”

“Go to hell,” Cassie ground out, pulling herself together. “Leave me and my family alone, you bloodsucking bitch.”

“Wait!” Whitney Stone raised a hand. She was irritated as hell, but tried to hide it under a smooth coat of civility. “Okay, I get it, you don’t want to talk to the press, but I just have a few questions. As I said, to help. And really, come on, it’ll be good publicity with the movie coming out in a couple of months.”

Cassie slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ve said all I’m going to.”