After She's Gone (32 page)

“Conrad Jones,” Double T said. “Works down at The Ring, three blocks east.”

“Guess I’d better talk to them.”

As she walked to the small group beneath the awning, she thought again about the mask and the word
Mother
scrawled over its back. It seemed like a too-obvious clue pointing toward either Allie or Cassie Kramer.

An icy drop of rain slid down her neck and she shivered. It definitely felt like she was being played, and Detective Rhonda Nash didn’t like it one bit.

 

“In here.”

Trent’s voice stopped Cassie cold.

She’d prayed he was asleep as she stepped through the front door of his house. She was late. Very late. He was obviously waiting up for her in the den.

Cassie had lost track of time. Again. Worse yet, she didn’t know where she’d been. She remembered feeling as if she’d seen Allie and then following the bus and then . . . nothing. She couldn’t remember leaving the city, merging onto I-84 to head east. Somehow, she’d maneuvered her way back to Falls Crossing and Trent’s ranch, but she’d zoned out, driving by rote, her gas tank nearly as drained as the battery of her mobile phone.

She’d finally snapped out of her reverie or whatever it was and become aware of where she was when she’d turned onto the lane leading to this farmhouse and parked near the garage. Then, gathering her courage and hoping Trent was fast asleep, she’d dashed through the storm to the wide porch, getting soaked in the process.

She’d been careful of the door, winced when she heard it creak, and then had been greeted by Trent’s low voice.

Now she closed the door behind her.

A low
woof
from the den followed by clicking toenails on hardwood told Cassie that she’d woken the dog as well. She’d hoped to sneak in quietly, not waking either man or beast. It looked like she failed on both counts.

Hud appeared in the doorway to the den, his tail wagging wildly and thudding against the jamb when he saw her. Wriggling, he sidled up to greet her with happy little yips. “Late, huh?” She bent down to pat his soft head. “Yeah. You’re a good boy,” she assured the dog, then straightened. Her hair was wet, her jeans damp, and the cold seemed to seep all the way to her bones.

She walked into the den. Trent was seated on the couch. No lamps had been lit and the television was dark. The only light came from the dying embers of the fire.

“You waited up?”

“Yeah.” He was pissed.

“You didn’t need to—”

“Didn’t I?” he snapped, his face in shadow. “When all hell’s been breaking out? If you haven’t noticed, people all around you have been disappearing or assaulted or killed.”

“Still.”

“Still what? I shouldn’t have worried? Is that what you’re saying?” He climbed to his feet and for a second a bit of firelight reflected in his eyes. “Hell yes, I waited up. More than that, I tried to chase you down.”

She felt her heart sink.

“What was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t answer my calls. And when you finally texted that you were on your way home, I came back here.” He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced pointedly at the digital display of the time on the television. “That was hours ago.”

“I . . . I know.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Driving around. Thinking,” she hedged as he crossed the short distance between them. What could she say that didn’t sound like a lie or whacked or both? How could she explain losing two hours?

“In the middle of the damned night? When people have been killed?”

“In LA. Lucinda was—”

“Lucky,” he cut her off. He was towering over her, his face etched with concern. “If you can call it that. She could have died just as easily. What were you thinking?”

“My cell phone was nearly dead.”

“Nearly.”

“I thought I should save it for an emergency.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. Warm, strong hands. Deeply worried eyes. “This is a fucking emergency. You’re living it.”

She wanted to argue, started, then thought better of it. “Okay. All right. I should have called.”

She could see him struggle to rein in his own ragged emotions. He dropped his hands and took a step back. “So why the hell did you meet Brandon McNary? I thought you didn’t like the son of a bitch.”

“I didn’t. I don’t.”

“Then why? What information did he have that was so all-fired important that you had to go racing off in the middle of the night?”

She crossed the room and put some space between them as she stood before the glass door of the wood stove and felt the heat radiating, warming the back of her legs. “He thought he’d seen Allie, in Oregon City, and of course he couldn’t get near to her. When he tried to chase her down?
Poof!
” Cassie snapped her fingers. “She was gone.”

“Big surprise,” he said sarcastically.

“And then he got this text that he thought was from her. It came from an untraceable cell phone.”

Trent’s eyes seemed to bore into her and she shifted slightly.

“All it said was ‘I’m okay.’ ”

He waited, then asked, “That’s it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The text could have come from anyone.”

“He’s convinced it was from Allie.”

“Someone’s just messing with him,” Trent said, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. He was close enough to touch her again, but didn’t reach forward.

“That’s what I told him.”

“Or
he’s
messing with you.”

“I suppose.”

“He could have sent the text to himself from a burner phone he bought. It wouldn’t take a genius for him to leave his real cell at his place, drive ten miles away, to like, oh, I don’t know, Oregon City? Then he could call himself so that if the police ever got involved, they could trace the ping from a tower there. They might think the message was legit. As long as no one saw him or his vehicle, he’d be home free.”

Cassie thought about the older Chevy Tahoe Brandon had been driving. Definitely not his style.

Trent added, “Or he could have had someone else make the call, then toss the phone into the river near the falls. The fact that he got a text from someone doesn’t mean it was Allie.”

“I know. I essentially told him the same thing.” She was finally starting to warm up.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that he lured you to leave, told you to not tell anyone, right? Why not go to the police? Why target you?”

“He knows I’m trying to find Allie.”

“So are the cops.” Trent’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either. But Trent, I can’t leave any stone unturned. And I can’t go to the police. Detective Nash already thinks I somehow had something to do with Allie’s vanishing act or . . . or whatever.” She closed her eyes and was suddenly dead-tired and angry as hell. “None of this makes any sense.” She just wanted to collapse and forget about everything. She felt as if she could sleep for hours, maybe even days.

“Hey,” Trent said. “You okay?” He took her hand and made a sound of dismay. “You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine.” She was still chilled but didn’t want to admit it. “Just a little wet.”

“A lot wet.” He smiled faintly in that heartbreaking way that always got to her, touched her at a very private level. Though not exactly Hollywood handsome, Trent Kittle was rugged-looking, almost rangy, his face interesting, his eyes sometimes distant, other times focused sharply, his nose no longer straight, if it ever had been.

He found a blanket on the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders. The kind gesture nearly broke her heart. “You should go up and take a hot shower.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

“Just a sec.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist, pressing warmly against the skin just above her palm, touching the spot where she’d been scratched.

“What?” She tried not to concentrate too hard on his skin touching hers, but her mind was fractured.

“You should know that your friend . . . Rinko?”

“Yes . . . Rinko.” She silently cursed the breathless quality to her voice.

“You were right about him. He’s like some kind of genius when it comes to cars. Carter took the information Rinko gave us about the Santa Fe to some guy he used to work with at the state police.”

“Larry Sparks.” She managed to draw her hand away from his, tried to quiet her hammering heart.

“Right. Anyway, Sparks did some legwork and started chasing down owners of all the 2007 Hyundai Santa Fes matching the description Rinko gave us.”

“And?”

“And he got some hits. Rinko only failed with the whole bucking bronco imagery, but Carter’s working on that, too. So,” he finished, “it’s still a long shot, but at least now it seems we may be able to track down whoever was in your room at the hospital. There’s a chance she’s not a ghost, but a real live person with a driver’s license.”

Relief was instantaneous. All her worries that the nurse had been conjured by her own frail mind dissipated. Cassie had almost come to believe she’d imagined the woman. “Thank God.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said, and his gaze locked with hers.

He was right, of course. This bit of information about the Santa Fe didn’t mean much, at least not yet. But, it was something. Maybe somehow this whole mess would be sorted out.

As if reading her mind, he said, “We’ll figure this out, Cass.”

“Is that before or after I end up back in the hospital or behind bars?”

“Pessimist.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t worry.”

She nearly laughed out loud. “Easier said than done.”

“Trust me.”

How long had it been since she’d been able to do just that?

“So you’re in this with me?” she asked, remembering how he’d said he wanted to get back together with her, that he didn’t want to divorce. “Despite me taking off and not telling you where I was going, you’re still on board?”

“Yep. You can’t get rid of me that easy. But I still think this is something that should be handled by the police.”

“If only it were that simple.”

“It is.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I’m serious.” His gaze held hers and she felt her pulse go wild at being this close to him. She swallowed with difficulty, her mind wandering down a dangerous, sexual path. She remembered the nights she’d spent with him, the way his skin rubbed against hers, his hot breath playing along her flesh, how he pressed urgent kisses at her hairline on her nape. Often she’d lain facedown in the pillow, the length of his body stretched over hers, his chest hairs scraping her back and lower as he’d slid against the curve of her spine and the rise of her buttocks.

Her throat went dry as erotic images played through her mind.

His hands covering hers, linking his fingers with hers, wet lips caressing her shoulders, his knees impatiently pushing her legs apart. She remembered all too clearly how it felt when he entered her body, how much she’d ached for him. She licked her lips, felt a familiar yearning deep within and realized how much she wanted him to touch her so intimately again.

Oh. Dear. God.

He was staring at her and sensed his own thoughts were following a similar path.

Heat swept up the back of her neck. Why was it that her emotions were always so raw whenever he was near?

Slowly he rubbed his chin, fingers scraping against his beard-shadowed jaw. As if he were struggling to stay on track, he said, “You know, Cass, this is dangerous business and I—”

“Just shut up and kiss me,” she cut in, unable to stand the tension a second longer. Before he could react, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head to hers, kissing him hard. Her lips pressed to his, her heart pumping wildly with a storm of pent-up desire that she couldn’t fight a second longer.

He kissed her back like a drowning man, his mouth open and hungry, his tongue seeking hers. Warm. Wet. Demanding. Strong arms surrounded her and he held her against him as they tumbled together off the arm of the couch and onto the cushions. He breathed her name against her ear and she melted inside. Though at some level she knew she was making a mistake of immense proportions, she just didn’t care. Not in these dark, small hours of the morning, when his hands were rough and warm against her skin, when the taste of him brought back memories of making love for hours, when she could drown in the earthy male scent of him.

Yes, she might be falling over the brink of an emotional ravine, stepping into a calamity of untold personal pain, but right now, at this moment in time, thinking of the erotic images in the hours ahead, she didn’t give one single damn.

 

C
assie slept like a rock.

After making love with Trent until dawn, she’d burrowed deep into the covers, felt his arms surround her, then crashed for hours. When she finally awoke it was nearly eleven. He was no longer with her, the bed where he’d lain cold, reality hitting her like a freight train.

Today she had to face Detective Nash and whoever else in the Portland Police Department. Nash was gunning for her, she knew it, and then there was also Detective Hayes in LA. Surely he’d somehow be involved. Their conversations had been too short to satisfy him. He might even have flown up here to interview (translation: interrogate) her, or Skype in, or whatever.

She wasn’t looking forward to any of it, and as she stared at the ceiling, she wondered if there was any way to avoid the inevitable.

Her stomach was in knots at the prospect.

Rolling to the side of the bed she found Hud, his snout resting on the mattress. “Geez, dog. You scared me!” His wet nose was only inches from hers, his brown eyes bright with excitement, his whole body wiggling.

“Yeah, I know. Time to get up and face the bad music.”

She showered and put on the clothes she’d left strewn on the floor, then headed downstairs, the dog leading the way.

In the kitchen, coffee was warming in a carafe on a Mr. Coffee. She poured herself a cup, scrounged around in the near-empty refrigerator. No cream. Black would have to do, she decided as she spied a note tucked under the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

 

So much for any sign of affection. No “Love you” or “So glad you stayed over” or even a little “xoxo.”

“Come on, what did you expect?” she asked aloud, and walked to the window over Trent’s ancient sink. Cradling her cup, she stared through the glass to survey the acres that made up this side of Trent’s farm. The rain had finally let up though the day remained gray, dark clouds roiling overhead, the ground sodden, wet grass bent over. Near the pump house, rhododendrons and azaleas shivered in a bit of wind.

Her car was where she’d parked it, but Trent’s truck was missing.

She felt a pang of disappointment and told herself she was being ridiculous. Just a few days ago she’d been set on divorcing him. Now, ending her marriage was the furthest thing from her mind.

She took a sip of coffee and considered. Was she signing herself up for another emotional roller-coaster ride?

A plate of bacon and toast was warming in the oven. Gingerly, she carried the hot plate to the table. Her stomach growled before she dug in. God, she was hungry!

She demolished the bacon, saving just one bite for the dog that snapped it up on the fly and looked eagerly for more. “Sorry, Bud. That’s it.” She plopped the last bite of toast into her mouth and heard the rumble of an engine and crunch of tires on gravel. “Maybe Daddy’s home.” As she dropped her plate into the sink where a frying pan was soaking, she peered through the window to see Trent jogging to the back door.

Her heart did a quick little flip as she heard his boots hit the first step of the back porch. Hud gave an excited yip, then raced to the back door and stared at it as if willing the thick panels to open. Then Trent rushed in, his face set and hard, his lips compressed.

“Hey, Cowboy,” she started, then caught his mood. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you know a woman by the name of Brandi Potts?”

The name rang distant bells, but she couldn’t place it. Slowly shaking her head, she said, “Maybe I’ve heard the name . . .”

“Maybe as an extra on
Dead Heat
?”

“Possibly. Why?”

“You haven’t seen the news?”

“No . . . I just got up. What happened?”

“She was murdered last night.”

“What?” Cassie gasped. “
Murdered?
”

“Gunned down on the very street where
Dead Heat’
s final scene took place, about a block away from where Lucinda Rinaldi was shot. It’s all over the news.”

“My God.” She couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to.

“That’s the second one with ties to the movie. Third, if you think Lucinda Rinaldi was an intended victim.” He stared at her and didn’t say the obvious, the unspoken thought:
Fourth, if Allie turns up dead.

Shaken, her knees suddenly weak, Cassie leaned against the counter. “I don’t get it. Why? This is horrible.” She didn’t know Brandi Potts, couldn’t even dredge up a picture of the woman in her mind, but she felt a deep, overwhelming sadness. “How? What happened?” she asked as he took a seat at the table.

“Details are sketchy. I heard about it on the news this morning, called Carter and he checked, then called me back. Apparently she was out running late last night, early in the morning really, and her route took her on that same street, which is where she was attacked. Looks like a gunshot.”

“Like the others.” A coldness that started in her soul swept over her. She rubbed her arms, tried to think straight. Another murder? Why? She sat down opposite Trent.

“Yeah.”

“What the hell’s going on?”

The question was rhetorical, but he answered with, “I wish I knew. You think this has anything to do with McNary? Him being in town?”

“Because he was out last night? I don’t know. The guy’s a prick, yeah, but a murderer? That just doesn’t seem right.” Then she caught his drift and sucked in a breath. “
I
was out last night. Don’t tell me that just because I was out, you think—”

“Of course not.” His gaze held hers across the table. “But other people might. The cops.”

Her stomach did a nosedive. He was right. She thought about asking him to lie for her, to say that they’d spent the entire night together, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. Instead she tried to concentrate on what had happened last night, the quicksilver moments in time that didn’t hold together. Some events, though, were clear. “You know, I thought I was being followed last night. I mean I heard someone behind me on my way to the car after meeting with McNary.”

She saw the muscles in his jaw tighten. “What happened?”

“Nothing, I ran into a big guy, a preacher, or maybe a priest, I think. He wore a clerical collar, but no one was following me and then . . . then, I know this sounds crazy, but I thought I saw Allie.”

He froze. “You saw your sister?”

“I thought so at the time, for a minute anyway. She was standing in an alcove, a doorway to a coffee shop. Maybe waiting for a bus?”

“But you’re not certain?”

“Of course not. It was dark and I was already freaked, thinking someone was behind me.” She then explained where she’d been, how the woman she’d thought was her sister had disappeared when the bus rolled up. “I didn’t know if ‘Allie’ got on, so I followed after the bus. I pulled up next to it at a traffic light and looked at the passengers inside, but I didn’t see her. There were only four passengers and none of them remotely resembled my sister.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

“Because I was exhausted and upset and you were already freaked out and then . . . and then, we . . . well, you know . . .”

“And then you kissed me and we ended up in bed.” His unemotional voice worried her.

“Fast forward and I woke up, you were gone. So I didn’t have much of a chance to explain.” She couldn’t help the bit of irritation in her words. Did he really think she was somehow complicit?

“You followed the bus to the end of the line? You talked to the driver?”

Uh-oh. Here’s where it got murky. “I don’t know.”

His eyebrows slammed together. “You don’t know?”

She bristled a bit. How could she explain? “That’s right. It’s . . . it’s just that.” Rather than let her anger get ahold of her again, she expelled a long breath. “It’s just that I kind of blacked out, I guess.”

“What do you mean, ‘
kind
of blacked out’? Either you’re awake or you’re unconscious.”

“I know it’s hard to understand, but it’s happened before.” He was staring at her so hard she pushed her chair back and stalked to the sink, looking out the window once more. “It’s one of the reasons I checked into Mercy Hospital.” Her insides churned as she admitted things she hated to acknowledge, even to herself. “You remember,” she said, her voice softer with the memories, her fingers gripping the edge of the counter. “When we lived together, once in a while I was . . . a little fuzzy about things.”

He nodded slowly.

“You thought I was being . . . what did you call it? ‘Distant’? I think, or ‘moody’?”

A muscle worked in his jaw and for a second he looked away. “I accused you of being out of it and avoiding the issues when we fought.”

“Right.” Sometimes she hadn’t even really understood what they’d been arguing about. For years she’d hidden the secret that there were times when she couldn’t account for hours of her life. “Well, it appears I really was mentally checked out. I don’t know how else to explain it. I functioned, but I couldn’t recall how I did what I did, how I got where I ended up, who I’d seen. It seems to occur when I’m stressed and last night it happened again. I know I drove here, but for the life of me I don’t remember one thing about it. Not another car. Not merging onto the freeway. No town that I passed.”

He was staring at her hard and she could almost see his mental gears meshing as pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She felt foolish for never confiding in him before, but she’d been scared that he would find her too bizarre, that he would leave her, when all along it had been she who had one foot out the door. She wouldn’t allow herself to trust him, because she couldn’t trust herself. “The truth is, Trent, I don’t even remember leaving Portland, don’t know what bridge I took, what area of town I cruised through. I just know that somehow I drove back here.” She felt tears burn behind her eyes, but she refused to cry. As a distraction she found her cup of half-drunk coffee and topped it off from the glass carafe still warming in the Mr. Coffee. Her hands trembled.

“Does anyone else know about your blackouts?”

She shook her head. Took a sip. “Well, my doctor, of course.”

“Not your mom?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t have them as a child,” she explained, remembering. “They started after the kidnapping, when she and I were nearly killed by that psycho ten years ago. Jenna didn’t notice and I lied to cover up, and she was so upset herself, worried about me and Allie, trying to get her own head straight, deal with her own emotional damage. Carter was around, he helped, but I couldn’t tell them about the blackouts. And they only occurred once in a while. Jenna and Carter chalked up the missing hours to me being rebellious, a secretive teenager who didn’t want her privacy invaded, so I bluffed my way through.”

“And then before anyone became suspicious or put two and two together, you took off for California.”

“The first chance I got.”

Rubbing his chin, his gaze still fastened on her, Trent said, “So when we were together, here in Falls Crossing, before you took off for California?”

“The blackouts were a big reason I had to leave. It scared the hell out of me to be so involved with you when I was barely over Josh and what happened to him. I was afraid that I was rebounding.” Sighing, she looked straight at him. “You scared me. How hard I fell for you? I didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust myself and I didn’t want you to find out. So I left.”

“And when I followed you?”

She glanced out the window to the dark clouds scudding overhead, and decided the time for secrets was over. This was it, confession time. First with Trent, then later with Detective Nash. “When I saw you in LA I wanted to avoid you. I didn’t think starting up with you again was smart, but well . . .” She smiled sadly into her cup. “I kind of find you irresistible.”

He made a sound of disbelief. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

“Maybe finding someone irresistible isn’t such a good thing. It can be dangerous.”

“I know,” he admitted. “Boy, do I know.”

Rather than stare at him and wonder if he really did feel as deeply for her, as emotionally strung out with her as she was with him, she ignored the implications, didn’t want to consider the odds of their marriage surviving. “I thought that if I left this town, where all the trauma happened, the blackouts would go away. But they didn’t. They happened in LA, too.” She sent him a quick glance. “Looks like I was wrong. Again.” A final gulp of coffee, then she tossed the dregs into the sink. “It’s getting to be a habit with me.”

He scraped back his chair to get to his feet. “This isn’t good, Cass.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He slung an arm over her shoulder. “But it’s worse that you blacked out last night, considering that you were in Portland when Brandi Potts was killed.”

Horrified, she whispered, “You don’t believe me!”

“I do,” he said with conviction, “I do. But it’s not me you have to worry about.”

She shook her head and felt her anger ramping up again. “The police are going to think I had something to do with the poor woman’s death, aren’t they? I didn’t know Brandi Potts. Why in heaven’s name would I want to kill her or Holly or anyone!”

“Cass, I’m just telling you—”

“I get it, Trent. Truly,” she cut in bitterly. “You’re just trying to make sure I understand what’s going on here, what the cops will think, what some of the supposed circumstantial evidence suggests. They probably think I’ve got Allie stashed away somewhere. Maybe I stuffed her body in a closet . . . maybe one of yours. We’d better check.”