After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

“I don’t know!”

“Have you gone to the police?”

He shot her a look and blew a stream of smoke out the cracked window. “They’d laugh at me.” His lips tightened. “Kind of like you’re doing.”

“I’m not laughing at you, McNary. I’m trying to figure out why you called me up so late at night.”

“Check the time on that message. It’s been a while. I’d just finished watching that miserable program with Whitney Stone and before the damned credits start rolling, I get this message. Bam! It freaked me the fuck out, okay? I knew you were looking for Allie and I called you.” He gave her a pointed look. “What would you have done?”

“I’m not sure I would leap to the conclusion that Allie was on the other end of that damned text. Anyone could have sent it. It could be a mistake, sent to you in error, or a prank or—”

“Or it could be Allie. She might do this for fun.”

“No way.”

“You know how she was . . . is . . . she likes to play mind games and you’re a liar. You would think it came from her, if you got it instead of me.”

She was about to protest again, but bit her tongue. Wouldn’t you have thought exactly the same thing? Wouldn’t you have leaped to that very conclusion? Especially after watching the episode of Justice: Stone Cold? After seeing images of Allie splashed all over the screen, and the text came through, wouldn’t you immediately think of her?

“So maybe I overreacted. Sue me,” McNary grumbled as he took a final drag on his cigarette then tossed the butt out the window, the red tip arcing to die in the rain.

“You should take this to the police.”

“I thought you didn’t think it was Allie,” he said with a bit of a sneer. Once again, she remembered why she didn’t like him. There was something supercilious about him, something shifty. McNary, she reminded herself, was always looking out for McNary.

“I don’t know who sent you the text, but still, you should let the cops know.” She frowned, thought about telling him about the warped mask she’d found in her suitcase, then reconsidered. She and Brandon McNary weren’t working together to find Allie, no matter how he acted. She owed him nothing.

“You could have just told me,” she said.

“I thought it would have more impact if you saw it yourself.”

She wrapped her fingers over the door handle, but before she could let herself out, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll drive you to your car.”

“It’s just around the corner.”

Did his fingers clench a little over her upper arm? Did his expression darken a bit?

“Only a couple of blocks. I need the air.” She opened the door and half expected him to try to restrain her.

He dropped his hand. “Oh, and Cassie,” he said before she slammed the door shut. “Give Cherise a break, would ya? I know you don’t like it that she’s working for me now, but it’s not her fault that Allie . . .” He let the end of the sentence slide and started the engine.

“That Allie what?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said under his breath as he rammed the Tahoe into gear. “I guess nothing does.”

She barely got the door slammed and had stepped away from his SUV before he gunned the engine, narrowly missing the car parked in front of him as he took off with a roar and chirp of tires.

What a waste of time. All she’d learned was that someone had texted McNary, or he’d done it himself. It wasn’t beneath him to use this as a ploy for publicity. The man ate up everything written about him, good or bad. He enjoyed being the Hollywood bad boy and it didn’t bother him a bit that his face was plastered all over the tabloids, and he was fodder for the gossip mills. He loved it. Once, she’d overheard him say to Allie, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

She started walking away, half surprised no reporter had been purposely tipped off about their private meeting. It would be just like McNary to set that up, another way to keep his name trending on social media. Her stomach turned at the headlines: Star of Dead Heat Caught with Missing Costar’s Sister. No, make that Married Sister.