After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

She ignored them.

But the car inched closer.

“Wanna hit?”

“Fuck off!” She didn’t need some pimply teenager trying to jump her bones.

“Ouch. Hey!” another, higher-pitched voice said. “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Allie Kramer?”

“She’s hot!” the first voice said.

“No, man, I’m serious,” the second boy said, but she was already gone, slipping away through a back alley, melding in with pedestrians so busy with their own lives they didn’t notice the waiflike girl in the oversized sweatshirt. She’d gotten to be a pro at disappearing.

Good.

She had work to do.

Sliding her phone from her pocket, she punched out a familiar number. “Go time,” she whispered and jogged the two blocks to the parking garage, where, avoiding cameras, she found Brandon McNary’s beat-up SUV and unlocked it. She climbed behind the wheel, then opened the glove box, where she located the plastic bag filled with paraphernalia for a quick disguise. She popped a fake, more bulbous nose over her small one, added some wadding to her mouth to fatten up her jawline, slipped on a pair of oversized glasses, then tugged at the strands of her wig so her real hair wouldn’t show in any cameras. There might be questions asked. But she didn’t think so. Just how smart were the cops?

Had they found her?

Or figured out that Jenna had a baby before she was married, one she gave up for adoption?

Allie smiled as she drove out of the lot without the sleepy-eyed attendant giving her a second glance. She’d figured it all out. The diary had been the start and from there it was just a matter of digging.

And she’d met her half-sister. Worked with her. Shared laughs with her. Before she realized how really messed up the woman was. Their shared hatred of Jenna and Cassie had been a bond. At first. But later, Allie had discovered just how sick her half-sister was.

But murder?

Really?

Allie hadn’t believed she’d go through with it, but Lucinda Rinaldi had nearly died and now two others had. Now, Allie was caught in the middle.

If only she could go to the police.

If only she could unburden herself.

If only she’d never met the woman!

Knowing her half-sister was at the party, that she had no idea of Allie’s intentions, Allie drove to the apartment she’d never seen. How ironic that she’d used the very same method of gaining a key as had her sibling, but lifting it from an open purse, making a copy and using it to gain entrance.

She parked two blocks from the apartment building and kept her head ducked as she walked inside, and used the stairs. On the third floor she stepped into the hallway and was surprised at her case of nerves, how anxious she was.

Then again, the woman was a murderess.

Looking over her shoulder, certain the woman would leap out at her from any doorway, Allie hurried to the right apartment. Her hands trembled slightly as she inserted her quickly made key into the lock and with a click, it snapped open.

“Awesome.” Nerves twisted, she stepped inside and flipped on the light switch only to be stopped dead in her tracks. Any relief she’d felt upon entering had instantly evaporated. Her hand flew to her mouth as she viewed the room, a dressing room of sorts, and on every wall were posters, large mounted pictures of Allie herself and her mother, even Cassie, from the movies they’d made.

But they weren’t pristine, oh, no. They were cut and slashed, horrid, jagged pieces torn from them only to be taped and retaped until they were nearly unrecognizable.

Sick.

Mental.

Crazy as a loon.

Homicidal.

Allie’s lungs constricted.

She could barely breathe.

What had she gotten herself into?

Again she looked over her shoulder then scanned the ceiling, searching for a deceptively concealed camera. Thankfully she saw none, but she didn’t doubt her newfound sibling was paranoid enough to have one installed.

The makeup mirror was still lit, bulbs burning bright, brushes and bottles and jars neatly arranged, in stark juxtaposition to the damaged posters that looked as if they’d been nearly destroyed in a fit of rage, then lovingly repaired . . . sort of.

“God in heaven,” she whispered and walked to an odd-looking window, pulling the cord for the blinds and seeing that the glass had been covered, and backlit with a thin bulb. The artwork stretched over the glass was a view of the Hollywood Hills, complete with the iconic white letters spelling out HOLLYWOOD.