After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

“I thought you might know why she’d be at the airport.” Jenna’s voice was filled with worry, a concern that came across the wireless connection all too clearly.

Driving into town and talking on the phone illegally, Trent felt that tightness in the back of his neck that always accompanied conversations about Cassie. He wouldn’t have answered his cell, but had seen that the caller was Jenna Hughes, so he was willing to risk the ticket. Cassie was always trouble—or in trouble—and because he hadn’t yet pulled the trigger on the divorce, he felt she was still his responsibility. Kind of.

“Don’t have a clue,” he said, taking a corner a little too sharply and wondering why the hell his not-yet-ex-wife was taking a trip so soon after leaving the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The windshield wipers were slapping away the rain pouring from the heavy clouds overhead and the truck’s wheels hummed against the wet asphalt, but Trent’s thoughts were now centered on Cassie.

“I thought she may have talked to you.”

Fingers curled over the steering wheel in a death grip, he turned off the highway and angled his old pickup into the outskirts of Falls Crossing. “Not for a while.”

“You didn’t see her at the hospital?” Jenna asked, but he suspected she knew the truth.

“Cass wouldn’t see me. Refused to let me near her. I was, and am, persona non grata.”

“But you’re her husband.”

“Doesn’t mean much to Cass.” He slowed for a stop sign. A Cadillac old enough to sport fins rolled through the intersection.

“I’m worried about her,” Jenna admitted.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you?” The question had a bite to it.

“She’s always a worry,” he bit back, then mentally kicked himself. Jenna had always been fair with him, no matter how many times he’d screwed up. He pulled into a parking slot near the post office. “I haven’t talked to Cassie since she and everyone else came back to reshoot the end of her last movie and Allie went missing. She called me and ranted and railed at me, thought I had something to do with Allie’s disappearance and then I hauled her ass—I picked her up from the police station after a particularly rough interview. But you know all that.”

Silence.

“Haven’t heard from her since.”

Jenna said through a tight throat, “She . . . she won’t talk to me.

Barely takes my calls. I just thought . . . or hoped that she might have been in touch with you.”

“Sorry.”

Another long pause and he could almost see his famous mother-in-law pull herself together. “Me too.”

Trent felt obliged to ask, “Any news on Allie?” though he knew there wasn’t. If Allie Kramer or her body had been found it would be splashed all over the news, tabloids, and Internet. She’d been missing for over three weeks and Dead Heat was soon to premiere. Allie Kramer, its star, had disappeared before the last day of shooting, or more precisely, reshooting, of the ending for the film. No one had seen or heard from her since.

A catch in her voice, Jenna said, “Nothing yet.”

“Damn.”

She sighed. “Precisely.”

He felt like a heel. “I’m sorry,” he said again. It was a platitude. Heartfelt, but a platitude. As the days and weeks had passed, hope for finding Allie Kramer alive had diminished, though, now that the movie was to be released, interest in her fate and whereabouts was ramping to new levels. He knew from personal experience. As Cassie’s husband of record and Allie’s brother-in-law, he’d been dealing with the press himself. “Look, I’ll give Cassie a call, see if she’ll take it and let me know what’s up.”

“I appreciate it, Trent.” She sounded weary. “Good-bye.”

He stared at the screen a second or two after the call ended, then speed-dialed Cassie. Might as well get it over with.

The call connected, and he heard it ringing. “Come on,” he said under his breath, his gut clenching at the thought of talking to her again. He dropped his visor down where a picture of her was clipped. In the shot her smile curved up on one side, a naughty little grin, her eyes sparkling green, her brows arched, her pointed chin at an angle, her tousled hair tossed behind one shoulder. Sexy. Seductive. Smart.