After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

“And why was that?”

“Because there was a test audience who didn’t like the ending as it had been written and shot, so everyone involved in that last scene had to reschedule everything to come back here, to Portland.”

“I meant why were you upset?”

“Allie wasn’t thrilled that I made a minor adjustment to a scene.”

“You made an adjustment?”

“I’m a writer, so I had an idea that the director liked.”

“But this adjustment bothered her.”

Big time. “She said so, yeah. And she was irritated because she was going to take a break from acting for a few months. Go over screenplays that were offered to her, make sure she found the right... ‘vehicle. ’ That’s what she said.”

“And you?”

“I’m a screenwriter now and I was anxious”—Wrong word! Wrong word!—“eager to jump into a plot I’d been playing around with.”

“So you’d rather write than act?”

Cassie had fielded this one before. “A lot of actors think they’d rather direct or produce or write. I chose writing.”

“Because your acting career wasn’t taking off.”

“That’s one reason,” she’d admitted. “Yes.”

“Unlike your sister’s.”

“I guess.”

“Ever since her breakout role in that film . . . oh, what was it?” She’d actually snapped her fingers as if she’d forgotten the name of Street Life, a blockbuster hit in which Allie played a teenage prostitute who, a drug user, had found herself pregnant by a sixty-year-old john and, despite all the cards stacked against her, prevailed. The role had been gritty and dark, one Cassie had auditioned for but had been cast aside as “too old,” in her early twenties. Allie had been eighteen but had been able to pull off the scared, desperate actions of a girl three years her junior.

“Street Life.”

“That’s right.” Nash had nodded. “You tried out for that role, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“But Allie landed it.”

“Yes.”

“And there was talk of her being up for an Oscar, I think.”

“She wasn’t nominated.”

“But the buzz was that she should have been.”

“Her breakout role,” Cassie had agreed as the detective had scribbled a note to herself even though the session was being taped.

“It had to be difficult for you that your kid sister got it and you didn’t.”

“She was better suited. Younger.” Cassie’s palms had begun to sweat and she’d stuffed them under her legs, kept her face relaxed, though Detective Nash had hit a sensitive nerve. That role of Penelope Burke was an actor’s dream. In fact it had been Cassie’s dream. Allie had only learned of it from her older sister and then decided to audition.

“I understand she beat you out of roles more than once,” the detective had said as she scanned some pages from the file she’d brought into the small, airless room. “Three times?” She looked up expectantly.

“Uh . . . yes. Yes, I think that’s right.”

“You can’t remember?” Skepticism. “Boy, I would have known, if it had been me.”

“Three parts,” Cassie had clarified, keeping the edge out of her voice. Obviously the cop had been badgering her, looking for a way to get her to explode and say something she’d regret.

“There were signs of a struggle at her apartment. A broken wineglass on the floor. Furniture slightly moved. Since you were the last one there, I thought you might tell me about it.”

“We argued over the change to the script, and she got upset and dropped the glass.”

“It wasn’t more personal?”

“No.” Another lie. She’d wanted to expand, to blame it all on sister stuff, sibling rivalry, but she’d thought it best to keep her answers short and to the point. Her lies and equivocations simple. So she could recall them when necessary.

Detective Nash’s eyebrows had pinched together as if she were deep in thought. “Your sister and your husband had gotten together, hadn’t they?”