After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

Cassie had seen red and her fingers had curled over the edge of her chair, her fingertips glancing off wads of gum. “While we were separated, Allie and Trent had gone out,” she acknowledged though Trent had insisted it had all been platonic, both parties concerned about Cassie. All bull, but she hadn’t admitted it in the interview. In fact, she hadn’t admitted to much, not when the questions had gotten more personal about her marriage nor when the detective had probed about her relationship with each of her parents. Detective Nash had even brought up the horrid ordeal she and Allie had gone through at the hands of their mother’s stalker, but Cassie had held on to her cool.

It had been obvious they considered her a suspect in her sister’s disappearance. She’d been one of the last, if not the last, person to see Allie before she vanished. The fact that she had no alibi, that she’d been alone on the night Allie had seemingly evaporated into thin air, had made her a “person of interest” in Allie Kramer’s missing person’s case. As such, she’d been under surveillance, had felt people following her, watching her, and knew the police were discussing her motives and opportunity to do away with her sister. Paranoia had become full-blown.

Was it any wonder she’d checked herself into Mercy Hospital where she was under constant observation and psychiatric care? The staff at Mercy had been employed to help her, not be suspicious of her.

As she took her final sip of her coffee, her phone vibrated across the table and she snagged it. Another text from Holly.

In Santa Monica. How about drinks near the pier? Love to get together.

She could have a drink. She would talk to Holly, then head back to her condo. Her plan, loose as it was, included cleaning out the apartment, giving her notice, poking around LA for a few days, and finally heading north. Maybe at night. Traffic would be easier then, and she could start her drive up the coast, take the PCH toward San Francisco and chill out, enjoy the view of the Pacific lapping along the California shore, then cut over to the Five, sometime along the way. Or she could freeway it from here and the drive would take sixteen hours or so.

She tossed her empty cup into the trash and climbed into the heat of her car where she second-guessed herself. What good would meeting Holly do?

Maybe it will do nothing, not help at all, but it sure as hell won’t hurt, will it?

Before she could talk herself out of the meeting, she texted:

Sure. How about The Sundowner? I can be there in 20 min or so. It’s still happy hour.

Before she could jab her keys in the ignition, her phone chirped and she read: I’m there!

Cassie glanced at the rearview mirror. Worried eyes stared back at her.

What’re you doing? You don’t even like Holly. If she knew where Allie was, she would have told the police already. She can’t help you.

“Yeah. Well, no one can,” she said aloud.

Jamming her car into reverse, she backed out. A silver Mercedes that had been hovering grabbed her spot, nearly hitting her in an effort to park near the café. Cassie restrained herself from flipping off the driver as she pulled out of the parking lot. Instead, she scrounged around and found a pair of dusty sunglasses in a side pocket of the car and slid them onto the bridge of her nose.

She prayed the gods of traffic would rain grace on the 405 heading north.

Otherwise, the drive would be a bitch.

CHAPTER 8

Judging by the empty glasses, Holly was deep into her second mojito—or was it her third?—when Cassie arrived at The Sundowner. Half a block from the beach, the bar filled part of the basement of a trendy hotel in Santa Monica. Already the after-work crowd was starting to gather, people knotted in groups inside the darkened interior, standing room only, the noise of conversation escalating.

“Hey, I thought you were going to ditch me!” Holly accused as she spied Cassie wending her way through the tightly spaced bistro tables packed between a wall of booths and a long, glass-topped bar.

“I would have called or texted if I wasn’t going to show,” Cassie said. She eyed the table. A tiny copper-colored mug with a slice of lime perched on the rim sat on the table in front of the only empty seat. Obviously the drink was intended for her.