After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

So where the hell was Allie Kramer? Or her body?

Dumped into the Willamette River? Buried in the wooded slopes of the West Hills? Shoved into a trash receptacle beneath a concrete slab? Rotting in a dark room or under a house somewhere?

Or alive and held captive by a nutcase, an over-the-top, possibly homicidal fan?

Nash chewed on the edge of her paper cup as her mind whirled with questions she couldn’t answer. The furnace rumbled, blowing warm air into the department, as other detectives began to report for duty and start their shifts. Computer keyboards clicked and phones began to ring in other cubicles, but Nash was lost in thought, caught in the mystery that was Allie Damned Kramer.

Nash had other cases to deal with, of course. Over the past weekend there had been a knifing near the waterfront and there was always escalating gang violence that a task force was dealing with, but this, the disappearance of Allie Kramer, was the one that kept nagging at her, digging into her brain, teasing her. Was it because Allie was a celebrity, a local girl who’d conquered Hollywood? Or was it just that the elements were all so intriguing, a puzzle not easily solved?

And now Cassie Kramer, very much a person of interest in her sister’s disappearance, had flown the proverbial coop. There was the rumored jealousy and fights between the sisters. Cassie, the last person to see or communicate with Allie, had admitted that she and Allie had “argued” on that fateful visit.

What had happened? Nash wondered, not for the first time. The broken wineglass, the furniture that had been moved according to impressions on the throw rug, the yelling that a neighbor had attested to.

She fidgeted at her desk, playing distractedly with a paper clip as she considered the multifaceted sides to this case. Not only had Cassie Kramer had a fight with her sister, but she’d also suffered a mental breakdown on the day after the shooting on the set. She’d actually committed herself. Why? Was she really that unstable? What exactly was her diagnosis? Paranoia? Schizophrenia? Was she seriously depressed? Was she afraid of harming herself? Or others? Or was it some other condition? Nash couldn’t help but wonder if checking into the psychiatric wing of Mercy was all part of Cassie’s plan, just in case she needed a quick insanity defense should her sister’s body show up.

Too many loose ends for Nash’s satisfaction.

“Watch out.” A deep voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up to see Kowalski passing by the opening to her cubicle. His work space was located across a passageway with an eighties glamour shot of his wife, Marcia, situated on the corner of his desk, angled so that Marcia, in a glittery boa, looking over hands folded under her strong chin, seemed to be staring at Nash. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” He started a rumbling laugh that was rough from years of cigarettes.

Nash dropped the paper clip as he walked into his own cubicle and settled his heft into a desk chair that groaned in protest.

Asshole, she thought without heat as she turned back to her computer.

A few minutes later, she heard her partner arrive before she saw him. Talking into his cell phone in one hand, balancing a cup of coffee in the other, Tyronne Thompson, or Double T as he was known around the bureau, strolled into the Homicide Division. With a nod to Nash, he plopped himself into his desk chair, his cubicle catty-corner from hers, and took an experimental sip from the cup which, she knew, was usually filled with something like five shots of espresso from the coffee shop down the block, what he referred to as his “high-octane kick start” for the morning.

His head was shaved, his bald pate gleaming a deep mocha color under the lights strung high overhead. With the build of an NFL tight end, Double T was usually affable, but had a temper that could spark when crossed. Fortunately he didn’t lose control all that much. He peeled off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair before stepping into the opening to her work area. “Guess who checked herself out of the hospital?”

“Let me see . . .” She pretended to think. “How about our infamous actress who swears she doesn’t have a clue as to what happened to her sister?”

A wide smile stretched across Double T’s defined jaw and his dark eyes gleamed. “You already heard,” he charged.