After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

With a shake of her head she said, “We only have one person we’re interested in who was in a hospital.” She lifted one side of her mouth. “See. I’m just displaying my awesome powers of deduction. By the way, Cassie Kramer booked herself on a flight to LA as well.”

“More awesomeness displayed,” he said, leaning a hip against her desk. “You can’t seem to control it.”

“Oh, I know.”

“And you’re a liar. What tipped you off?”

“Who. Whitney Stone.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Justice: Stone Cold.”

Recognition flared in his eyes. “Oh. That one. Just what we need.”

“Mmm.”

“So what do you think our runaway is doing?”

Nash shrugged. “Good question. Cassie Kramer does live in LA, or at least she did. Maybe she’s just going home and trying to rebuild her life.”

“As an actress?”

“I don’t think so. Unless all this publicity about her missing sister gives her more Hollywood cred, she’s not getting any parts. Nothing major anyway, for quite a while. She’s trying to be a writer, got a couple of scripts written.” Double T’s eyebrows raised but Nash shook her head. “Hasn’t sold anything that I could find.”

“She any good?”

“Who knows? The jury’s still out.”

“And there’s still that missing sister.”

“Uh-huh.”

Double T asked, “You got a tail on the sister? In LA?”

Nash felt herself smile. “What do you think?” She then pulled up a link on her computer. “Take a look at this,” she said, indicating the monitor where a close-up of Allie Kramer’s beautiful face appeared along with a tense music score. Her expression was coy, a sly smile, eyes flashing with mischief, her skin appearing flawless as the camera pushed in more closely to focus the reflection of light in one of Allie’s eyes, the striations of color becoming clearer, the pupil enlarging and the speck of light growing, showing colors and movement within. Blurry images sharpened, then the screen was filled with the image of a frantically running woman, racing as if terror-driven, her shoes pounding the wet pavement, her breathing ragged, her face twisted in horror as heart-pounding music swelled.

The woman was Allie Kramer.

A shot rang out.

Abruptly the image on the screen faded to black.

With the sound of following shots, letters began to appear, spelling out DEAD HEAT. A final bang and the date of the movie’s release came into view and then the blackness behind the lettering evaporated into gray skies and Allie Kramer’s watery image before fading completely.

Double T leaned back in his chair. “It’s almost as if whoever put this together is playing off the star going missing in real life.”

“Ya think?” They’d already gone over the possibility that Allie Kramer’s disappearance was staged to generate more interest in her and the film, but if so the production company, or whoever was behind her vanishing act, was taking the law into its own hands.

Unlikely.

People had been known to pull outrageous stunts for publicity, but the idea seemed far-fetched. Yet they were getting nowhere with the missing person’s case. No one had heard from Allie Kramer since the night before the reshooting of the final scene. She’d called her assistant, Cherise Gotwell, and said she didn’t think she’d make the morning shoot, had wanted to make sure her stunt double was available, and had said that she would confirm in the morning.

She hadn’t. No more calls had come in from her. In fact that was the last bit of communication of any kind. Her cell phone records indicated that she’d received one final call from her sister, Cassie, but then nothing. No one had seen or heard from her since.

How the hell could someone with a face recognized by most of the people in America disappear?

“This is just one of the trailers for the movie. There are a couple more—variations of the same. I’ve got a call in to the producer and the director. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of them will call me back,” Nash said.

“Yeah, right. And maybe I’ll go pick us up some Voodoo Doughnuts and there won’t be a line.”