After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

“Stevens have trouble with the law?”

“Nah. Clean as a whistle,” the cop said. “A couple of parking tickets. That’s it. Nearly tripping over the vic must’ve scared him sober because he’s freaked, coherent, and just wants to get the hell out of here.”

Hayes nodded once. “I want to talk to him.”

“Figured.”

“Let him cool his jets for a couple of minutes.”

“Got it.” The beat cop motioned to the corpse. “Who would go to all this trouble?”

“That’s what we have to find out.” Hayes crouched near the body and waited until the crime scene photographer had taken pictures of the dead woman from different angles.

As the digital camera flashed, Hayes saw more distinctly the dark red stain on her T-shirt, a thick bloom that soaked the cotton then ran off her rib cage to pool on the pavement beneath her. Had she known her attacker? Was it a stranger? What the hell was with the mask?

Life-sized, the altered photograph had been laminated and cut precisely around Allie Kramer’s hairline and held in place with what looked like a thin elastic band. Pieces of the victim’s hair had been arranged around the mask, to make it appear more lifelike. Some thought had gone into the process, but not a lot of effort. The picture could have been downloaded from the Internet, then maybe an app used to distort the image before the resulting art was enlarged to the size of a human head, printed, laminated, and cut. The elastic holding the mask in place could have been purchased at any fabric, craft, or other store, if it hadn’t been retrieved from Grandma’s sewing kit that had been stuffed in the attic.

Yeah, the artwork was crude, almost something that could have been created by a kid in grade school. Hayes had better pieces displayed on his refrigerator by his own daughter, Maren, when she was in the third grade.

Strange as hell.

But he’d seen worse.

Hayes pulled on a pair of gloves, then lifting the vic’s head carefully and not moving the position of the body, removed the mask by unwinding bits of hair clinging to the elastic band holding the mask in place and pulling it away from her face.

Carefully, he turned the mask over.

A single word had been scribbled across it in erratic, blood red letters: Sister.

“Gawd A’mighty!” the beat cop whispered. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Don’t know,” Hayes admitted, but his mind was racing. Was Holly someone’s sister? He’d check that. But his gut told him the word Sister had to do with the mask itself, that of Allie Kramer. It was common knowledge the rising star had a less-famous sister, another daughter of Jenna Hughes, and Hayes already had notes about her as she was the last person known to have seen her sister before Allie Kramer’s disappearing act. He only hoped Cassie Kramer could shed some light on the whole blasted affair.

Leaving the mask with a crime-scene tech, Jonas straightened and walked toward Mitch Stevens. The man visibly shrunk into his own skin at the sight of him. It wasn’t uncommon. Jonas Hayes was a six-foot-four African-American who had once been a running back for UNLV. Though heavier than in his football days, he was fit and, he knew, more than a little intimidating, which he sometimes used to his advantage.

“I’m Detective Hayes,” he said to the shorter man who managed a weak, fleeting smile. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“Nothin’,” Stevens said. “I mean I was just mindin’ my own business, takin’ a whiz, y’know, and I like was zippin’ up and there she was. Fuck!” His eyes strayed reluctantly toward the corpse again.

“You with anyone?”

“No. Shit. Just me.” He was trembling. “I told the other cop, I was just . . . you know . . . relievin’ myself. Jesus!” He shrugged and reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and lit up again. “I mean, it’s weird as hell, man,” he said as he sucked on the Camel as if nicotine would be his salvation. He exhaled in a cloud and added, “Weird as fuckin’ hell.”

Somehow, some way, Cassie finally fell asleep in the wee morning hours and didn’t wake up until after seven. She’d been frustrated by not being able to reach anyone on the phone again and wondered if she’d been blackballed by everyone who worked on Dead Heat, or knew Allie. It had gotten so bad she’d almost called Brandon McNary and told him she had reconsidered and they could work together on trying to locate her sister, but she’d resisted.