After She's Gone (13 page)

 

I
n her darkened room she waited impatiently. She’d intended to leave earlier, but remembered the television program, so she’d lingered.

Lying on the mussed bed, a half-drunk glass of chardonnay on the nearby table, she reached for the television remote, which lay on the night stand. The scratch on her wrist was still purplish red where she’d run the edge of the broken glass across her skin. Lips twisting, she switched on the TV just as
Justice: Stone Cold
was being aired. In tonight’s edition, there was supposed to be a teaser for future programming, all concerning the disappearance of Allie Kramer.

She waited as the advertisements tried vainly to sell her products. “Come on, come on,” she said, her eyes narrowing, her patience running thin.

Suddenly, big as life, a head shot of Allie Kramer, the start of a trailer for
Dead Heat.

Her insides clenched and she felt a little frisson of anticipation.

The clip from the movie started with a close up of Allie playing the character of Shondie Kent, first her full face, then moving to one hazel eye where a bit of refracted light showed in her pupil. Finally, as if through Shondie’s vision, the tiny spot of light became larger, filling the screen with blurry images that sharpened into the scene of two frantic women running through the rain-washed streets of Portland, Oregon, panic and fear evident in their expressions.

The mood was dark.

Eerie.

Nearly perfect.

A gun went off.

The second woman stumbled as the scene faded to black.

Watching spellbound, she felt a deep sense of satisfaction. No one would ever guess how it happened, how the bullets in the prop gun had been exchanged, and who was the real target. She took a sip from her wine. That part, the mistake with the victim, still bothered her. Needed to be fixed.

On the screen, the scene changed again and the earnest and beautiful face of investigative reporter Whitney Stone appeared. Her hair was dark, cut at a sharp angle, her eyes large and sincere, her chin pointed and her attitude one of incredible concern. She started speaking intimately into the camera’s lens.

For the truth.

For justice.

For the public’s right to know!

Even better.

Whitney promised a complete exposé on what really happened to Allie Kramer. Was the wildly popular actress alive or dead? Or maybe being held captive? Used as some kind of sex slave? Or bargaining chip? Or was this all an elaborate publicity stunt foisted on the American public by Galactic West Productions, the company that had produced the movie? Too many questions had no answers, but Whitney Stone vowed to uncover and dissect the truth for her viewers during Mystery Week on the cable station on which her program aired. What more intriguing mystery could there be than what had happened to America’s Darling, Allie Kramer?

“America’s Darling?” Like Allie was Shirley Temple or Sandra Bullock or Reese Witherspoon or whoever the current sweetheart of the week was?

Her insides curled.

Even though Whitney Stone’s interest was all part of the plan.

Stone insisted that in following installments what had happened to Allie Kramer would become crystal clear.

Now, she picked up her stemmed glass and twirled it in her fingers. Staring through the clear liquid, she viewed the television and the distorted image of Whitney Stone’s face. Perfect. She took a sip.

Stone was gazing so intently into the camera and reminding viewers that the star of
Dead Heat
, Allie Kramer not only had gone missing, but her disappearance had occurred just ten years after she and her sister, Cassie, as well was their mother, Jenna Hughes, had survived a horrific and brutal attack.

Pictures of the three women filled the screen.

Her fingers tightened over the stem of her glass.

Whitney Stone posed the questions:

Was this Hollywood family cursed?

Was another psychotic fan on the loose?

Could Jenna and her daughters never find a “normal” or “peaceful” life?

“Of course not,” she said to the flat screen. Another sip as anger sparked deep inside.

A montage of pictures rolled across the screen, short clips of Jenna Hughes in her starring roles. For a few seconds Jenna Hughes became Anne Parks in
Resurrection.
One by one, there were more quick tidbits, glimpses of other roles Jenna had played as the heroines of
Beneath the Shadows
and
Bystander
. Then, to top off the collage, the last clip was of Jenna as a naive teen in
Innocence Lost,
the movie destined to become an overnight success and elevate her to stardom.

The screen suddenly split and Jenna’s image filled one half, while Allie Kramer, at around the same age, was on the other. Both mother and daughter had been catapulted to fame, as teens at the center of a darkly sexual coming-of-age film.

The comparison was obvious. Though Allie couldn’t pass for her mother—too many of her father’s genes were evident in her features—the resemblance to Jenna Hughes was noticeable.

Watching the quick little clips, she felt her insides churn. She barely heard Whitney Stone’s promise of a soon-to-be-aired “explosive interview” that would “shatter” the image of the reclusive Jenna Hughes and her family. A family portrait of Jenna, Cassie, and Allie came into view and as the camera zoomed in closer, Whitney Stone’s voiceover assured the viewers that, “The daughters of Jenna Hughes are not who they seem to be!”

“No shit,” she whispered, alone in the dark room. Anger coursed through her veins and her jaw hardened. She watched the image of Jenna and her daughters fade into individual pictures, first Jenna, then Cassie, and finally the missing Allie, before they slowly vanished from sight.

That damned bitch, Whitney Stone, pulled the teaser off beautifully. Perfectly. Stirring the pot, adding to the mystery surrounding the Kramer sisters and promising a full-blown exposé on the secretive little family. Whetting the viewers’ appetites for more info on Allie Kramer’s disappearance, Whitney Stone had also created the illusion that she was actually the star, a heroine fighting for truth and justice.

Because Whitney Stone knew far more than she was telling.

She clicked the television off and silently congratulated herself for a job well done. The wheels had been set into motion. And it was just the beginning. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the headboard of the bed and tried to calm herself. Her headache pounded painfully, the demons inside hitting their sharp fists against her skull, demanding to be set free. “No,” she said aloud. But, oh how they wanted to get loose. She’d named them. Pride and Invincibility were the most vociferous, their talons scraping through her gray matter. But their companion, Fury, deep-seated and ever growing, was the worst. Fury would be her downfall, she’d been told by more than one shrink. Fury would push her over the edge of sanity.

She thought about a drive along the coast. Something to calm the nerves. Wine hadn’t helped and she could drink a little more, but then she’d be over the edge and she couldn’t afford to lose her perspective.

The need inside her grew, began to thrum, a desire to hunt. She told herself to fight the feeling, that this kind of obsession was what the psychiatrists had warned her about, but her whole body ached to do something,
any
thing to scratch the insidious itch. And why not?

She’d already picked out who would be the perfect victim, who would play her part.

The shrinks she’d seen would disapprove. “Tsk. Tsk.”

A half-smile played across her lips and she opened her eyes to the thick darkness. “Save me,” she whispered to the empty room and then laughed out loud.

The doctors were idiots.

She clicked off the TV and changed, then headed out the door. Cool air brushed her skin as she found her vehicle and, driving through the deserted streets of the city, she headed west.

She was keyed up. Eager. Her nerve endings alive. Adrenaline pumping through her veins.

It was dangerous being out where someone might see her, where a traffic cam, security camera, or even the camera app on a cell phone of someone who, like she, was up so late, but she didn’t care. The night was thick, clouds gathering overhead. The closer she got to the ocean, the freer she felt. She rolled down all of the windows, letting the scent of the sea into the car’s interior.

She felt tense.

Needy.

The wind tugged at her hair. She should feel free. Exhilarated. But she didn’t. Deep inside, anxiety roiled, coupling with a base, dark, and pulsing need, a desire she couldn’t fight much longer. Whether she admitted it to herself or not, she was on the hunt. It felt good, yet scared her to death. That’s where the rush came into it. She licked her lips in anticipation and hated herself for it.

Few cars passed her, their headlights glaring, but she didn’t think she’d be recognized as they flew past. No one was looking for her at this late hour. No one knew, and that gave her power, the fact that she was inconspicuous.

It also ground her guts.

Finally she reached the beach. With her first glimpse of the dark waters of the Pacific she considered driving up the PCH, catching views of the ocean. Maybe then she’d calm down. Maybe then she could tamp down her secret urges. Maybe the serenity of the ocean would help her fight the warring feelings of Invincibility and Frustration.

Of course it was too late.

She knew it as her fingers gripped the wheel, and the roar of the surf reached her ears. She was already on the search and, deep down, in that dark place in her psyche she didn’t like to acknowledge, it felt damned good to finally be doing something, to start assuaging the ache that drove her.

The soothing waters of the Pacific stretched darkly to an invisible horizon, but it didn’t matter.

Rain began to sprinkle on the windshield, a few drops falling into the interior. As she reached upward to reluctantly close the sunroof, she caught a glimpse of her eyes in the rearview mirror, eyes so like her mother’s.

She didn’t want to go there, not now. Not when she was already on the hunt. But there was no stopping the burn in her stomach and the taste of bile rising in her throat when she thought of her patchwork of a family, sewn together but always falling apart.

It was all that bitch’s fault.

 

I
neesha Sallinger knew she should never have agreed to meet with Sig Masters. The man was a mess. A complete, bumbling mess. Or worse. A damned freak show. She had to distance herself from him. So, the sooner she could get out of his dump of a house tonight, the better.

“It’s your fault,” he was saying for the fourth—or was it the fifth?—time since they’d agreed to meet at Sig’s house, which was kind of a dump, really, at this god-awful hour in the morning. Five AM, because she had a meeting with her trainer at six and a full day stretched out in front of her?

So she’d agreed to come to this . . . fixer-upper. Sure the house was in LA, and that was something, she supposed, but it was tiny, probably no more than eight hundred square feet, enough for Sig and his damned dogs, built in that cute Old California Spanish style, but it was going to seed. Not that Sig wasn’t trying to improve it. There were ladders and paint buckets and sheets of plastic creating new walls or taking the place of old ones, she couldn’t really tell which. It was weird, that was all, and Sig, almost chain-smoking, was angry, upset, and a physical wreck. He looked like he’d dropped fifteen pounds since the last day of filming for
Dead Heat.
Ineesha was always impressed when someone was able to peel off some weight, but in Sig’s case, it was a tad too much.

“My fault,” she repeated, picking her way between paint cans and nearly stepping on some little fluff of fur that growled at her. God, the dog couldn’t weigh five pounds, but it snarled and snapped as if it thought it was an alpha wolf. “How’s that?”

He picked up the growling little beast and petted its tiny head. It was comical, really, this tall man, over six-two, gently stroking the mottled Chihuahua or whatever it was. “You were in charge of the props. They were your responsibility! Now the cops . . . they think I did it. Oh, fuck, I
did
do it, but I didn’t mean to.” He drew hard on his cigarette. Set the dog down. It scuttled away to peer out between the sheets of Visqueen suspiciously. “Lucinda Rinaldi?” he asked, as if Ineesha didn’t know who the woman was. “She’s going to sue me. Well, probably you, too.”

“I can’t stop that.”

“How the hell were the guns switched? How the hell was there live ammo in a prop gun?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you should! It’s your goddamned job!”

This was getting them nowhere and was a huge waste of time. “So I’ve heard. Look, Sig, what’s done is done. I can’t explain it and I can’t do anything about Lucinda Rinaldi or her lawyer. But I can try to keep my cool and I suggest you do the same.”

“But I’m innocent!” he cried and from somewhere in the back, possibly the kitchen, came a deep-throated “woof” that made Ineesha jump. Whatever was hiding back there was definitely
not
a Chihuahua.

“For Christ’s sake, aren’t you even worried? I mean, I almost killed a woman. Shit, shit, shit!” Over the smell of paint, Ineesha caught a whiff of alcohol.

She should never have come here.

She should have followed her attorney’s advice and kept mum about everything.

She didn’t want the cops digging around in her life as she did have a couple of old drug charges that had been dogging her for years. For the love of God, when would people quit reminding her of a couple of mistakes
fifteen fucking years ago!

Her blood pressure started to elevate and she decided she’d stop by the gym on the way home. If intense exercise didn’t calm her down, then there was yoga and meditation, if, at this time of night she could get her instructor . . . Georges the Gorgeous as she silently called him . . . to help her equilibrium.

First things first though. She had to escape this death trap of paint fumes, hidden Cujos, and a big man who looked about to snap. God knows what he could do. She took a step backward and ran into a metal ladder. Jesus, this was nowhere to be.

“Look, try and calm down, Sig. This will all sort itself out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but it will.”

“How do you know?”

“Okay. You got me. I don’t.”

“Right.” He looked around for an ashtray, found an empty roller pan and frantically jabbed out his filter-tip.

“What else can we do? You’ve got a lawyer.”

“Yeah, and he’s costing me an arm and a leg. They’re all bloodsuckers!”

“Or lifesavers.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I got the gun that you locked in the prop closet. It was ready to go and . . . And I fired it on the set . . . and . . . Oh, Jesus, do you know how many nightmares I’ve had about Lucinda going down? She could have been killed. I could have killed her. Allie Kramer’s damned lucky she wasn’t on the set that day.” He buried his face in his hand and the dogs, now it sounded like a third, had started baying from behind the plastic, began to howl.

“Yeah, Allie was lucky,” she said and despite her show of bravado felt a deep-seated fear. She, like Sig, was under investigation. It was all so crazy. She picked her way past the paint can with a drizzle running down its side of some gawd-awful mustard color, to the front door. “Look,” she said before stepping outside, “take my advice and listen to your lawyer. Make sure he’s the best one you can find.” And then she left Sig with his Marlboros, hideous paint, and miserable dogs. She found her way to her car and slid inside.

She’d done her duty.

Now, Sig was on his own.

 

Like fingernails scratching a chalkboard, the screeching sound echoed through Cassie’s brain. What was it? Where was it coming from? Fear crawling up her spine, she sat up in bed and peered into the half-light. Was it her imagination? She strained to listen. Something had caused her to waken so sharply and she had the uneasy sensation she wasn’t alone.

Her door was cracked, a sliver of bluish incandescence filtering in and offering a weird illumination.

Still, she saw nothing.

She jumped. Bit back a scream.

What in God’s name was
that
?

The screeching sound was so close. But from where?

Heart in her throat, she tossed back the covers.

Her bare feet landed on the cool tiles of the floor. In only her hospital gown, she crossed the room and pushed the door open a little farther.

Beyond, the corridor was empty, the eerie light seeming to move, like the play of shadowy light on water, the hallway long and austere. Her pulse was deep and hard. Fear collected in her gut.

Where was everyone?

This was a hospital, wasn’t it? There should be nurses and aides, doctors and patients, even if it was late at night. The corridor seemed to stretch for miles, but she walked silently toward what appeared to be the source of the light, a brighter end of the hallway far, far away. Identical doors lined the hallway.

She tried the first.

Locked.

Frantic, she pushed on the one on the opposite side of the hallway.

It didn’t budge.

Nor did the next or the next or next.

Were there footsteps behind her?

She broke into a jog and threw a glance over her shoulder, but saw no one, just the never-ending hallway that seemed to disappear into nothing. Fear rising, she ran on, checking each doorway, knowing before she pressed on the levers, that the locks were in place.

As she ran, she felt, rather than saw, someone . . . no
something . . .
moving stealthily behind her, giving invisible chase.

Fear iced her blood.

She ran faster.

The air became colder until her breath was fogging with her uneven breaths, her skin prickling.

Was that a footfall?

Why couldn’t she see anyone?

She wanted to cry out, to call for help, but she didn’t. Not when she sensed an evil presence a heartbeat away, a demon breathing his icy breath against the back of her neck.

Don’t go all paranoid. This is weird, yes, but there is nothing, not a thing following you.
To prove it to herself, she glanced over her shoulder again and the corridor was as empty as before, stretching out endlessly behind her.

Mercy Hospital with its bland walls and polished floors?
No—that didn’t seem right, and yet the corridor had the feel, the scent of a long hospital wing in an abandoned building.

She broke into a sprint, the locked doors flying past, fear driving her onward.

Finally the end of the hallway loomed, a white brick wall with double doors, frosted windows reinforced with wire mesh cut into the smooth metal.

She flung herself against the wide lever and stopped short.

Over the ragged sound of her breathing she heard footsteps. With a glance over her shoulder she saw no one.

“Shut up!”

She bit her lip and threw all of her weight against the lever again. It didn’t move.

The sound came from the other side of the doors. Cassie’s throat turned to sand. She should leave, run back the way she’d come, seek solace in that weird room where she woke up.

She took one step backward and spied a fat button on the wall near the doors.

The release!

Before she could hit the button, the doors clanged loudly and opened inward. Quickly she stepped into a wide, windowless room with white walls and tile flooring. A mist seeped from a nearby stairwell where an exit sign pulsed red. Within the center of the room were rows of wheeled stretchers, twenty-one beds, all of which were draped and hiding what appeared to be bodies.

Heart thudding wildly, Cassie started to back up, but the swinging doors banged shut. No! She pushed on the lever, but the doors were locked tight, and though she looked desperately on the wall for a release button, there was none.

Like it or not, she was locked in.

Dear Jesus . . .

Why, oh, why had she come here?

But it was more than just idle curiosity that had lured her down that long hallway. She’d felt as if she were being lured to this chilled room.

Rotating slowly, anxiety tightening her muscles, she eyed the unmoving beds. Were they all occupied by the dead? Or were some alive? Were they even human? She didn’t want to find out, didn’t want to know. On quiet feet she quickly edged to the stairwell. All the while she was tense, feeling as if she were running out of time, that if she didn’t get out now, she might lose her opportunity.

She reached the stairwell and found another locked door with no release.

“Damn it,” she whispered through clenched teeth, and tried again, slamming her weight against the levers. Cold metal rattled loudly but didn’t give.

“Son of a—”

The horrid sound was right behind her.

She whirled.

There in the far corner the nurse in her white cap and uniform, her blue cape stark against the white walls, materialized as if from vapor. “She’s alive,” the nurse whispered in a low, raspy voice.

“Your sister is alive.”

Cassie backed up. Oh. Dear. God.

From the nurse’s earlobes, the red cross earrings glittered before turning into tiny red globules. The red drops splashed from her lobes to the shoulders of her uniform, running down her white dress, staining it red.

Shivering, Cassie swallowed hard and kept inching backward.

Wheels loose, one of the gurneys began rolling, hard metal casters scratching loudly against the tile. As it wheeled by, the draped body’s head and shoulders raised, the sheet sliding to the floor.

Allie’s bloodless face stared straight at her. “Cassie,” she hissed through blue lips that barely moved.

“Help me . . .”

A scream echoed through the morgue.

Cassie blinked awake.

Her heart was trip-hammering. The scream she’d heard had come from her own lips. Sweating, nearly hyperventilating, she was lying on her own bed in her apartment in LA. Dear God, it was five-thirty in the morning, not quite dawn. The shadowed room slowly sharpened into view and she told herself to calm down. It was just a bad dream, a nightmare, nothing more.

But the vision had been so real and surreal.

She let out her breath slowly, her hands fisting in the sheets as she forced herself to think rationally, to not freak out, to take control and—

She shrieked, spinning on the bed as the sound seemed to reverberate through the walls. “What the hell?” Leaping from the mattress, she stared at the window positioned over her headboard and heard the sound again, but this time she saw the tree branch moving to scratch the glass.

Her shoulders slumped in relief.

That was all.

Nothing sinister.

Nothing evil.

Just a damned branch moving in the wind.

And the reason she was so cold? The air conditioner was working overtime, blowing cold air through the room. That was one of the problems with this place, the temperature. Always either hot or cold.

“You’re a freak show,” she muttered as she walked into the hallway and flipped the switch to turn off the cool air. Now fully awake, she made her way to the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and reached inside for a bottle of water.