After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

After She's Gone (West Coast #3) Page 141

“Is it?”

“Just wait until we talk to Cassie Kramer,” Double T said as his cell phone jangled and he answered, walking out of her cubicle.

“I can’t,” Nash said, and it was the truth. She couldn’t wait. And she was a little worried that she’d made a major mistake in not driving out to Falls Crossing and interviewing Cassie immediately. Cassie did have a history of mental issues and probably didn’t want to speak to the cops. Nash didn’t blame her on that one; she was the prime suspect in their case. However, Shane Carter had promised she’d show, so Nash was staking her job on the fact that the ex-lawman would be as good as his word, even if his stepdaughter fought him.

She drained the rest of her drink and cleaned up the corner of her desk they’d used as a table, then turned back to work. For the moment, her headache was at bay and she was energized again.

Until Kowalski strolled by. “How’s it goin’?” he asked, poking his head around the corner, the scent of a recent cigarette following him.

“Goin’.”

“Heard you caught another one. Dead person linked to the movie, found wearing a fuckin’ mask. Weird shit.”

“Weird,” she agreed.

“Forensics find anything?”

“No report yet.”

“Prints on the mask?”

“None that mean anything.”

“Weird shit,” he said again, and made his way to his desk. He settled behind it and turned to his computer, but his wife’s glamour shot was still staring at her from the corner of his desk. Oh, what she would have done for a door to shut off the sultry pout captured on Marcia Kowalski’s face nearly thirty years earlier. Marcia’s near-blond hair floated all around her face in permed curls, jewelry sparkled under the camera’s lights, and her shoulders were bare as she cast a sultry look over her shoulder. The photograph was fading with the passage of time, Marcia Kowalski was twice the age she’d been in the shot, but still Kowalski kept it framed on his desk. Probably would until he retired. So Marcia would stare at Nash for at least five more years.

Her cell phone chirped. Whitney Stone’s number appeared. For the fourth time today. Did the woman never rest?

Without a second thought Nash let the call go to voice mail.

CHAPTER 30

Another mask? Cassie stared in horror at the mask of her mother that lay faceup on the table in the interview room at the police department. She physically recoiled from the hideous image. “Oh, God,” she whispered, hand to her mouth, eyes wide. Her stomach felt as if she might heave and yet she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the mask. Jenna’s beautiful face appeared to be melting, her mouth open as if in a silent, terror-riddled scream.

For a second Cassie couldn’t focus, couldn’t process. The room spun and she held onto the table for support. How could there be more than one of the gut-wrenching, horrid masks?

Despite the fact it was covered in plastic, the laminated visage of Jenna Hughes seemed to glare at her, those dark, empty eye sockets drilling into Cassie’s soul as it lay on the table between Cassie and Detective Nash. It was all Cassie could do to stay in her seat in the small room furnished only with the scarred but functional table and two uncomfortable chairs. A camera was mounted high on the same colorless wall where a mirror was displayed. On the other side, she realized from all the cop shows she’d watched over the years, was a darkened viewing room where other detectives and maybe a DA were watching her and gauging her reaction.

“Where—where did you get this?” she managed to whisper.

“You’ve never seen it before?”

“No!”

“And yet you have another mask. The one you brought in.”

“Yes.” What was she getting at?

“Similar to this one,” Nash said, pushing yet another piece of paper forward, across the table, closer to Cassie, who actually scooted her chair back an inch. The sheet of paper was a copy of another horrendous, twisted picture of Allie, her eyes missing, her mouth a red curling slash. “This is just a copy, of course. The original is in LA, with the detective who’s investigating Holly Dennison’s murder.”