After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

After She's Gone (West Coast #3) Page 43

Then in Oregon came a monster. A deranged fan who had terrorized them all.

Also a stepfather she’d accepted if not embraced.

And a sister. Older. More rebellious. One who required most of Jenna’s attention. Cassie and Allie’s relationship had always been strained and it had only gotten worse, much worse, after the attack ten years ago.

She shuddered at the thought of the madman who had killed senselessly and brutally, then set his sights on Jenna and her girls. Cassie had not only lost her boyfriend, but nearly her own life and had been traumatized, nearly committed at that time. Jenna had focused on getting her daughter mentally well and in the process, she now assumed, ignored her younger, more serious and stable daughter. Had the rift begun then? At the time Allie’s relationship with her father was nearly nonexistent and Jenna had been wrapped in guilt about inadvertently putting Cassie’s life in danger. Looking back, she had probably ignored Allie’s wants and needs, or at least put them beneath Cassie’s. And then there was the fact that Cassie had been much more popular with the boys. Probably her irreverent attitude had attracted them like flies, while bookish, “I’m bored” Allie hadn’t gotten a second glance. She’d matured late and always, Jenna had sensed, envied her sister’s appeal to the opposite sex. Being Cassie Kramer’s younger sister in school had resulted in a grudge that hadn’t eased with time, not even when the tables had turned as adults and Allie had been lavished with all of the attention once she’d been “discovered” in Hollywood.

But childhood despairs ran deep. Never completely evaporated. She knew it herself.

Deeper in the plastic tub she found the stuffed elephant that had been Allie’s “go to” cuddle toy as a toddler and into school. Jenna smiled and stroked the once-blue trunk, while noticing one of the eyes was missing and there was a rip in the seam of the elephant’s belly.

She remembered telling her girls to clean out their rooms and haul all their things up to the attic during the remodel of the bedroom wing. Apparently this box was never retrieved and returned to Allie’s room. Like so many things, she thought.

Footsteps heralded Shane’s approach.

“Jenna?” he called up the stairs. The first step creaked with his weight. “You up here?”

“Coming,” she said, and reluctantly left the old rocker with its memories behind. She hesitated for a moment beneath the single burning bulb and cast one final look around, all the while thinking of her daughters.

“Please,” she prayed under her breath as she clicked off the light, “wherever they are, keep them safe.”

ACT II

In 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.

Craaack!

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.