After She's Gone

  Was it possible?

  Had her firstborn turned out to be a monster? A homicidal maniac?

  While the horses paced and snorted in their stalls and a high-pitched scream of a siren reached his ears, he shouldered his rifle and shoved the Winchester 30-30’s bolt into place. It snapped with a loud, distinctive click and he was ready.

  Again a wave of blackness threatened to pull him under and he set his jaw. A light was pouring into the barn from the open doorway. He moved toward it.

  Little Sister? Cassie’s heart was beating frantically, her breath ragged, adrenaline pumping through her system as the truth became crystal clear: The woman chasing her was her older half sister. The sibling she found out about earlier tonight. The baby Jenna had given up for adoption years ago. Just as she’d feared.

  What were the chances?

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” The familiar voice sang through the barn where the air was cold, but Cassie’s hands sweated over the grip of the pistol. Teeth chattering, she clenched her jaw and, using both hands, leveled the gun as she prayed she could blow the bitch away.

  “Come on, Cassie,” the voice called out from the darkness, and there was something familiar about it, a quality she recognized.

  Who? Think, damn it, who is it?

  “Don’t you want to meet me?”

  No!

  Cassie stared at the hallway, into the darkness. Did she see a bit of movement? Was it the woman stalking her? Or something else? Trent? The dog? A horse? Damn it. Throat dry, she squinted and moved the muzzle of the pistol toward the shifting light. That voice, disembodied and muffled, kept getting nearer.

  “Come on, Little Sister,” she coaxed. “We could have some fun.”

  Fat chance.

  Cassie drew in a shaking breath and thought she heard sirens. Oh, God, were they wailing ever closer?

  Please, please, please . . .

  The gun wobbled in her hands.

  At that second her attacker stepped from around the corner.

  Cassie screamed, her finger frozen on the trigger.

  In the half light she saw a woman’s slim figure and above it a gruesome face. What? In the shadowy light she realized it was her own face, like the reflection in a mirror from a house of horrors, the image distorted and melting off its skull. A mask. “Oh, God,” she whispered, then noticed the long-barreled gun pointed directly at her chest.

  Cassie squeezed the trigger, but the shot went wild, ricocheting through the rafters, blasting loudly as Cassie tried to scramble away. With the killer blocking her escape, Cassie tried to get off another shot.

  Too late.

  The killer fired.

  Craaack!

  The noise was deafening.

  Pain erupted in Cassie’s shoulder and the blast propelled her hard against the back wall. Hot, searing agony shot through her as her body slammed into the wood and the killer took aim again.

  She’s going to kill me, Cassie thought wildly as the wall behind her suddenly gave way and she was falling backward, tumbling into a Stygian vortex.

  I’m dying, she thought frantically, as she sommersaulted through the darkness.

  Bam! She landed.

  “Oof!”

  Her skeleton jarred, but whatever she’d fallen on gave way. Sank a bit. Was even squishy in some places. Dust filled the air and there was a noise like tiny pebbles shifting in a jar.

  What?

  Where the devil was she, and in God’s name, what was she lying on?

  “Did Little Sister fall down and go boom?” her half-sister taunted and Cassie, her mind unclear from the fall, looked upward to see a bit of light falling through the opening from which she’d fallen. The woman in the awful mask was leaning through the small door, her arm extended, the pistol aimed into the darkness.

  Cassie was a sitting duck.

  All the killer had to do was start firing and the ricocheting bullets would probably riddle Cassie’s body.

  Bracing herself, dread filling her heart, she stared upward and thought of Trent. Was he already dead? Had this maniac killed him? Why? Oh, God, why?

  “Say your prayers, Little Sister,” the woman said, aiming, then suddenly the arm moved sharply, as if wrenched, fingers opening. The gun fell, tumbling down the well and glancing off Cassie’s shoulder.

  “What the fuck?” the killer cried in her so-familiar voice, but she wasn’t leaning into the opening any longer, not speaking to Cassie, but someone else. Someone who had startled her. “Where the hell did you come from? Ouch! Jesus!” The words were muted, but there were other noises as well. Scuffling footsteps. A struggle? Could the police have arrived, or was it her savior Trent?

  He had to be alive. Relief washed over her, but she couldn’t just lie here. She had to help.

  Groaning, her shoulder on fire, she twisted, rolling to the side, off whatever had broken her fall and suddenly felt the entire floor shift and rattle. More dust. The silage or feed or fodder was giving way. She hadn’t fallen from the very top of the structure, but closer to the bottom, the main floor of the barn to the lower level where the cattle were fed, less than a story. Rattled, still trying to get her bearings in the darkness, she reached out a hand. Touched the object that had broken her fall and felt the cool clamminess of bare skin beneath her fingers.

  Human skin?

  An arm?

  Her stomach turned in on itself.

  Screaming, her voice reverberating up the shaft of the silo, she flung herself away, tried to swim in the shifting sea of grain. But the thing moved, too, and the arm stretched out, a clawlike hand scraping against her, fingernails scraping her face.

  Get out, Cassie. Get the hell away from that thing!

  Frantic, she pressed against the wall, circling away, the kernels swirling and swishing, almost laughing at her impotent attempts to get free.

  Think, Cassie, think. Find a way to escape!

  She was in a full-blown panic now, her headache thundering, her fear so real she could taste it. She moved along the edge of the cylindrical structure. The body swayed closer.

  There had to be a way out. A chute to pour the grain from the silo, but where the hell was it. Where?

  The ocean of grain rolled again and this time, not just the arm, but the entire torso of the unknown person fell against her. Cold. Clammy. Dead! The body hadn’t moved on its own. No. It had only shifted on the waves of grain that moved because of Cassie’s attempts to get away, and had fallen against her, nearly pinning her, the head rolling to one side.

  Springy hair brushed against Cassie’s neck.

  Oh. Dear. God.

  She pushed it away, felt her thumb touch an eyeball that gave way under the pressure.

  Cassie shriveled at the thought as she tried to put some distance between her and God, who? Who was this dead person trapped here with her? Again the body rolled closer and this time she felt a leg slide across her. She touched it long enough to fling it away and realized her fingers had brushed nylon.

  In her mind’s eye she thought of the nurse who had visited her late at night. The curled hair under the cap, the white stockings.

  Oh. Ick! This was Belva Nelson and she was dead?

  Stomach roiling, her brain pulsing with the need to get free, she pressed harder to the sides of the silo, and her shoulder, already screaming in pain, hit something hard and metal.

  A door latch?

  Oh, please! A way to get out!

  With an effort, she turned and fumbled at the metal.

  Not a door, but the bottom rung of a ladder that stretched ever upward and back to the floor above.

  Using all her strength she started climbing.

  Trent’s bad leg gave way and he grabbed the edge of a post for balance near the yawning open doorway.

  Silhouetted by the headlights shining through the doorway, Shane Carter, weapon drawn, made his way into the barn.

  Relief swept over Trent. “Don’t shoot! It’s Kittle,” he said.

  Ca
rter looked in his direction but didn’t drop his weapon.

  “They’re down there, toward the silo,” Trent said, pointing, trying to stay clear-headed as he swayed and clung to the post for support. “Someone tried to kill me and I think Cassie’s here.” But his mind was swimming; he wasn’t certain of anything.

  Craaack!

  A gun went off and the horses went nuts, shrieking and kicking in terror. Hud, who’d been cowering somewhere in the shadows, let out a mournful howl and belly-crawled to Trent.

  “Stay!” Trent said to the dog as Carter took off running in the direction of the gunshot and Trent, moving slowly, followed.

  A woman’s scream tore through the barn.

  Cassie!

  His heart turned black with a dread as dark as all of hell, but he kept moving and ignored the pain ripping through his body. Holding onto poles, bracing himself on sawhorses, propelling himself forward and dragging his useless leg, he wasn’t about to wait and cower in the shadows.

  If something had happened to his wife, damn it, if the assassin had wounded her or killed her, he’d take the son of a bitch out himself.

  Adrenaline firing her blood, Cassie started climbing the ladder, the sounds of a struggle above.

  “You murdering bitch!” a woman yelled, a new voice, one that rang deep in Cassie’s soul.

  Allie? Allie was here? Alive? In cahoots with this other sick sibling?

  Gritting her teeth, her hands sweating from the exertion, her fingers slipping on the rungs, Cassie hauled herself up by one hand.

  “Like you weren’t in on it.” The other woman. “Come on, Baby Sister, admit it, you liked to see your mother squirm and your sister”—she hissed the word—“freak out and end up in a mental hospital.”

  “But no one was supposed to die!” Allie yelled.

  “Oh, get real. You set it up. You were the one who planned the shooting on the set. You just needed me to do the dirty work.”

  “I talked about it,” Allie said. “I didn’t mean for it to actually happen.”

  “Then why did you disappear?”

  Good question, Cassie thought, pulling herself up, wanting to strangle both of her siblings, the murderer and Allie, freaking Allie who had let everyone believe she was dead.

  Upward she climbed through the darkness, dragging herself, the dust from the silo suffocating, her own breathing and pounding heart making listening to the conversation impossible. Only a few more rungs.

  “Fuck!” one of the women said, the other one, not Allie, the familiar but unnamed voice. “Do you hear that? Sirens! What the fuck did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  Cassie was close to the top now, the half-light spilling into the silo’s shaft just over her head.

  “But the cops! Oh, shit!”

  Blam!

  A gunshot fired, rocking the building. Cassie nearly lost her grip, but she clung on, her lower body swinging off the ladder for a heart-stopping instant. She had to clench her jaw to keep from crying out. Agony ripped through her shoulder and she squeezed her eyes shut, willed her body back and forced her toes to find a rung.

  A long, low moan ripped through the building.

  She thought of Trent. No, it couldn’t be.

  But her fear drove her upward.

  Fighting the pain in her shoulder, dragging herself upward, rung by rung she climbed. She had to make it! She had to get to him! At the opening, she peered through and, saw a body on the floor. Her heart collapsed. Was it Trent? Allie?

  Standing over the wounded person her back to the opening was a woman, while holding a gun pointed at the already wounded victim. Jesus God, the shooter was Allie, her victim Laura Merrick! With the hideous mask half-on, half-off her face, Laura writhed on the floor and groaned in agony. Allie aimed her gun at Laura’s ever moving forehead, as if she were planning to shoot her literally right between her eyes.

  No!

  Cassie coiled, then sprang, propelling herself through the opening and rolling, knocking Allie off her feet. The gun went flying, skittering across the floor.

  Lithe as a cat, she pounced on the gun, then rolled over and agilely hopped to her feet. The girl who had once been a nerdy bookworm, then a famous Hollywood star and then a ghost, vanishing without a trace was now a cold-blooded killer?

  “Allie?” Cassie whispered as her sister pointed the gun at her. “Allie!”

  Allie’s hands wobbled. Her eyes were wide, her expression cold.

  “Don’t shoot!” Cassie yelled. “Allie!”

  Ashen faced, thin as a rail, her eyes hollow, as if she didn’t recognize Cassie, Allie hesitated.

  “Allie, it’s me. Cassie. Your sister.”

  Heavy footsteps thundered toward them, but Allie didn’t seem to hear, just stood over Cassie.

  “Drop it!” Shane’s voice boomed through the room. “Allie Kramer! Drop your weapon.” Then his voice softened. “For the love of God, what happened?” His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping, and for a second Cassie witnessed his pain. He’d thought of Jenna’s daughters as his own. As quickly as his bewilderment appeared, it disappeared and he slipped back into his lawman persona once more.

  In a daze, Allie looked away and in that instant, Cassie sprang. She ripped the gun from her sister’s fingers. Without thinking she threw the damned weapon through the opening to the silo. “What the hell are you doing?” she thundered raging at her sister. “You idiot! We all thought you were dead!”

  “I am,” Allie said, as if she really were a zombie.

  “What? Don’t give me that!” Cassie roared, incited.

  “Cass, it’s okay.” Shane tried to step in.

  But Cassie wasn’t finished. “Where have you been? Huh? Where the hell have you been? We’ve been looking for you forever. People have died! What were you thinking? Damn it, Allie, were you really going to kill me?”

  “Little Sister,” Laura whispered. Blood drizzled from the corner of her mouth, the mask still halfway on and she was pale as death. Sirens screamed. They were so close they sounded as if they were inside the damned barn.

  Cassie turned on the wounded woman. Laura Merrick. Seriously? The makeup person and hairdresser to the stars was Cassie’s half sister and probably a psychotic killer? Or was the murderess Allie?

  “Why?” Cassie demanded, but Laura only groaned.

  “Why?” she asked again, this time focusing on her younger sister, the little girl who had turned into a monster.

  Allie just stared, and Cassie couldn’t help but wonder if she was indeed almost catatonic or this, like so many scenes in her life, was just an act.

  “It’s not my fault,” Allie whispered.

  Cassie lost it.

  Before thinking, she whirled and she slapped the wretch that her little sister had become. Allie’s head snapped back and her lost, forlorn expression instantly morphed into an ugly rage.

  Barely aware that the barn was suddenly alive, blue and red light pulsing through the windows, policemen and women converging on the barn, Cassie plowed on. Shaking, she said, “It is your fault. You could have let us know you were alive! You didn’t need to put Mom and me and everyone else through this hell!” She was shaking. “Quit faking it and acting like you didn’t know what you were doing, Allie! You’re not a frightened little girl anymore.”

  “And you hate me for it,” Allie said, her facade slipping a little, her lips curling in disgust.

  “You effin’ thought I was going to die on that set!” Cassie said and lunged at her sister as Laura moaned at their feet.

  Shane stepped in. Grabbed Cassie. Held her back. “It’s over,” he whispered into her ear and she heard the sound of other footsteps thundering through the barn, echoing on the floors. She struggled, wanting to beat the living tar out of the woman Laura had dubbed “Baby Sister.” It was fitting, really. Allie had always played the part of the wounded little girl, at least in their family.

  “Police! Drop your weapons!” a man shouted.

  From the f
loor, Laura, one eye exposed glared up at them. With an effort, she said, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Don’t you get it? I should be the star. Not you, Baby Sister!” She spat and coughed. “I’m the firstborn. Me!” She was gurgling now, spittle and blood frothing red on her lips. “I’m the Big Sister and you two are the interlopers.” She glared at Cassie and snarled. “You’re a freak, Little Sister, that’s what you are. You could never make it in the business even though you had the chance!” Her words garbled then, and Cassie, looking over her stepfather’s shoulder, met Trent’s eyes.

  Leaning against a wall, his face chalky white, blood staining his jeans, he looked as if he might pass out at any second. “Oh, Jesus,” she said, her anger evaporating, her heart wrenching. “Trent!” Hurtling out of Shane’s arms, she ran to him. “Oh, God. We need an ambulance.”

  He forced a bit of a smile. “ . . . or two.” He hugged her fiercely and buried his face in her hair. She collapsed against him, drinking in the smell of him, feeling the strength, his incredible strength waning. The thought of losing him was too much to bear. “Hang in there,” she whispered over the rush of other officers arriving and the bleating of a rescue vehicle piercing the night.

  “Cuff her,” Shane said to the first deputy on the scene. He was motioning to Allie. “And get this one,” he indicated Laura, “to a hospital. Keep her under guard. She’s dangerous. But first,” he hitched his thumb toward Trent, “get this one to a hospital STAT. After you see to Kittle here.”

  Cassie said, “And there’s . . . there’s a dead body in the silo. I think maybe Belva Nelson, but I’m not sure.” Involuntarily, she shuddered remembering the brush of cold flesh against hers.

  “Check it out,” Shane ordered another deputy and the man responded, despite the fact that Carter had no jurisdiction, was no longer an officer. Still no one questioned his authority. Not tonight.

  Carter bent down on a knee and tried to revive Laura.

  “Come on. Stay with me,” he ordered, but the woman was still. “Come on, Laura! Hang in there.” But it was obvious to Cassie the woman she’d known as Laura Merrick was gone.

  Allie watched it all. As her hands were forced behind her back, cuffs snapped into place, she seemed to suddenly become aware of what was happening.