After She's Gone Read Free Page B

finally found fame.
    Not that she wanted it.
    She’d heard her name whispered between the staff and sometimes people Cassie didn’t recognize, people she hoped were part of the medical community. She’d caught bits of conversations and had gleaned that there was more discussed than just her physical or mental condition—not that both weren’t juicy grist for the gossip mill on their own. But with Allie missing and her own hospitalization, Cassie had probably gained more fame, or notoriety, than she’d experienced in all her years of work in the film industry. Not that she really gave a crap right now. Her fame meant little with her sister gone missing and another woman dead in the freak accident on the movie set.
    A soft, persistent ding caught the group of nurses’ attention and Tom and Nurse Keller hurried off, leaving the blonde to answer a phone, which she did with her back turned to Cassie’s doorway. Good.
    From the bed, Cassie stole a glance at the window again. The rain had stopped, only a few lingering drops visible on the glass. The room seemed to lighten again and in the reflection she saw the door crack open farther, thin light seeping into the room from the hallway.
    A stealthy figure slipped into the room.
    Her heart clutched.
    She whipped her head around just as the door shut with a soft thud. “What the—?” Her body tensed and she grabbed the nurse’s call button, but stopped before depressing it when she recognized Steven Rinko.
    She let out her breath. Rinko was the weird kid who had been here longer than she and had the ability to move between rooms on stealthy footsteps, the staff rarely noticing. Around thirteen, with a shock of blond hair and skin starting to show signs of acne, he rarely spoke, but when he did, he seemed more genius than mentally challenged. Though usually silent, when prodded, Rinko could tell you every feature on every make and model of car ever designed in America or around the world, or he could rattle off the most insignificant baseball stat about anyone who’d ever played the sport in college or professionally. He hung with a small group of boys who were forever bickering. Why he was at Mercy Hospital, she didn’t know, nor, she supposed would she ever as she planned to spring herself by tomorrow or the day after. Enough with this place. She’d checked herself into the hospital and planned on checking herself out.
    Now, Rinko sidled to her bed. He knew how to get around the security cameras, guards, and nursing staff, traveling the halls on stealthy feet, almost a ghost himself. “She was here,” he said in a whispered voice that cracked.
    “Who?”
    “I saw her too.”
    Cassie’s skin seemed to shrink on her scalp as he reached forward and grabbed her hand. She bit back a scream as he turned her wrist over and dropped something into her hand. A bit of red, she saw, then recognized a tiny cross, one of the earrings the weird nurse had worn.
    “Where did you get this?”
    “The nurse,” he said, and before she could ask him anything more, Rinko was already sliding out of the room on noiseless footsteps, slipping into the hallway, disappearing from view. Her heart clamored as she curled her fingers around the tiny bit of metal, feeling it press into her skin. It was real, and that meant she wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating from the high-octane psychotropic medications that could easily be the reason she blurred reality with lies, fact with fiction, all because she believed something horrid had happened to her younger sister.
    Allie, the innocent.
    Allie, the sweet.
    Allie, the liar.
    How had she grown from a naive girl to a self-serving bitch? A once-shy teenager who would now step on anyone in her path to fame? A beloved sibling morphing into an archrival?
    Cassie drew in a long breath, fought her jealousy, reminded herself that Allie was missing, perhaps dead.
    This was all so wrong—her life, these days.
    The little bit of metal in her hand cut into her