Chapter 44

Detective Cortez stood at the threshold of Cecelia McDowell’s apartment and looked around. The place had to have been one of the most luxurious apartments he had seen before someone decided it needed a little bit of charred makeover and set fire to it.

He wondered if the one to set fire was Cecelia herself, or was it someone else trying to destroy something that could tie them to her disappearance. Or well, maybe, murder?

Who could tell what happened to that poor woman? Her number had not been traced yet, and neither had they gotten any hits on any of her credit cards.

Strange, wasn’t it?

From what he had seen and heard about the girl, she didn’t seem like the smartest tool in the box. She was good-looking, sure, but her acting skills were average. Four out of five movies she had done so far had been super flops, and the one that performed better than the others was only because the lead actor was the son of an Academy Award-nominated director, Jeff Frank. The son for whom the father