Tessa Leoni: Crash And Burn Part 32

"Wednesday night, you went in search of Marlene Bilek," Wyatt stated firmly.

"Yes."

"You drove to the liquor store." He tapped it on the map. "You went inside, hoping to see her."

"I recognized her. Even from the back. Then I panicked. I saw her, but I wasn't ready for her to see me. What if she didn't remember me? Worse, what if she didn't want me? Thirty years later, what kind of daughter simply reappears from the dead?"

"You bought a bottle of Glenlivet."

Nicky didn't look away. She held his gaze while she nodded miserably.

"And then you followed her." Wyatt returned to the map. "I spoke with Marlene Bilek this afternoon-"

"You told her about me?"

"I spoke with Mrs. Bilek this afternoon," he continued brusquely, "determining her usual route home. It's a forty-mile drive, mostly back roads, pa.s.sing through here, here and here." He traced the red line with his finger. "Leading at long last to her house."

He tapped the blown-up picture of the Bilek's front porch. Taken during daylight, not at night, when Nicky would've viewed it, but close enough.

Her gaze remained locked on the tiny yellow house. As if she could drink it up.

"Did you tell her about me?" Nicky whispered. "That I'm Vero. What . . . what did she say?"

"Don't think that's my story to tell." Wyatt gazed at her hard. She couldn't return his look.

"According to Mrs. Bilek," Wyatt continued, "her daughter was also home that night. Sixteen-year-old Hannah Veigh. Look like anyone you remember?"

"Vero," she whispered.

"What did you do, Nicky?"

The sternness of his question seemed to catch her off guard. "What?"

"What did you do? You've been up half the night. You've been drinking; you've been driving. Now you're at a cute little house, peering in the window, and there she is: your long-lost self. Vero. What did you do?"

Nicky sat back, pushing against the table with her hands. "Do? I didn't. I don't think. How could I?"

He crossed swiftly to the table. "Tell me about the collapsible shovel, Nicky. Tell me about the gloves. Covered in blood. Human blood. We know; we already tested it. You're drunk, you're alone, and you've just discovered your long-lost mom hasn't been pining for you after all. In fact, she's remarried, has a new kid, Vero 2.0. Your mother has gotten on with her life. She doesn't miss you at all."

"You don't know that. How can you know that?"

"You're stalking her."

"I just wanted to see her. To find out how she was doing-"

"You couldn't call? You couldn't write? Hey, Mom, I finally got away from an evil madam. That was twenty-two years ago, but, hey, better late than never to finally reach out. Wanna do lunch?"

"It's not like that," Nicky protested weakly.

"Like what? Like you're a mixed-up, f.u.c.ked-up woman, driving drunk and stalking your own mom? Tell me about the shovel. If you were just going to find out how she was doing, why'd you need a shovel? Tell me about the gloves. If you were just following along, why are they covered in blood? What did you do Wednesday night? Come on, Nicky. I'm tired of your lies and your stories. What did you do Wednesday night?!"

"I called Thomas." The words blurted out. Nicky blinked her eyes, as if even she was surprised to hear them.

"You called your husband?"

"From a pay phone. I was crying and I was hysterical. I'd just seen Vero. She was dead except now she was alive. I didn't know what to do anymore. And my head hurt so much. I know I shouldn't have been drinking. I know I shouldn't have been driving. And Thomas was going to be mad at me, because he'd asked me, begged me, to please let it go. 'We can be happy,' he would say. 'Once we were happy; I know we can be happy again.'

"But I don't think I can continue being this sad anymore. I need to change. Except to change, I need answers. Why is November so bad? Why do I spend my afternoons talking to a ghost girl in my head? Thomas knows how to live. I . . . don't. So I asked to move here-"

"You asked," Wyatt interjected sharply.

"Yes."

"Thomas didn't refuse."

"He suggested Vermont. But I kept at it and eventually he caved. Then once I was here . . . I felt closer. Marlene's post office box had been New Hampshire. Now we were in the same state. Except it wasn't quite enough. I wanted to see her, just . . . look. So I hired Northledge. Then Wednesday night . . ."

Nicky's voice trailed off. "Looking in the window, seeing Vero. My head exploded. So much bright light. Flames. I saw flames everywhere. Vero learned to fly. I wanted to run into the house. I wanted to hold her so badly. Tell her over and over again that I was sorry. She mustn't hate me. I didn't mean . . . Except she wasn't Vero, right? Couldn't be Vero. I was crying too hard to function. No cell reception, so I made my way to a pay phone and called Thomas."

"He came to you."

"He told me where to meet him. Right after that gas station. Bend in the road. Pull over there."

"You went to meet your husband. Were you wearing gloves, Nicky?"

She shook her head. "No, I was driving, focusing hard. My head, the alcohol. I had to concentrate to stay on the road."

"When you got to the meeting spot, Thomas was waiting for you. Was he carrying a shovel?"

Nicky closed her eyes, seemed to be trying to think. "No."

"Gloves?"

"He . . . he handed me gloves. Told me to put them on. 'Do you trust me?' he asked. 'Do you trust me?'"

Nicky opened her eyes. She peered up at Wyatt. "I said, 'Yes.'"

"Then what?"

"Then . . . he . . . he disappeared. And I was flying through the air. And I died again. A woman twice returned from the dead."

WYATT KEPT ON her. He made her walk over to the gloves, examine the shovel. Revisit each photo of her stops that night.

"Is she . . . is she okay?" she asked, looking at the picture of Hannah Veigh Bilek, who, frankly, with her long dark hair and light-blue eyes, looked exactly like Nicky's younger sister. "Nothing happened to them, right? I mean, there's blood on the gloves. But I know I didn't. And Thomas . . . He couldn't. He wouldn't. Right?"

"Sounds like you have doubts."

"He's a good man," she said, but the words sounded more automatic than convincing.

"Where is he, Nicky?"

"I don't know."

"Does he love you?"

"He's never left me."

"Not even now? Burned your house, disappeared into the wind."

She hesitated. It occurred to Wyatt immediately what she couldn't say. Thomas wasn't gone. At least Nicky didn't think so. Even now, he was around, somewhere local, waiting for her. Such was the power of their bond.

A husband who most likely engineered her auto accident and burned down their home. And yet still, in her heart of all hearts, Nicky knew he loved her.

One of those kinds of relationships, Wyatt thought. Cops saw them all the time. Yet he remained troubled.

He made her review the night, over and over, but he couldn't get her to crack. She'd worn the gloves. Maybe the blood was her own, from the accident, all that gla.s.s everywhere, hence the shredded remains. She had a vague recollection of taking them off, shoving them in her back pocket. They were too awkward to wear and she didn't want to litter. The shovel was a mystery to her. She didn't know why Thomas had it.

And, yes, she'd followed Marlene Bilek. She had wanted to speak to her, but she'd lost her courage. Wanting to change wasn't the same as changing. Trying to remember your past wasn't the same as being able to confront it.

Finally, Kevin led her away for fingerprinting. While technically they had Veronica Sellers's prints on file, they were thirty years old. Wyatt, not to mention the evidence techs, would prefer a fresher, cleaner set for use when comparing her prints against others collected from the shovel, gloves, et cetera.

After Nicky and Kevin left, Wyatt and Tessa took a minute to catch their breath. He pulled out the chair next to her, swiping a hand through his already mussed-up hair. G.o.d, he could use a shower. Not to mention a nap.

"Get any sleep?" she asked him.

"No more than you."

"Then you must be very tired."

He grimaced. "Sorry to pull you away from Sophie for the weekend."

"Not the first time. I mentioned the puppy to her. I believe you had her at h.e.l.lo."

"I get to help pick it out?"

"I hope so."

She was smiling softly, saying the right things. And yet he felt it again. That something was off. A shadow in her eyes that didn't quite match the curve of her lips. Maybe he was simply too tired. Or maybe that was the problem with dating a woman like Tessa. She would always be a bit of a mystery to him.

"Sophie doing okay?" he asked now.

"As far as I know."

"Just . . . you seem"-he wasn't sure how to term it-"preoccupied."

"D. D. Warren told me something interesting at lunch," she said at last, gaze on the sketch pad. "I'm still processing it."

"Good interesting or bad interesting?"

"I'm still processing it. Wyatt, you know I'm not perfect, right?"

"I would never say such a thing."

"Three years ago . . . some things went down. I can't say I regret them."

"Having met Sophie, I don't regret them either." He paused. "Are you in trouble, Tessa? Because you know I'm here for you, right? Whatever you need . . ."

She smiled again, that smile that didn't dispel the shadows from her eyes. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. So far, I've heard some interesting news-"

He stopped her, took her hand because it seemed the least he could do. She startled at the contact but didn't pull away. "I'm here for you, Tessa. As in solidly, absolutely, one hundred percent. I know you have a past, but personally, I'm vested in our future."

It might have been his imagination, but he thought for a moment, her eyes glistened with tears.

"D.D. says I'm a lone wolf," she whispered.

"I think Sophie and Mrs. Ennis would argue otherwise."

She nodded, didn't speak right away. "Nicky wants to be free," she said abruptly. "I know you have doubts about the dollhouse story, but having spent the afternoon with her, I think she also has a past, and a pretty horrible one at that. Where not only things happened, but I have a feeling . . . You don't survive in that kind of environment without doing some things yourself."

Wyatt's turn to nod.

"Maybe twenty-two years seems like a long time. She should've come forward sooner, contacted her mother sooner, but she's trying now. Isn't that what matters?"

"She says she drew some pictures this afternoon?"

"My own attempt at memory therapy. Here." Tessa lifted the cover of the sketch pad, withdrew half a dozen oversize sheets. "As you can tell, she's a good artist, with a great eye for detail."

At first, Wyatt wasn't sure what he was looking at. A rounded room with a rose mural and gauze-enshrouded bed. A marble fireplace in a formal parlor. But the third sketch presented the big picture: a vast, wood-shingled Victorian, the kind built by wealthy families in the nineteenth century as summer homes for their families away from the heat and stench of cities. The house included a gorgeous wraparound front porch, a three-story turret, and an expansive right wing dotted with multiple dormers. Impressive house. Expensive house. And indeed, given the diamond-paned windows and gingerbread trim, a dollhouse.

He looked up from the sketch, eyed Tessa thoughtfully. "You think it's real?"

"I think she thinks it's real."

"That's not very helpful."

He flipped a page, coming to a portrait of an older woman, hair up in a bun, face stern, eyes cold. He couldn't help himself. He shivered.

"Madame Sade," Tessa provided.

"Looks like a woman who could kidnap small children," he agreed.

"I asked D.D. to examine past missing-kids cases," Tessa mentioned. "I'm curious. Given the databases we have now, maybe we can determine if thirty years ago there was a spike in missing-girl cases in the greater New England area. It would give Nicky's story some weight."

"It would."

"And as long as we're entertaining the notion this house exists, look at the background. The view through the window of the tower bedroom."