Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(46)

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WYATT LEFT KEVIN to babysit their charge while he walked across the parking lot, zipping up his coat against the evening chill. Weather service had already recorded a couple of nights in single digits. And it was still only November, meaning at this rate, it was going to be a tough winter. People cooped up by the snow, half-crazed from the cold. Yeah, another excellent season to be a cop.

He dialed Tessa with his back to Kevin. Pick up, pick up, he thought, preconditioned to liking the sound of her voice, even if he worried about what she might say to him next.

Third ring, he got his wish:

“Hey.” She sounded breathless. As if he caught her in the middle of something. For a moment, he let himself smile. God, he loved this woman. Which was good, because she was probably gonna ream him a new one.

“Hey yourself,” he said. “Busy with something?”

“Just leaving a restaurant. None of us felt like cooking. Headed to Shalimar instead.”

Indian restaurant. One of Sophie’s favorites. It always surprised him, because when Wyatt had been nine, he’d been strictly a burger or dog man. Kids these days.

“How’d your lunch with Detective Warren go?” he asked. They’d never ended up catching up last night. Nor this morning, for that matter. Which, now that he thought about it, his bad. Usually they touched based at least once, if not twice a day. But given this case, he’d been preoccupied . . .

Tessa was a grown-up, he reminded himself. Had been on the job, too. She understood these things.

Except when she answered his question, her voice sounded remote, not at all like her. “Oh, fine. I explained investigative services to D.D. She explained why she preferred being a cop. Now we’ll both wait for the state of her injury to render the verdict.”

“Sophie okay?” Wyatt asked, still trying to get a bead on Tessa’s mood. “Have a good week at school?”

“Yeah.”

“And your day?”

“Fine.”

The sound of car doors slamming shut. Then Tessa’s voice, more muffled as she addressed Sophie, probably Mrs. Ennis as well. “It’s Wyatt. I need a moment; then we’ll be on our way.”

They must still be in the parking lot of the restaurant, Wyatt deduced, just now returning to the car. A former state trooper, Tessa hated people who drove while talking on their phones. Ergo, she’d make her family wait for her to finish the call before hitting the road. Which would explain her distraction. She was talking to him but still dealing with her family. Of course.

He decided there was no good way of doing it. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“I got a question for you,” he announced.

“Okay.”

“Remember my single-car accident? Possible aggravated DWI?”

“Yes.”

“Turns out, driver got a call on her cell shortly before she took off that night. Her name is Nicole Frank.”

Pause, while he waited to see if Tessa would respond to that name. Of course, she was a seasoned professional, so when she didn’t, he continued, evenly enough:

“Number was registered to a company: Northledge Investigations.”

More silence now. But Wyatt knew Tessa well enough to imagine the small but significant changes in her body language. Sitting up straighter in the driver’s seat. Grip tightening on the phone. Expression smoothing out.

He also understood that right about now, Sophie, sitting in the backseat, would be noticing these changes as well, and also going on high alert.

If Tessa hadn’t been irritated with him before, then this oughta do it.

“Why did you call, Wyatt?” she asked quietly.

“Gotta start somewhere.”

“So you thought your best move would be to ask your girlfriend to violate the confidentiality of her clients?”

“No. Not what I’m asking.”

He was rewarded with more silence. Then Sophie’s voice from the back: “Mom, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” An automatic reply spoken to the child. Followed by a more direct tone, delivered straight to him: “Wyatt. It’s late. It’s been a long week. I know you’re only doing your job, but I can’t help you. You know that.”

“She doesn’t remember.”

“Who?”

“Nicole Frank. The driver. Our perpetrator. Or our victim. Hell, I don’t even know. She’s suffered three concussions, remember? It’s messed her up, deleted some items from the hard drive. Which is starting to scare her. The husband, remember? The one even you worried might be the cause of three accidents? I gather things are a little tense on the home front, and Nicky has decided she needs answers. She’s out with us tonight, trying to retrace her final drive. Except she can’t remember the details. She knows she received a call. She remembers she had to get out of the house. The rest remains a mystery to her.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I know you can’t answer my question directly—that would betray confidentiality. But what if I got her on the line? Or had Nicky call in to Northledge? Maybe you could arrange for the right person”—because it was a large firm, with many investigators other than Tessa—“to be there to receive her call. Answer her questions.”

“That might be possible,” Tessa finally conceded, but he noticed that her voice remained cool. “Assuming she’s a client. Could be she was contacted as part of another investigation.”