Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(50)

“Gonna top off,” he says.

He turns off the road, eases in front of a pump.

“Hungry?” Kevin asks me. “Want a snack or anything?”

Then, when I hesitate:

“Come on. Let’s see if they have anything good inside.”

They’re testing me, I realize. Just how many places did I stop that night? And will I vomit at all of them?

I climb down from the SUV, leaving my quilt only reluctantly. Wyatt goes to work with the gas pump. I follow Kevin into the gas station, wincing once at the bright lights, wishing I had my hat.

Inside is nothing special. I don’t puke or grab my head and scream in agony. Instead, I follow Kevin up and down snack aisles. He settles on Pringles; I go with a pack of gum.

Up front, the bearded guy manning the register glances at me, studies Kevin, no doubt recognizing a county cop, then takes Kevin’s money without comment. Sitting on the countertop is a hunting magazine. As we leave, he picks it back up and resumes reading.

“Did I pass?” I ask Kevin as we return to the vehicle. Wyatt is already waiting for us, the SUV having obviously not needed that much gas.

“Nothing familiar?” Kevin presses. “Lights, smell, beer stains all over the floor?”

“I’ve never stopped here,” I tell him with certainty.

“Then where’d you go? Wednesday night. You purchased the bottle of scotch around ten P.M., from that store, eighteen miles back. You don’t drive off the road for another seven hours. So where’d you go, Nicky? What did you do for all that time?”

Wyatt has joined us. He pins me with a matching stare. But I don’t have anything to offer either detective. I open my mouth. I close my mouth.

“I have no idea,” I say at last.

“Who’d you meet?” Wyatt asks.

“I have no idea.”

“Lover? Private investigator? Why so many secrets, Nicky? If you and Thomas are leading such a charmed life, why all the subterfuge?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

Wyatt shakes his head. “You’re sure you’ve never been here before?”

“I’m sure.”

“But the liquor store . . .”

“I stopped there.”

“Then what, Nicky? Where’d you go?”

I still can’t answer.

Finally, Wyatt gives up. He says, “Let’s drive.”

We pile once more into the car.


* * *



VERO IS LEARNING to fly. I think of her. Can nearly feel her sitting in the SUV next to me. Vero is learning to fly. Because by the time she’s six, she already understands this isn’t the life she wants to live; this isn’t the place she wants to be.

So she dashes around the cramped family room, childish hopes giving her wings.

The woman will take her to the park. There, she’ll take a seat on a nearby bench. And then, because she’s exhausted, beaten down, or maybe because she had two shots of cheap whiskey for breakfast, she’ll fall asleep. She’ll never see the other girl who appears in the park. Who joins Vero on the swings.

This girl is fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. She’s dressed today to look like any other kid on the playground. Maybe an older sister, or a babysitter, entertaining her charges.

She strikes up a conversation with Vero. You like coming to the park? Me, too. What’s your favorite thing to do, game to play? Do you like dolls? I have two dolls. Why don’t you come with me? I’ll grab them from the back of the car.

Vero is learning to fly.

But it won’t help her in the end. She’s no match for a strung-out girl, ordered to return with fresh meat or else. She doesn’t expect the light-haired woman who suddenly appears, plunges a needle in her arm.

Vero never screams. She doesn’t run.

She stands there. A lonely six-year-old girl who just wanted to play with dolls.

Then she’s gone.

Later the woman will rouse herself from the park bench. She will scream. She will run. She will tear that park apart, trying to find the child who was her only reason to live. Police will come. Locals will rally. Dogs will search.

But by then, Vero will already be too far away, headed to a tower bedroom and a life of ruffled dresses and bleeding rosebushes.

She will cry. In the beginning, morning, noon and night. She will plead for her mom. She will beg to return to that terrible little apartment. She will fly off the bed, crash into walls. None of it will help her.

One day, Vero won’t cry anymore. She’ll sit at her table, sip teacups full of spiked punch and do exactly as she is told to do.

But inside, deep, deep inside . . .

Vero still longs to fly. And she hasn’t completely given up dreams of flight just yet.


* * *



THE SUV SLOWS. The SUV pulls over.

Wyatt says, “We’re here.”

Kevin comes around to open my door.

The night is dark, cold and thick all around us.

I take one moment to inhale deeply. Then I feel myself die, all over again.

Vero wants to fly, I think.

And suddenly, I’m terrified of what will happen next.





Chapter 19




I THINK SHE’S taken one too many hits to the head,” Kevin murmured to Wyatt. They were out of the SUV, watching Nicky walk agitated circles at the edge of the road. She was mumbling something under her breath. It sounded like Vero wants to fly . . .