Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(56)

“I don’t get it,” the younger detective, Kevin, is whispering to the other. “I thought we agreed Vero didn’t exist.”

“Technically speaking, the husband told us she didn’t exist. Doesn’t mean we have to agree with him.”

“But if Vero’s real, doesn’t that mean our suspect just confessed to killing her?”

“Only if she’s dead. Our suspect has also just claimed to have found the girl alive.”

“Remind me never to get a concussion,” Kevin says.

“It would be a waste of a great Brain.”

I stumble. Both detectives pause, Wyatt bending down to help me up.

“Northledge Investigations,” he tells me. “That’s the firm you hired, right? I want to talk to them, Nicky, which would happen quicker if you granted permission. Do you think you could help me with that? Give them the okay?”

I stare at him blearily. I don’t nod yes and he finally frowns at me.

“I thought you wanted answers.” His tone is faintly accusing.

“Shhh,” I tell him.

“Nicky—”

“It’s not the flying; it’s the landing,” I inform him soberly.

But he doesn’t get it. How can he? He has yet to understand the yellow quilt and the real reason Thomas wouldn’t come with us.

He doesn’t understand this night isn’t over yet.

The detectives pull me up the ravine. They tuck me back into the SUV. They hand me my precious quilt.

I sit in the back of the vehicle. I think these are two good, hardworking men. They deserve better than to get involved in my messed-up life.

I’m sorry.

Then I close my eyes and let it all go.


* * *



I’M ON THE basement floor. The concrete is hard against my neck and shoulders. I try to move, sit up, roll over, something. But I can’t. There is pain, radiating everywhere, but mostly in the back of my skull.

Distant footsteps, moving quick.

Footsteps down a hall, I think, and feel immediate panic.

No. Stop. Focus. I’m in a basement. Cold floor. Surrounded by discarded clothes. Laundry. That’s it. I’m a grown adult, doing laundry in my own home, and then . . .

Floorboards, creaking above me. “Nicky?” a man’s voice calls. “Nicky? You all right?”

I wonder who Nicky is. Is this her home?

“Honey, where are you? I thought I heard a car in the drive. Nicky?”

My brain throbs. I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the pain caused by the overhead lights. I try to turn my head, but that makes my head groan. I should say something. Cry out, call for help. But I merely lick my lips helplessly.

I don’t know what to cry out. I don’t know who to ask for. Where am I again? Who is that upstairs?

Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, he says.

But Vero is all I think.

Footsteps sounding closer. A man’s form appears above me, silhouetted at the top of the stairs.

“Nicky, is that you?” Then: “Oh my God! What happened? Nicky!”

The man hammers down the stairs. He drops to his knees beside me. Thomas, I think, but then frown, because I’d swear that name isn’t quite right. Tim. Tyler. Travis. Todd. A man with a hundred names, I find myself thinking. Which makes perfect sense, as I’m a woman with a hundred ghosts.

He’s touching me. My shoulders, my knees, my hips. His touch is light and feathery, trying to check me out, afraid to land too hard.

“Nicky, talk to me.”

“The light,” I whisper, or maybe groan, my eyes going overhead.

“I think you hit your head. I see some blood. Did you fall down the stairs? I think you may have cracked your skull against the floor.”

“The light,” I moan again.

He scrambles up, hits the overhead switch, casting me into blessed darkness. He throws on a different light, somewhere behind me, probably in the laundry room, ambient glow for him to see by.

“Honey, can you move?”

I manage to wiggle my toes, lift an arm, a leg; the rest is too much.

“How did I get down here?” I ask.

But he doesn’t answer.

“Tell me your name,” he demands.

“Natalie Shudt.”

He blinks. Maybe it’s my imagination, but he appears nervous.

“How did I get down here?” I try again.

“Can you count to ten?”

“Of course, Theo.”

That strange look again. I count. I like counting. It actually soothes the hurt. I count up to ten, down to one and then . . .

“Toby, your name is Toby.”

“Thomas—”

“Tobias.”

“Shhhh. Just, shhh. I gotta think for a minute.”

I’m on the basement floor. The concrete is hard against my neck and shoulders. I should call out, get some help.

Oh look, there’s a man here. Tyler.

“Your name is Nicole Frank,” he tells me.

“Natasha Anderson,” I reply.

“I’m your husband, Thomas. We’ve been married twenty-two years.”

“Trenton,” I singsong.

“We just moved to this area. We’re very happy together. And”—he stares at me hard—“we have no children.”