Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(57)

“Ted, Teddy, Tim, Tommy. Ta-da!”

“I think I have to take you to the hospital.” He’s clearly worried about this. “Nicole—”

“Nancy!”

“Nicole, I need you to do something for me. Just . . . be quiet, okay? Let the doctors do their thing. You concentrate on feeling better. I’ll answer all their questions, handle everything else.”

“Vero!” I call out.

He closes his eyes. “Not now. Please.” Then: “Honey, why were you down here anyway? It’s not laundry day.”

I stare up at him. I don’t say anything. Who is this man? I think suddenly. Then, even more poignantly, who am I? Nicole Natalie Nancy Natasha Nan Nia Nannette. I am everyone. I am no one at all.

I am November, I think. The saddest month of the year.

“It’s going to be okay,” Thomas Tyler Theo Tim Trenton tells me. “I’ll take care of you. I promise. I just need to know one thing. When I was out in my workshop, I swore I heard a car. Did someone come to visit, Nicole? Did you let someone into the house?”

Then, when I don’t answer:

“Oh my God, it was the investigator, wasn’t it? After I asked you not to.”

I still don’t say anything. I don’t have to.

This man I love. This man I hate. What is his name, what is his name, what is his name? Ted Tom Tim Tod Tyler Taylor Tobias . . .

This man sighs heavily and whispers, “Oh, Nicky. What have you done?”


* * *



WE SMELL IT before we see it. The acrid smoke wafting into the SUV’s ventilation system. I can’t help myself. I reach out my hand. But of course Thomas isn’t here. Instead, I clutch my quilt. And I will myself forcefully to be in this moment.

I must be in this moment.

Because the smell of smoke, the smell of smoke . . .

These poor two officers, I can’t help but think. They haven’t even begun to see crazy yet.

We had been driving steadily since leaving the crash site, sixty, seventy minutes of winding our way along dark ribbons of country roads, Wyatt driving, Kevin checking his phone, me. Now, as the smell intensifies and a dizzying array of lights starts to come into view . . .

Wyatt hits the gas, both men on high alert.

Stay in the moment, I remind myself. No smell of smoke, no heat of fire.

No sound of her screams.

This is now. This is this moment. And tonight, I am merely the audience. The main event happened hours ago.

Thomas handing me the quilt while the officers waited for me downstairs. Telling me I had to take it.

A final gesture of love, because a boyfriend brings you flowers, but a husband of twenty-two years gives you what you need most. The depth of all of our years together. The way we have come to know each other, despite our lies.

Thomas gave me my quilt, pinned with one last item he knew I couldn’t bear to lose: Vero’s photo. The secret I stole from him, then stashed beneath my own mattress. I have felt its shape several times this evening, attached to one edge of the blanket.

A parting gift from a man with too many names to a woman with even more.

The smell of smoke.

Myself, still reaching for my husband’s hand.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Oh, Thomas, I am so sorry.

As my house comes into full view. Already surrounded by fire trucks, flames shooting up everywhere.

“What the hell,” Wyatt begins, jerking to a stop behind the line of emergency vehicles. He twists around from the driver’s seat, eyes me angrily. “Did you know about this?”

I shake my head, only a partial lie.

“I don’t see Thomas’s vehicle . . . Dammit! He did this, didn’t he? Your husband torched your house to cover his tracks, before disappearing into the wind.”

I nod, only a partial lie.

The smell of smoke. The heat of the flames.

The sound of her screams.

I close my eyes. And I think, while I’m still in this moment, that my husband was right. I should’ve let it go. I should’ve tried harder to be happy.

I should’ve told Vero once and for all to please, just leave me alone.

But of course, I did none of those things. Have been capable of none of those things. Now . . .

“What the hell is he so afraid of?” Wyatt thumps the steering wheel.

So I finally tell him the truth. I say: “Me.”





Chapter 21




TESSA COULDN’T SLEEP. Her phone call with Wyatt had left her unsettled, let alone D.D.’s disturbing revelation yesterday at lunch. Now, instead of tucking in for some desperately needed rest, she was mostly lying in bed, feeling the weight of her own silence.

Tessa was highly compartmentalized by nature. She’d never told anyone, not even Wyatt, everything that had happened three years ago. At the time, she’d committed herself to doing whatever it would take to get her daughter back. One thousand ninety-five days later, she didn’t regret those choices.

The discovery of Purcell’s gun, on the other hand. A possible incriminating fingerprint . . . She should do something, most likely. Say something? But all these years later, what? She’d done what she’d done. If three years later some tech in the state police lab managed to prove it, well, not even Wyatt could help her undo those consequences. She would simply have to face the music. While counting on Mrs. Ennis to take care of Sophie.