Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(63)

One of the only photos her mother had, I know without asking. Shot with a Polaroid after they’d baked cookies. Her mother had been in a curiously good mood all afternoon. Picked up the camera, said, ‘Hey, sweetie, smile!’ Vero had giggled at the unexpected attention, then marveled at the developing process.

Right before footsteps started down the hall.

VERONICA SELLERS. AGE 6. LONG BROWN HAIR. LIGHT BLUE EYES. LAST SEEN IN A PARK IN BOSTON.

I turn to the next page. Three photos now. The first from the missing persons poster, then a second, age-progressed to ten years. Features crisper, more defined. But still the big smile, the light in her eyes.

No, I want to tell them. They have it wrong. Vero never smiled at ten. Her eyes had not looked like that at all. By ten, she’d been a hardened pro.

A third and final photo. Age-progressed to sixteen. Nothing more, because finding a missing child that many years later was already a long shot. But someone, a case worker, a computer technician, had made this effort.

She looks beautiful at sixteen. Brown hair softer, waving around sculpted cheekbones, a smattering of freckles across her nose. Wholesome. The girl from down the street. The teenager you’d hire to watch your kids.

I touch this photo, too. I think of pouring rain and the smell of dank earth and the weight of it against my chest. I remember the feel of the dead.

VERONICA SELLERS. AGE 6. LONG BROWN HAIR. LIGHT BLUE EYES. LAST SEEN IN A PARK IN BOSTON.

“Do you recognize these photos?” Wyatt asks me.

I can’t answer. Confronted by the evidence, I still can’t state the obvious.

Eventually, Wyatt does it for me.

“You’re the girl in these photos, Nicky. The fingerprints recovered from your car prove it. Your name isn’t Nicole Frank. You are Veronica Sellers and you’ve been missing for over thirty years.”


* * *



THE DETECTIVES HAVE questions for me. The FBI will want to speak to me, too, Wyatt says. I’m not sure if this is a warning or a threat. Better to speak now, in the company of “friends”? Or wait for the swarm of suits, endless streams of strangers who will demand to hear my story again and again, all while claiming to have my best interests at heart?

Kevin has taken a seat. Again they ask me if I need anything. Food, snack, another bottle of water?

I think a bottle of Glenlivet would do nicely. But mostly, I hold my quilt on my lap. I concentrate on the soft feel of the fabric beneath my fingerprints. I wonder what she will say when she finally hears the news.

Happy, happy, joy, joy? Or thirty years later, is it too late to welcome your dead child home again?

“Do you remember the name Veronica?” Wyatt asks me, after I refuse all their requests, after I sit there, still doing nothing, because what is there for me to do?

I shake my head.

“When was the last time you used that name?”

“Vero is six years old,” I whisper. “She is gone. She disappears.”

“From the park,” Wyatt provides.

“An older girl invites her to play dolls. Vero knows better. Her mom has told her not to talk to strangers. But the older girl seems nice, and Vero is lonely. She would like to play with dolls. She would like to have a friend.”

The detectives exchange glances.

“What happened to Vero next?” Wyatt asks.

“A woman appears. Her blond hair is pulled back; she wears such pretty clothes. Much nicer than anything Vero’s mom can afford. She is holding a needle. Then she jabs it in Vero’s arm, while she stands there, still waiting to see the dolls. And that is that. The older girl is a recruiter. And now Vero is recruited.”

“This woman and the girl, they kidnap Vero?”

“They drive her away in the car.”

“And no one sees,” Wyatt mutters, but he speaks this to Kevin. Information they must have from the original case file, because Vero has no way of knowing this. From the first instant the needle pricks her skin, Vero is gone. She disappears.

“Where do the woman and the girl take Vero?” Wyatt asks.

“Vero moves to a dollhouse. Deep red walls, beautiful stained-glass windows, floral carpets. She gets her very own tower bedroom with a rose mural climbing up the wall. She cries at first, when the woman leads her inside, then turns and locks the door. But of course the room is the prettiest she’s ever seen. A bed that is all hers, surrounded by yards of gauze. A wooden table already set with a real china tea set, and surrounded by four chairs filled with a stuffed bear, several dolls. Even the carpet is soft and fluffy. Vero wonders if she’s been adopted by her fairy godparents. They’ve come to take her away, and while she wished they hadn’t sent a woman with a needle, she likes this room. She likes this house. Maybe, if she prays really hard, she and her mom can stay here.”

“Does Vero’s mom arrive?”

“No. The first woman returns. Dressed all in black now, frosted hair upswept, fat pearls around her neck. She’s beautiful but scary. Like a china doll you can look at, but never touch. She tells Vero that Vero is their new guest. Her name will now be Holly. She will wear dresses at all times. She will do as she’s told. She will speak only when spoken to. Then the woman gives Vero a new dress. Flounces of pink silk. Vero . . . Holly? . . . likes the dress. She thinks it’s very pretty. But she’s nervous. She doesn’t know what to do, so she doesn’t move.