Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(78)

For the upcoming interrogation, he’d commandeered the conference room. He and Kevin had hung a map of the North Country on one wall. They had blown up photos of the liquor store, the gas station, an outside shot of Marlene Bilek’s home, and the crash, which they placed at key points around the atlas. He had odometer readings. And last, but not least, he had laid out on a table one recently purchased collapsible shovel and one pair of bloody gloves.

The gloves fascinated Kevin. He’d spent a solid hour meticulously uncurling them, careful not to further damage the shredded material. They were thicker than traditional latex gloves, he reported, but thinner than rubber garden gloves. He’d done a presumptive test on a carefully scraped sample of the dried brown substance, which had been positive for human blood. Yet another i dotted, t crossed—don’t try to tell me you wore these gloves to bury Fido or tend to an injured deer. We know this is human blood, now start talking.

The sheriff had been right; no more messing around. Wyatt wanted answers and he wanted them now.

Because, yeah, he’d made his call to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and they were very excited to learn of Veronica Sellers’s recovery. Definitely fly-to-New-Hampshire, take-over-the-case kind of excited.

Four in the afternoon, going on thirty-six hours without sleep, Wyatt figured he had one chance to get this right. He didn’t plan on screwing it up.

He glanced through the window. Spotted Tessa pulling into the parking lot. He motioned to Kevin to wrap things up; then both took their positions.

When Nicky Frank aka Veronica Sellers walked into the room, Wyatt’s first thought was that she looked better than she had seven hours ago. Sure her face was still a pale canvas overlaid with a patchwork of black stitches, purple bruises and brown lacerations, but she had her chin up, blue eyes clearer. She carried herself stronger. A woman with a purpose. Looked like she’d made some resolutions of her own while she was away.

Coming in behind her, Tessa was her normal shuttered, efficient self. She didn’t so much as glance at Wyatt, but helped usher Nicky into a hard plastic chair. Rather than sit beside her, Tessa took up position a few seats away. A neutral party, trying to keep her distance from the fray.

Wyatt noticed for the first time that Tessa was carrying a sketch pad. She set it on the table in front of her. Her gaze, like Nicky’s, went to Wyatt, then waited.

He cleared his throat, suddenly nervous and resenting it.

“Thanks for coming,” he started out. He kept seated, determined to remain relaxed. “As Tessa most likely explained, we have some more questions for you.”

“We’ve been busy, too,” Nicky started out. “Tessa came up with this candle trick. She burns a familiar scent and I draw pictures from the dollhouse. I’ve been able to remember half a dozen rooms—”

Wyatt held up a hand. “No.”

Nicky sputtered, stared at him. “No?”

“I’m not interested in the dollhouse.”

“You’re not interested? You don’t care what happened thirty years ago?”

“No. I care about Wednesday night. You wanna make up stories about what happened thirty years ago, be my guest. Tell fanciful tales about madams and kidnapped girls and evil roommates, have at it. I can’t solve thirty years ago, Nicky. Hell, I’m beginning to think the whole thing is just one more wild-goose chase, like getting us to search for Vero on Thursday morning. You have issues. We know you have issues, and still we took your bait. Not anymore. We’re talking Wednesday night. Every hour, every minute, every second, and we’re starting with a pair of bloody gloves, recovered from the pants pockets of the jeans you were wearing Wednesday night. What did you do, Nicky? And why did it require a shovel?”


* * *



HE’D DEFINITELY CAUGHT her off guard. She appeared genuinely baffled, her mouth opening, then closing. A fish struggling for oxygen. A liar fresh out of excuses. Wyatt made no move to fill the silence. Neither did Kevin.

Even Tessa sat quietly. She’d been through such rodeos before, and while she was Nicky’s hired investigator, she wasn’t legal counsel and she knew it.

“Gloves?” Nicky whispered at last.

Wyatt rose to standing. He didn’t move immediately to the gloves or the shovel; better to keep her off-kilter. Instead, he moved to an oversize map of New Hampshire, where he and Kevin had done their best to resurrect her drive on Wednesday night, based on a conversation with Marlene Bilek and Nicky’s odometer reading.

“You drove to the New Hampshire state liquor store Wednesday night. You had a call from Northledge. From Tessa Leoni.”

He glanced at Tessa. She provided a curt nod.

“She informed you of the employment information for Marlene Bilek, your long-lost mother, whom you’d hired Northledge to locate.”

“I wasn’t planning on bothering her,” Nicky said immediately. Her eyes were glued on the map. She already appeared stressed. “I just wanted . . . I wanted to know.”

“You bought the yellow quilt from her,” Wyatt said, a statement, not a question.

“I Googled her name on and off over the years. But she’d remarried; her last name is different. Then I found an old posting, showing the marriage photo with both their names in the caption. So I searched again with last name Bilek. And . . . and I found her. In New Hampshire. She sold quilts online. I bought one.”