Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(80)

“But I don’t think I can continue being this sad anymore. I need to change. Except to change, I need answers. Why is November so bad? Why do I spend my afternoons talking to a ghost girl in my head? Thomas knows how to live. I . . . don’t. So I asked to move here—”

“You asked,” Wyatt interjected sharply.

“Yes.”

“Thomas didn’t refuse.”

“He suggested Vermont. But I kept at it and eventually he caved. Then once I was here . . . I felt closer. Marlene’s post office box had been New Hampshire. Now we were in the same state. Except it wasn’t quite enough. I wanted to see her, just . . . look. So I hired Northledge. Then Wednesday night . . .”

Nicky’s voice trailed off. “Looking in the window, seeing Vero. My head exploded. So much bright light. Flames. I saw flames everywhere. Vero learned to fly. I wanted to run into the house. I wanted to hold her so badly. Tell her over and over again that I was sorry. She mustn’t hate me. I didn’t mean . . . Except she wasn’t Vero, right? Couldn’t be Vero. I was crying too hard to function. No cell reception, so I made my way to a pay phone and called Thomas.”

“He came to you.”

“He told me where to meet him. Right after that gas station. Bend in the road. Pull over there.”

“You went to meet your husband. Were you wearing gloves, Nicky?”

She shook her head. “No, I was driving, focusing hard. My head, the alcohol. I had to concentrate to stay on the road.”

“When you got to the meeting spot, Thomas was waiting for you. Was he carrying a shovel?”

Nicky closed her eyes, seemed to be trying to think. “No.”

“Gloves?”

“He . . . he handed me gloves. Told me to put them on. ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked. ‘Do you trust me?’”

Nicky opened her eyes. She peered up at Wyatt. “I said, ‘Yes.’”

“Then what?”

“Then . . . he . . . he disappeared. And I was flying through the air. And I died again. A woman twice returned from the dead.”


* * *



WYATT KEPT ON her. He made her walk over to the gloves, examine the shovel. Revisit each photo of her stops that night.

“Is she . . . is she okay?” she asked, looking at the picture of Hannah Veigh Bilek, who, frankly, with her long dark hair and light-blue eyes, looked exactly like Nicky’s younger sister. “Nothing happened to them, right? I mean, there’s blood on the gloves. But I know I didn’t. And Thomas . . . He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Right?”

“Sounds like you have doubts.”

“He’s a good man,” she said, but the words sounded more automatic than convincing.

“Where is he, Nicky?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he love you?”

“He’s never left me.”

“Not even now? Burned your house, disappeared into the wind.”

She hesitated. It occurred to Wyatt immediately what she couldn’t say. Thomas wasn’t gone. At least Nicky didn’t think so. Even now, he was around, somewhere local, waiting for her. Such was the power of their bond.

A husband who most likely engineered her auto accident and burned down their home. And yet still, in her heart of all hearts, Nicky knew he loved her.

One of those kinds of relationships, Wyatt thought. Cops saw them all the time. Yet he remained troubled.

He made her review the night, over and over, but he couldn’t get her to crack. She’d worn the gloves. Maybe the blood was her own, from the accident, all that glass everywhere, hence the shredded remains. She had a vague recollection of taking them off, shoving them in her back pocket. They were too awkward to wear and she didn’t want to litter. The shovel was a mystery to her. She didn’t know why Thomas had it.

And, yes, she’d followed Marlene Bilek. She had wanted to speak to her, but she’d lost her courage. Wanting to change wasn’t the same as changing. Trying to remember your past wasn’t the same as being able to confront it.

Finally, Kevin led her away for fingerprinting. While technically they had Veronica Sellers’s prints on file, they were thirty years old. Wyatt, not to mention the evidence techs, would prefer a fresher, cleaner set for use when comparing her prints against others collected from the shovel, gloves, et cetera.

After Nicky and Kevin left, Wyatt and Tessa took a minute to catch their breath. He pulled out the chair next to her, swiping a hand through his already mussed-up hair. God, he could use a shower. Not to mention a nap.

“Get any sleep?” she asked him.

“No more than you.”

“Then you must be very tired.”

He grimaced. “Sorry to pull you away from Sophie for the weekend.”

“Not the first time. I mentioned the puppy to her. I believe you had her at hello.”

“I get to help pick it out?”

“I hope so.”

She was smiling softly, saying the right things. And yet he felt it again. That something was off. A shadow in her eyes that didn’t quite match the curve of her lips. Maybe he was simply too tired. Or maybe that was the problem with dating a woman like Tessa. She would always be a bit of a mystery to him.

“Sophie doing okay?” he asked now.