Текст книги "Crash & Burn"

Автор книги: Lisa Gardner

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

“I get out of the car. I’m trembling. I don’t feel good. Maybe I will throw up. But I like the rain. It drips from my hat brim, dances across my cheeks.

“I go inside the store,” Nicky murmured. She wasn’t looking at them, but staring straight ahead. “I’ll just look around. She might not even be working tonight. I never asked that question. Plus I might not recognize her. It’s been so long, decades, people change, you know. But then . . . What if she recognizes me? I hadn’t even thought of that. Or maybe I have, because I have my cap pulled low. Why bring the hat, if I hadn’t already known I’d want to hide my face?

“I can do this. I walk by the cash registers. The store is very busy. Three lanes open, crowded with people. One cashier is tall, a man. I can see him. The others . . .

“It’s too crowded. I shouldn’t have come. This was stupid. Better to let it be. But I can’t leave. I’m this close. So close. The closest I’ve been in God knows. Then . . . I can’t see her, but I feel her. I know she’s here.”

“Who’s there, Nicky?” Wyatt asked. “Who are you looking for?”

But she shook her head, agitated again. “I’m going to throw up. I think my head is on fire. Oh God, I gotta get out of here. I make it to the bathroom. I turn off the light, close the door. I stand in the pitch-black until finally I can breathe again. I like the dark. I used to hate it once, but since the headaches . . . I find the sink, turn on the cold water. It feels nice against my wrists. I wish I had my quilt. Then I would curl up on the floor. I would stay here.

“Knocking. Someone else wants in. It takes me a moment, but I pull myself together. I open the door. A guy is waiting. He doesn’t say anything. Just moves in as I move out.

“Now what? I don’t want to go home, but I can’t just stand here. I wander. Up and down the aisles. I pretend I’m looking at wine or flavored vodkas, but really, I’m trying to check out the store clerks. Then from the back, I see her.”

“See who, Nicky?”

“That’s her. I know it. I’m staring at the back of her head and even that’s too much. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. If she turns around . . . I panic. I march into the scotch aisle, grab a bottle. You don’t understand; I need it. Fuck the concussion and my stupid headaches. I need this.

“I go straight to the nearest checkout line. It’s her line, but I refuse to think about that. This is normal, nothing special. I’m a customer; she’s a cashier; end of story. Nothing to see here. Then it’s my turn. She’s busy, barely even glances at me. Is it better this way? Do I want her to truly look at me? Do I think . . . Do I think she’d really know?

“She rings up one bottle of Glenlivet. I swipe my card.

“We’re done. Just like that. Thirty seconds or less, and now she’s moved on to the next person. I’m shaking so hard I’m afraid I’ll drop my bottle. I clutch it against my chest like a baby. Then I leave the store. I walk into the parking lot. I climb into my car. And I . . .

“I should call Thomas . . . ,” Nicky whispered. “Tell him what I have done. He’ll be angry but he’ll help me. Poor Thomas, still trying to save me after all these years. I should dump out the scotch, drive home. So many things I should do. Things I know I should do. But I open the bottle instead. The smell. My God, it’s like a long-lost friend. And the second I smell it, of course, I have to take a sip. I don’t understand, I’ve never understood, how something so evil can taste so good.

“I’m bad. I’m weak. But then, I already knew that.”

“What do you do next, Nicky?”

“I sit. I wait. I drink. Eventually, by the time the store empties out and the lights turn off, my limbs are loose, my face is rubbery. I’m not nervous. I’m not shaking. I’m not scared. I’m happy. Is this really the only time I’m happy?

“She comes out. Just like I knew she would. It’s still storming. I can’t see her that well, raincoat pulled over her head. But I recognize her, even though she hadn’t recognized me. No, she’d stood three feet from me, not a flicker of realization on her face. Not even a sense of déjà vu, hey, haven’t I seen you once before? Nothing. Nada. Nope.

“That pisses me off! She should know, dammit! I never forgot her. How dare she forget me!

“Her car. It’s pulling out of the parking space, headed for the road. I don’t know what I’m going to do; I just do it. Jerk my own car into gear, head out after her. I’m not driving great. The night is very dark. My headlights bounce off the raindrops, which makes me dizzy. It’s hard to find the road.

“At least there are no other cars around. I follow her taillights. I don’t know where I’m going or what I will do once I get there, but I can’t stop either. I can’t . . . turn away. I drive. I grip the wheel, I force my eyes to focus and I stay behind her.

“Around and around we go. Along this road, then there. And here, and there and everywhere. A dark and stormy chase. We drive through one town, then another. Then she turns off the main road and now we’re bouncing and heaving along some little side street. It needs to be repaved. I keep hitting the potholes and my stomach heaves.

“Brake lights. She’s slowing before a house, probably going to turn into the driveway. I don’t know what to do. There is no place for me to go, no place for me to hide. I can’t just stop in the middle of the road. I can’t turn in after her; that would be too much. So I . . . hit the gas, pass her right on by, just another driver with places to go and people to see. But then, when I’m far enough way . . . I hit the brakes, loop around.

“I backtrack down the road. The second I see the right house, I kill my lights. The night goes pitch-black. Out this remote, there are no streetlights, not even porch lights glowing from surrounding homes. No, I’m in back-of-the-closet dark. Don’t-make-a-sound dark. One-false-move-and-the-monsters-will-get-you dark.

“But I don’t care.”

“Nicky, where are you?” Wyatt asked carefully. Nicole’s eyes were unfocused again. Staring not at him, but at things only she could see.

“Shhh,” she murmured to him. “I don’t want her to hear; I don’t want her to know. I pull over. Get out of my car. Immediately, I’m soaked. But it’s okay. I creep carefully forward toward the little house. It’s nothing fancy, but I like the color; she’s painted it yellow with white trim. I always liked that shade of yellow. I wonder if she’s happy here. It makes my chest feel funny. I want her to be happy. Right? But maybe it’s not that simple. Maybe I’m jealous. I’m almost at the side window now. Step, step, step.”

“Where are you, Nicky?”

“Vero is learning to fly.”

“Who are you trying to find?”

“Six years old. She is gone. November is the saddest month of the year.”

“Nicky, stay with me, honey. It’s Wednesday night. You’ve been drinking. You followed a woman home from the liquor store. Now you’re standing in the rain outside her home. What do you see?”

“I see the impossible. Vero. All grown up. Sitting on a couch in the family room. I see Vero, back from the dead.”

Chapter 20

WHAT IS HAPPINESS? I feel like I’ve been chasing it my entire adult life. I study it in commercials, watch it on other people’s faces. When Thomas and I first married, he took me on vacation to Mexico. We tried on fake names, invented wilder and wilder character histories. He was a runaway circus clown, I was a burned-out Vegas showgirl. We laughed hard, we drank too much. Then we woke up and did it all over again. I remember lying on a warm, sandy beach after one particularly crazy night, feeling the sun on my closed eyelids and thinking, this must be happiness. I can do this.

Except I woke up screaming, night after night after night. Regardless of the rum. Regardless of my new and improved backstory. Regardless of Thomas’s strong arms around my waist.

Happiness, it turns out, is an acquired skill, and I’ve had problems learning it.

Just be happy, the song says. I tried that, too. Especially all those mornings, waking up to find Thomas studying me so intently. Knowing I must have dreamed again, or maybe shouted out, or hit him. He learned quickly not to touch me once the thrashing started. That in fact, I’m stronger than I look.

Meditation, yoga, juice fasts. It’s amazing how many tricks are out there. I took up painting. Art therapy, because Thomas and I both knew talking to someone was not an option. Those first few years, Thomas was very good about burning the canvases. The images I created, the color palette . . . These were not pictures to hang on your wall.

Fake it till you make it. So I studied photos of flowers and serene landscapes. I dissected petals and leaves and dandelion fluff. I re-created each image on canvas down to the tiniest detail because maybe if I didn’t feel happiness, I could at least copy it. Then it would be mine. I could point to it and say, I made that happiness.

Then November wouldn’t make me cry. And I wouldn’t spend my free time lying with a yellow quilt talking to the skeleton of a little girl covered in maggots.

Maybe happiness is genetic. Maybe it’s something your parents have to gift to you. That would certainly explain a lot.

Or maybe it’s contagious. You have to be exposed to it, to catch it yourself, and given my small, isolated world . . .

I want to be happy. I want to not only see my husband’s warm smile, but feel it in my chest. I want to hold up my face to a clear summer sky and not already notice the clouds on the horizon. I want to sleep, the way I imagine other people sleep, deep and uneventful, and wake up the next morning feeling refreshed.

But I am none of these things. Only a woman twice returned from the dead.

*   *   *

BY THE TIME I’m done talking to the detectives, I’m exhausted. They ask me more questions, but I can’t answer. My eyelids are sagging; I can barely stand without stumbling. You’d think I’d spent the evening drinking, and not just retelling my last drunken misadventure.

Vero.

The name comes and goes from me. I lost her. I found her. I killed her. I know where she lives.

These concepts are too much for me. They overwhelm my battered brain. Each possibility seems more improbable than the last. Vero is my imaginary friend; Thomas told me so. Vero and I sit together and indulge in scotch-laced tea, but only in my concussed head.

Vero is six years old. She is gone. Disappeared.

She never existed.

Except my husband had her picture hidden inside his jacket pocket.

The detectives are trying to help me up the ravine. It’s slow going. My legs don’t want to work; my feet stumble over twigs, sink deeper into the mud.

I remember this ravine, the blood on my hands, the rain on my face. Pushing myself past the pain, forcing my way through the mud and muck, because I had to save Vero. That’s the key to happiness for me, I think. Whether the girl is real or not, it’s my duty to save her. So I keep trying, again and again, because even the worst of us wants to be able to sleep at night.

“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.”

“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.

As for Wyatt . . . They’d been together only six months. And maybe she did love him, and maybe he did love her. But he didn’t need to be connected to a felon. Not good for his professional future, not good for his personal reputation.

Compartmentalization: She couldn’t undo what she’d done, but she could at least limit the collateral damage.

The skill had certainly helped her stand out as a top security specialist. Clients paid dearly for discretion. A good investigator such as Tessa got in, got out, and didn’t ask a lot of questions along the way. Or volunteer information to the local police. Even if she was sleeping with the investigating officer.

Wyatt should’ve known better than to even ask if she had knowledge of Nicky Frank. That wasn’t how her job worked, and he knew it. A Hail Mary pass on his part, plain and simple.

Then again, Nicole Frank had suffered three concussions. As Wyatt had pointed out, she might not even remember she was a Northledge client. In fact, she might not remember what Tessa had called that night to tell her.

Boundaries, she thought again. Their jobs required boundaries.

She required boundaries.

Because D. D. Warren had been right yesterday: Tessa still was a lone wolf. Even after getting her daughter back. Even after falling in love.

Tessa gave up, got out of bed. She padded through the darkened house into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator door, not because she was hungry, but because it was something to do. She pulled out a bottle of orange juice.

When she turned around, Sophie was standing there.

Tessa gasped. Dropped the container. Splattered OJ all over the floor.

“Dammit!”

“Darn it,” Sophie corrected automatically.

“Oh, don’t just stand there. Help me clean it up.”

Sophie yawned, reached for the paper towels. Tessa did the honors of flipping on the overhead lights. It was one thing for her to be alone in the dark, but all these years later Sophie still required light.

“What brings you to the kitchen in the middle of the night?” Tessa asked finally. According to the digital display on the stove, it was 1:22 A.M.

“I heard you.”

“Problems sleeping?”

Sophie shrugged. In other words, no more than usual. She worked at the spill with the sponge. Tessa followed up with damp paper towels.

“Warm milk?” Tessa suggested shortly. “At least I didn’t spill that.”

Sophie smiled; Tessa pulled out the milk.

She warmed it on the stove top, low heat, adding vanilla to taste, an old ritual from the first few months after the incident, when neither she nor Sophie had slept. They’d been a ragged pair of survivors then, barely functioning, each nursing her own scars. They were a curious little family now. Both more comfortable with firing ranges than polite conversation, both still prone to roaming the house at night.

“Do you still miss him?” Sophie asked. She’d taken a seat at the kitchen island, where she could watch Tessa work. Tessa didn’t need an explanation to know who Sophie was asking about. It had been months since they’d last talked about him. But from time to time, Sophie had questions about her stepfather, which Tessa did her best to answer.

“Brian? Sometimes.”

“I don’t remember him much.”

“He loved you.”

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“But he was sick. A gambling addict. He hurt us.”

Tessa stirred the milk carefully, then glanced up at her daughter. “Why do you ask about him, Sophie? What’s keeping you awake tonight?”

“I don’t know.” Sophie looked away. “I like our family,” she said abruptly. “You, me, Mrs. Ennis. It’s perfect.”

“Even without a dog?”

Sophie flashed a faint smile. “But that’s kinda the point, I guess. Families change. Once we were three. Then we were two. Then we became three again. And now . . .” She glanced up at Tessa. “You like him, don’t you? Wyatt’s not just a stupid fling—”

“Sophie!”

“He’s going to become our fourth. Do you love him?”

“Well, there’s the question of the day,” Tessa murmured.

“Do you?” Sophie demanded.

She was always honest with her daughter: “Yeah. I do.”

“So that’s it. He’ll move in. I’ll have to call him Daddy.”

“You don’t have to do anything. And I don’t know about this moving-in thing. One step at a time.”

Sophie’s turn to look curious. “Why not? If you love him.”

Because I’m afraid, Tessa wanted to say. Because happily ever after never looks the way you think it will from the movies. Maybe it’s not an ending at all, but the beginning of the next terrible misadventure. The future is unreliable, and three years later, the past can still come back to haunt you.

“Relationships take time,” Tessa said at last.

Her daughter nodded but didn’t appear convinced.

“Sophie,” Tessa said at last, leaning her hip against the counter. “What are you most afraid of?” She thought given the mood of the evening, it was a good question for both of them.

“The dark,” her daughter said immediately.

“I mean with Wyatt. Do you think he’ll hurt us? Do you think he’s a bad man?”

“No.”

“Do you like him?”

“I like the cop stuff,” Sophie said at last.

“I like that he’s honest,” Tessa supplied. “He says what he’s going to do, and he does what he says. A man of his word—that’s how people describe him. You know, he thinks we should get a puppy.”

“I think we should get a puppy!” Sophie sat up straighter.

“It’s a lot of work. Especially for Mrs. Ennis. You and I aren’t even home most of the day.”

“I’ll help. I’ll help first thing in the morning, and I’ll help again at night. The puppy can sleep in my room; then I can help even more.”

“I asked Mrs. Ennis about it,” Tessa said, a dog being a potential source of comfort and security for Sophie. And, say, something that would still be there for Sophie, even if Tessa had to leave for a bit. “She wasn’t dramatically opposed. Maybe it would be a nice first step. We could all pick out a puppy together.”

“Including Wyatt?” Faint scowl threatening.

“It was his idea.”

“I guess.”

“Do you plan on hating him forever?” Tessa asked curiously.

“I don’t know. I guess he’s nice enough. And a puppy is good. I’ll have to wait and see.”

“Fair enough.”

Tessa thought that would be it. Sophie would finish her warm milk. They’d both go to bed. But instead, her daughter once more grew serious.

“What are you afraid of, Mommy?”

Tessa had to smile. Other than a recently recovered firearm and a single latent print . . .

Tessa set down her mug. She regarded her daughter as soberly as Sophie regarded her. “There’s an old saying,” she began, “the only thing there is to fear, is fear itself.”

“That’s stupid! There are plenty of things to fear.”

“I know, Sophie. You and I both know. And I guess that’s what scares me. We spend so much time, you and I, preparing for the worst, I worry we’ll miss out on the best. I’ll meet a good guy like Wyatt. You’ll get a perfect puppy. And yet . . . we’ll still be waiting for the next bad thing to happen. That’s not a great way to live, you know. We need to not just see the good, but trust in it a little more. Learn some faith.”

Stop being a lone wolf, she supposed. Talk a little more. Let go of the boundaries. And yet some habits were hard to break.

“That’s why I should get a puppy,” Sophie was saying. “A puppy will definitely help me learn trust.”

“As well as how to scoop poop.”

“Mom!”

Tessa smiled, ruffled her daughter’s hair.

“Thank you for the warm milk, Mom,” Sophie said.

“Thank you for the company.”

*   *   *

TESSA CLEARED THEIR mugs. She walked Sophie back to her room, tucked her daughter into bed.

Then it was back to her room, where she lay in bed and once more stared at the ceiling.

For all of her wise words to Sophie, the truth was, the next bad thing did loom on the horizon. Three years ago, she’d shot a man. It was not an act she regretted. Though she was sorry the police now had that gun.

And she remained a woman who struggled with trust. Because why not simply tell Wyatt what was going on? Why not show some faith in a man who’d never been anything but honest with her?

Funny, the things that scared a woman like her. Enter a room full of hostile gunmen, check. Talk openly and honestly to the man she loved . . . maybe later.

There was one thing she knew she should do, however, first thing in the morning. She would reach out to Nicole Frank, Wyatt’s DWI suspect, and see how the woman was doing. Because Tessa knew something even if Nicole didn’t remember it.

The past was never completely the past.

It had a way of catching up with you. Especially a past filled with as many sins as Tessa’s.

Or with as many secrets as Nicole Frank’s.