Crash & Burn (32 page)

T
HEY
STRUCK
OUT
on the green Subaru. Kevin was able to trace the partial license plate to a vehicle that had been listed as stolen the day before. Being an older model, it didn't carry such modern-day amenities as GPS for tracking, and they had no hits on sightings of the vehicle.

Two
A
.
M
.
, Wyatt sat back in frustration, scrubbing his face with the palm of his hand. “We're still reacting. Thomas runs, we give chase. Nicky taunts us with half a puzzle, we batter our brains trying to deduce the missing pieces. Just once, I'd like to be ahead in this game.”

“As in knowing where Nicky and Thomas went?” Tessa asked him.

“Oh, I know where they went. Can't find it on a map, of course, but I know where they went.”

“The dollhouse.”

“Who's in the second vehicle?” he barked impatiently. They were still in the back hotel office, surrounded by the security video they'd watched again and again. Wyatt had sent Brittany out of the room, ostensibly because they no longer required her assistance, but mostly because it was never good to appear stuck in front of an adoring member of the public. “What the hell happened way back when, what the hell is going on now and who did we miss? Because if Nicky is with Thomas, and according to my deputy, Marlene Bilek was returned safely home three hours ago, who's left to follow our favorite two suspects in a separate vehicle?”

They'd tried zooming in on the security footage of the second
car, but that vehicle had stuck to the dimly lit edges of the parking lot. They had a recording of a small, dark compact. Not even a blur of the driver's face, let alone something truly helpful, such as a glimpse of the license plate. “Madame Sade?” Tessa guessed now.

Wyatt nearly growled in frustration. He'd gone almost forty-eight hours without sleep. Combined with a sense of his own stupidity, the night was wearing on him.

He picked up Tessa's sketch of the woman, held it up. “We take this picture to the press, we gotta tell them why.”

“Police have some questions for her regarding the disappearance of a child thirty years ago,” Tessa provided immediately. “Don't call her a suspect, but imply she's a witness. People feel better about ratting out their neighbors when it won't get them in trouble.”

“Excellent plan for the morning news cycle. Problem is, we need answers now, and press conferences don't work well at two
A
.
M
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Mostly because the target audience is asleep.”

“Maybe you should take a nap,” Tessa informed him.

He nearly growled again. “I want the dollhouse. Thomas, Nicky, our answers. All at the dollhouse.”

“We have that sketch.”

“Fed it to local Realtors this afternoon. No hits. Kevin ran specs through a New Hampshire property tax database, too many hits. Historic homes, even grand old Victorians, are lousy in these hills.”

“What about Marlene's hubby?” Tessa asked now. “If Marlene's safe at home, what about him, because I bet he has opinions about a long-lost daughter appearing from the dead.”

“Except Nicky's not Vero. No threat to him or the new family order.”

Tessa frowned, plopped down in the office chair across from Wyatt.

“Nicky and Thomas are both connected to the dollhouse,” Tessa stated. “We can't prove it, but that makes the most sense.”

“Agreed.”

“Meaning their relationship didn't start in New Orleans, but here. Meaning both of them most likely know things about a former brothel that plenty of people wouldn't want known.”

“Agree times three,” Wyatt assured her. “Unfortunately, it leads us back to the same conundrum. Dollhouse holds the key. Except we can't find the dollhouse.”

“Track down Nicky-slash-Chelsea's real identity?” Tessa asked him.

“No hits off her fingerprints as of yet. Assuming Chelsea is a runaway or was sold to Madame Sade, it's possible her prints aren't in the system at all, meaning we may never get that answer.”

“Thomas Frank's real identity?”

“No prints to run. The fire destroyed such evidence from his home. Latent prints attempted to work his car, hotel room, et cetera, but recovered nothing usable. Guy's either that lucky or that good. You can guess my vote.” Wyatt expelled heavily, wrapped his knuckles against the top of the office desk. “Case is starting to piss me off.”

“Not your fault,” Tessa said mildly. “You started with a single-car accident. Who would've guessed it would lead to an old child abduction case and Victorian brothel?”

“November is the saddest month,” he muttered. Then paused. Repeated the phrase out loud: “November is the saddest month.
That's when Nicky escaped. Must've been. November. The saddest month. When she had to kill Vero in order to save herself.”

“Okay . . .”

He looked up at Tessa, feeling the first traces of excitement. “That's a variable. We're not just looking twenty-two years ago. We're looking for something that happened in November twenty-two years ago.”

“Would Madame Sade have filed a missing persons report?” Tessa asked. “I mean, if she was pretending they were family, or even needed to keep up pretenses with the neighbors after her teenage ‘daughter' disappeared . . .”

“I doubt she'd want the police on her property, especially given another girl had just died.” Wyatt paused, reconsidered the matter. “That's a good question, though. One night in November, two girls from the same home vanish. One dies; one ostensibly runs away.”

“Maybe three kids disappeared,” Tessa prodded. “What about Thomas? Assuming he was part of it, maybe he bolted with Nicky.”

They regarded each other thoughtfully.

“Madame Sade would have to smooth it over somehow,” Wyatt mused. “Explain the new world order to her neighbors, maybe even local authorities. Otherwise people would get suspicious.”

“She could declare them runaways.”

“Three kids. From the same house.” Wyatt gave her a look. “Speaking as a former officer, wouldn't you definitely check that out?”

“Definitely.”

“But no one did.” He said it with more certainty now. “Because if she had filed a report, D.D. would've run across it as part of her search, right? She just explored all missing-kids cases from the past thirty years. No way three teenagers from New Hampshire wouldn't have made her radar screen. It's too odd a case not to call attention.”

Tessa picked up his train of thought. “Madame Sade never said a word. Maybe the situation spooked her. I mean, first she thinks Vero is dead and buried in the woods. Except, of course, eventually she must've figured out it wasn't Vero's body that was carried out, but the roommate's instead. Now she has at least one missing girl, not to mention one dead girl. Maybe that was too much. She bolted herself. Makes some sense.”

Wyatt agreed. Given the intensity of that night, the fear and uncertainty for all concerned, it made sense the madam might have panicked and shut down operations. It came to him, the new variable to search: “What about the house? Girls are gone, owner has bolted, what happens to the house?”

“Depends on if the owner continues to pay mortgage, property taxes, that sort of thing.”

Wyatt raised a brow. “If you were running from past sins, would you continue to mail in your property taxes?” He sat up straight, tapped the desk top. “That's our search requirement. Tax lien. On a historic Victorian, going back to November, twenty-two years ago. Why not?”

“I'm on it.”

“You're on it?”

“Sure.” Tessa was already digging out her computer. “What do you think us private investigators do? Death and taxes. Only two things no one can avoid, making them the best source of records.”

Her fingers started humming across the keyboard. Wyatt watched her work without asking any more questions. His job was biased toward search warrants. He didn't want to know about hers.

“Most towns give you at least a year before they get too antsy,” Tessa informed him now. “Costs money to file a lien, so they opt for mailing out overdue notices for a bit. Not having an exact town
makes it harder, of course, which is why search engines are worth their weight in gold . . .” She tapped more, frowned, tapped more. “I got homes, all right. Old homes, rich homes, valuable homes. But I'm not seeing any Victorians. Okay, let's try twenty years ago. Nineteen. Eighteen.”

Fingers still tapping, face still frowning. “Shit.” Tessa paused, glanced up. “I'm not seeing anything. And yet . . . we have to be on to something. November, twenty-two years ago, Vero dies, Nicky disappears, maybe even a young man named Thomas takes off. It had to have affected operations at the dollhouse. It had to have sparked some sort of reaction by Madame Sade.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Search that. November, twenty-two years ago, historic Victorian. What the hell. Someone had to be called out for something, maybe even a report of a runaway?”

Tessa, typing away again. “Holy . . . No way. You've got to be kidding me!”

“What?” Wyatt was up, out of his chair, leaning over her shoulder in the cramped space. She gestured to her screen and he got it. Headline article. Not of a missing teen or a dead girl.

But a fire.

A hundred-year-old Victorian, one of the last grand summer cottages in the area, burning to the ground. November. Twenty-two years ago. With an unidentified body pulled from the smoldering ruins.

“The dollhouse,” Tessa murmured. “Gotta be.”

“You know what this means, don't you?”

“We're heading forty miles north.”

Wyatt already had his keys in his hand. “Absolutely, but that's not what I meant. Thomas. A husband who burned down his own home two nights ago. A man clearly experienced with gas cans.”

She got it. “He was definitely at the dollhouse all those years
ago. He's the one who burned it to the ground.” Tessa hesitated. “And now he's taking Nicky back there? But if it's gone, totally demolished, what's left for them?”

“I don't know. But I have a feeling for Nicky's own sake, she'd better start remembering.”

B
Y
THE
TIME
the car crests the washed-out drive, my stomach is heaving and my head is on fire. Motion sickness, I try to tell myself. But of course it's more than that. It's dread and nerves and sadness and fear. It's every dark emotion rolled into one, and my hands are shaking so badly, I can't open the car door. I fumble with the latch again and again.

I swear I smell smoke, though I know that's impossible. And I'm terrified that the moment I step out of the car, it will start to rain. I don't think I could handle that. I don't think I can handle this.

Thomas climbs out of the driver's side. He fiddles for a minute with the rear passenger door, extracting something from the backseat. When I don't immediately exit the vehicle, he comes around to assist me. I have to hold his arm to stand. I don't look up, can't bring myself to see his face. Instead, I keep my gaze on the sleeve of my husband's coat; I am shaking uncontrollably.

I can feel them already. The shadows in the back of my mind. Slippery shapes and chilling whispers that scare me even more than Vero. I would have her back, grinning skull and all.

But she is quiet now. She gave me her best advice and I ignored it.

Or maybe, faced with this place once again, she is also too terrified to talk.

For just one moment, I wish love really did heal all wounds. I wish Thomas's genuine care and nurturing had been enough to heal me. Somehow, he'd found the ability to move forward.

But I never have. He's right; I was losing my mind even before I suffered three blows to the head.

Thomas takes the first step, my hand tucked beneath his arm. Slowly, I force myself to follow. I realize for the first time that he's holding something in his left hand. A shovel, which he'd pulled from the backseat. Thomas is carrying a shovel.

I don't speak. I march with this man who is my husband. It occurs to me we never had a formal wedding, never walked side by side down church steps, officially pronounced man and wife.

But now we have this.

A man. His wife. And our shared secret.

These grounds had been beautiful once. In the back of my mind, I know this. I could see the rolling green lawn from the house, especially from the tower bedroom, which had offered a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree view. I'd spent hours alone, gazing at the vast grounds in back, not to mention a sweeping circular drive in the front, punctuated by a gurgling fountain. Rosebushes in the summer, mounds of rust-colored autumn sedum in the fall. The carriage house had stood to the left, already converted by that time to a three-bay garage. Another outbuilding had been slightly behind it. Caretaker's cottage, or maybe a playhouse for the privileged kids of the family who'd first built the home a hundred years ago.

I used to picture a boy and girl, bouncing blond curls, a stiff blue playsuit for him, a flouncy pink dress for her, as they chased an old-fashioned leather ball across the lawn. There was a pond in the back as well, a swimming hole for those hot summer days.

I never walked to it. Never stuck a toe in the stagnant water. I simply watched the rippling green surface from the third-story window, trying to imagine the family who had once built this summer
home. Wondering what they'd think if they'd lived to see what it had become.

Thomas has a flashlight. He lets go of my arm to illuminate the circular drive, but it's gone, nothing but more weeds and brambles. He searches for the center fountain next, but it's either collapsed or lost under more vegetative growth.

The wilderness likes to take back its own. In this case, it really should.

“What do you remember?” Thomas asks me quietly. We push forward, following the narrow path that's all that's left of the drive.

“When I first got out of the car . . .”

It's April, the sun is setting, I'm already feeling the chill. I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm scared. But I don't let these things show. Game face, fighting to be brave. Until I step out of the vehicle. Look up and see . . .

“It was beautiful,” I whisper. “Like something out of a fairy tale. Especially for a city girl like me. I only knew cramped apartments, tenement housing. Then to come here, see this.”

“It was already falling into disrepair,” Thomas says. His voice is apologetic. He hefts the shovel in his left hand. “After my father's death, there wasn't enough money for upkeep. Even after my mother's . . . business idea . . . the house was never the same. I used to wonder. Maybe homes have souls. It's not enough to paint and repair. You have to refresh them. Love, laughter, life. I don't know. But after my father died, what my mom did to this house, in this house . . . I don't think it was ever the same.”

We move deeper through the vegetation.

Once, there was a beautiful wraparound front porch. White-painted rails, gingerbread trim. If I close my eyes, I can still see it in my mind. But when I open them again, follow the beam of Thomas's flashlight, I'm startled to see nothing is as large as I remember.
The porch is gone, of course. The house as well. All that remains is the foundation, a pile of enormous granite blocks such as the type favored back in the day . . .

Thomas was skilled only with fire. To destroy this foundation would've taken dynamite.

“When my mother first brought you home,” he says now, “she claimed you were a new foster child. That was her big scheme after my father's death. We had a large house, so many empty rooms. She'd decided to take in foster kids. For the money, of course. She was never one to pretend to care.”

“A car came to our building,” I tell him now. “My mom told me to get in. Do whatever the woman said. It wasn't the first time.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I didn't expect to be taken away. Yet, when I first saw this place . . . It was so much nicer than anyplace I'd ever been. Better food, too.”

“In the beginning, I believed her,” Thomas said. “It made sense. State pays for foster kids and I knew we needed cash. It was all my mother talked about. My good-for-nothing father who'd promised her this and promised her that but had proved to be nothing but a loser who'd then gone and dropped dead . . .”

Thomas looks at me; his face is hard to read in the dark, but when he speaks next, his tone is flat, frank. “I hated her. Surely you must know that. She did this, all of this, purely out of greed. Because she was owed a life of luxury. When my father failed her, well, this was the next logical step. She took in ‘foster kids,' all of whom were young, pretty girls. Then she started throwing lavish parties. Getting to know the neighbors, she told me. I was so young myself, it took me years to realize the party guests were only older, wealthy men. And none of them went home after dinner.”

We are close enough now to climb onto the first enormous granite block. I don't want to peer down into the pit of what used to be
the home's cellar, but I can't help myself. I swear I can smell smoke again, but any charred remains of wood are long gone. I see only thick green vegetation, vines and weeds that have overgrown the bones of this once grand house.

Heat, I think. If I close my eyes, I will feel it again on my cheeks.

I will hear her screams.

I backpedal sharply, slipping off the granite slab. Thomas reaches for me, but is too late. I go down hard, banging my shin against the hard rectangular slab. Blood. Pain.

Smoke. Fire.

Screams.

I can't help myself. I reach up my hand. I beg, I implore.

“Save her. For the love of God. Please!”

Thomas doesn't move. His face is set in a grim line as he stands there, flashlight in one hand, shovel in the other. He knows. What I'm asking. What I'm finally remembering.

But whereas I am crying, his eyes remain dry.

“I'm sorry,” he says, but I'm not sure what he means. For what happened then, or for what must happen now.

“The first two girls who arrived,” he tells me, stepping off the granite slab, “were older. Fifteen, sixteen. I was maybe five? I didn't think much of it. Mother said they had no families. We would host them. So we did.

“Looking back now, I think it started with them. Maybe they already were prostitutes. Or simply girls who came from . . . situations.” He glances at me. “My father might not have been the breadwinner my mother desired, but he still came from a long line of people who knew people. My mother mined those connections. Small, intimate dinners at first, inviting the neighbors, family acquaintances. Mother kept things simple. Cocktail hours, small cookouts to show off the house, introduce her new ‘daughters.'

“Maybe she was trying to reposition herself, us, in the
community, but I think from the very beginning she had a plan. She knew what older, bored, wealthy men really wanted. So she started with a couples event, then later, the husbands might ‘drop by,' to see if my mother needed any help, maybe stay for a few hours. I didn't understand the full implications, but I still noted the new patterns. More and more male visitors. Two ‘foster daughters' who spent most of their time giving male guests tours of the house, including long stays in their bedrooms. I don't even remember their names anymore, but those first two girls, that's when it all started.”

I have pictures in my head. A middle-aged woman in elegant linen trousers escorting me out of her car. Leading me through a tired but obviously once grand home. Taking me up a long flight of stairs in the south-facing turret.

This will be your room.
The tower bedroom.
You can make yourself comfortable. I'll bring you clothes.

She closed the door. Was it locked? I'm not even sure anymore. Maybe, in the beginning. But it hardly mattered. Living out here, stuck in a mansion perched on a mountainside, thirty, forty miles from civilization. Where would I have gone? Where could any of us have run?

Madame Sade had not relied on armed guards or overt controls. She had a cold smile and indomitable will that served her just as well.

I look up now. I can't see it, but I feel like I should know where it is, the three-story, wood-shingled turret, rising against the night sky.

“I loved that room,” I whisper.

“I spotted you in the window,” Thomas says. “You were ten years old, the first young girl she brought—”

“Bought,” I say bitterly.

He doesn't correct me. “Close to my age. I'd been out in the yard, mowing, because everyone, even me, had to earn their keep. I
looked up. Saw your face pressed against the glass. Your expression was so serious. Then you held up your hand, as if reaching out to me . . .

“And I . . . I don't know how to explain it. I was only twelve myself, but I took one look at you and I was struck. I wanted to talk to you, become your friend. I wanted to
know
you, even though it wasn't allowed. The rules had already been established. Foster kids were separate. Mother managed you. Guests visited you. I, on the other hand, was never to mingle.”

“You waved at me.” For a moment, I'm ten again. Lonely and overwhelmed by this fancy house and well-dressed woman who already terrifies me. I'm in the prettiest bedroom I've ever seen, in an honest-to-goodness princess tower, but I already know nothing in life is free. This room will cost me. This house will cost me.

Then I look down. I see the boy. A flash of smile. A quick wave. He quickly tucks his hand behind his back, glancing around self-consciously. But I don't put my hand down. I keep it pressed against the window. I imagine, just for one moment, that I'm standing on the lawn with him. He's still smiling at me and I'm not so scared or lonely anymore.

Thomas was right: We hadn't been allowed to mingle or interact. But in his own way, he had become my lifeline, a point of interest in an otherwise monotonous existence of sitting in a gilded cage, waiting for nightfall. Madame Sade called the shots: First she isolated us in this mansion; then she extolled her own virtues.
Look at this fancy house where I brought you to live; look at this new dress
I found just for you. Aren't you so lucky to have me to take care of you, so fortunate to have this opportunity to get ahead in life.

She'd flash that cold smile, the one that never reached her eyes, and the smart girl did as she was told. The smart girl didn't dream of life beyond these walls.

Or Madame Sade would take away your food, shred your clothes, slash one of your new toys, maybe the one she'd just given you the day before. She'd twist your arm behind your back, so hard you could barely breathe, and she'd remind you of everything she'd bought and paid for. Oh yes, including you. So you'd better wise up, shut up and entertain that man over there, because it wasn't like anyone would miss you if you didn't show up one morning for breakfast. Lots of things disappeared in these deep, dark woods. Including ungrateful little girls.

I wised up. I shut up. I entertained that man over there.

But I also watched the boy out mowing the lawns. I studied him from beneath my lashes as he strode across the grounds. I caught his eye from time to time, as we passed in the hall.

Vero had the magical queen and the lost princess from the secret realm.

I had entire fictional conversations with a young boy I'd never officially met. Until, of course, I lost my place in the tower bedroom.

Now I look back at the sky, to the blank space on the horizon where there had once been the three-story turret. She's close, I think. Very close. No longer just a presence in my mind, but here in these overgrown ruins.

“Vero took my room,” I hear myself say. “She arrived, and I was booted downstairs.”

Thomas doesn't say anything.

“I hated her for that. I didn't have to. I could've felt bad for her.
She was so young, just this poor little girl torn from her family. I could hear crying night after night, you know. But I didn't feel any pity. I hated her instead.”