I THINK SHE’S taken one too many hits to the head,” Kevin murmured to Wyatt. They were out of the SUV, watching Nicky walk agitated circles at the edge of the road. She was mumbling something under her breath. It sounded like Vero wants to fly . . .

Kevin had a point. Their suspected felony DWI driver was currently falling a little low on the sanity spectrum. Most likely, Wyatt should have driven her straight home from the liquor store. Yet, they had learned something:

“Got a hold of Jean while we were driving here,” he informed Kevin now. “Had her check the Franks’ credit cards for the last time Nicole fueled up her Audi. We got lucky: appears she hit a gas station Wednesday morning.”

“Within twenty-four hours of the accident.”

“Exactly. Now, I wrote down the trip odometer on the Audi while at the scene of the crash. It read two hundred and five miles. Assuming she reset the odometer when she fueled up, the way a lot of folks do to monitor their gas mileage . . .”

“She drove over two hundred miles between fueling up Wednesday morning and plunging off the road Thursday, five A.M.”

“Yeah. Wanna guess the number of miles from her house to the liquor store to here?”

Kevin glanced at Wyatt. “I’m going with eighty.”

“Damn, you are the Brain. Answer is eighty-three.”

Kevin frowned. Nicky’s circles were starting to widen out. A sign she was less manic? Or about to bolt on them?

“That leaves a hundred and twenty-two miles unaccounted for,” Kevin said.

“Give or take. Now, maybe she drove around all day Wednesday—”

“Doubt it. Husband implied he didn’t like her driving, given the head injury. I thought his story was that she spent the day resting at home.”

“In which case . . . ,” Wyatt prodded.

“She logged the miles Wednesday night. Meaning she didn’t drive a direct route, from house to liquor store to here.”

“I think we can all agree she was at that state liquor store but didn’t stop at the gas station up the road.”

“We could return to the liquor store,” Kevin suggested. “We lost focus with her getting sick, maybe left too soon. Instead, we pick back up in the parking lot. This time, we put her in the front seat with you and start driving; see if any landmarks trigger any memories, help her resurrect the route she drove that night.”

They both glanced at Nicole, who’d made it to the edge of the road. She’d stopped walking. Now she appeared to inhale deeply. Wyatt did the same, in case he was missing something. He smelled wet leaves, churned-up earth, decaying grass. The scent of fall, he thought, hiking through woods, raking up leaves, bedding down less winter-hardy plants.

But apparently, Nicky had a different association. “Smells from the grave,” she informed them, her pale, patched-up face nearly glowing in the dark. “You can’t leave. That’s the problem. Even if you age out, grow ugly, waste down to nothing, it doesn’t matter. You can’t leave; you just move lower down the food chain.”

“Leave where, Nicky?”

“It’s a lifetime plan,” she continued, as if Wyatt hadn’t spoken. “Only way out is to die. But Vero wants to fly. You understand, don’t you? You believe me?”

“Understand what, Nicole?”

“Why I had to kill her. She never should’ve gone to the park that day. Want to play with dolls, little girl? I fucking hate dolls!”

“Nicole.” Wyatt took a slow step forward, the edge in her voice starting to worry him, not to mention the glassy sheen in her eyes. “Why don’t you take a deep breath, then start from the beginning. Take us back to the park. Which park are you talking about? What happened there?”

“Vero is learning to fly,” Nicky whispered.

“I thought Vero didn’t exist,” Kevin spoke up.

“Then why does my husband have her picture?”

Wyatt was still processing that bit of information as Nicole Frank turned away from them.

Then flung herself down the ravine into the darkness below.

*   *   *

WYATT HATED THIS damn hillside. The slippery, sliding descent, with mud that not only oozed over the soles of his boots but splattered up around his legs. Let alone the hidden rocks, random twigs, prickly bushes, just waiting to trip up a man and send him flying.

He didn’t even have a flashlight on him. No, that would’ve been too smart, too prepared. And if there was one thing Wyatt was learning, chasing a barely seen woman through a barely lit half-moon night, it was that dealing with a thrice-concussed woman was a lot like dealing with the mentally ill. Maybe she was all there. But maybe she wasn’t. Either way, he should’ve started this night prepared for anything. Including vomit, midnight confessions and possible murder charges.

Kevin had caught up to him. The detective was breathing hard, stumbling awkwardly as his foot slid out on a patch of wet grass.

“Head right,” Wyatt ordered. “I think she’s going for the crash site. We can cut her off.”

Kevin grunted his agreement; then both men went back to focusing on their footing. Even though the rain had finally ended yesterday, the ground remained saturated from the weeks of precipitation before that. One of the rainiest falls on record, Kevin had announced the other morning.

Wyatt hated this damn ravine.

He caught sight of Nicky’s form again. She appeared to be veering around one of the prickly bushes. Briefly, her hair tangled. She jerked the strands free, kept on trucking. Wherever she was going, she was determined to get there.

She’d killed Vero? Had to kill her, she’d said. Shouldn’t have been in the park that day.

Except last Wyatt had known, Vero was the post-concussive version of an imaginary friend.

He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this evening, from Nicky’s strong reaction to the liquor store, to now this escapade. Seemed to him, her brain might be even more scrambled than she and her husband realized. But he was also beginning to wonder if somewhere in that wreckage of gray matter, new and important information was finally coming to light.

I thought Vero didn’t exist.

Then why does my husband have her picture?

Why indeed.

Having seen Nicky’s encounter with the bush, Wyatt knew enough to cut around it. Which allowed him to gain several more footsteps. This close, he could hear Nicky’s ragged breathing, choking sobs. A woman on the edge.

Had she really killed a little girl in the park? Nicole Frank, with no known criminal record, had murdered a child sometime between 10 P.M. Wednesday and 5 A.M. Thursday, then transported her body all the way out here?

But as soon as he thought it, Wyatt knew that couldn’t be the case. The searchers would have found it. The dog would’ve hit on the scent. No way Nicky had a child’s corpse in the back of her Audi. So what, then?

Nicky hit another tangle of bushes. She slowed. Tried left, then right. Just before she could make her choice, Wyatt launched a flying tackle.

“Hate this damn ravine,” he grunted as they both went down hard.

“You don’t understand, you don’t understand. I have to save her.”

Kevin came crashing over, barely stopping himself before he tumbled over their fallen forms. He planted his feet for balance, then helped pull Wyatt to standing. Next they got Nicky up, positioning her between them, each of them holding an arm. They were all out of breath. And, Wyatt was surprised to see, a mere thirty feet from the accident site.

“Stop,” Wyatt ordered, keeping his attention on Nicky.

Kevin looked at him curiously, Nicky more blearily.

“No talking, no running, no crying.”

Nicky sniffled.

“You’re injured, hell, three accidents in six months and now you’re tearing down steep embankments and fleeing from police officers, which just earned you yet another knock on the skull. Stop. Breathe. Focus.”