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.”

“As Nicky Frank?”

“Yes.”

“You never told her who you were? Never gave out one shred of personal info?”

Nicky shook her head. “I never even spoke to her. It was an online transaction. I used PayPal. We never spoke at all.”

“But you’ve been tracking her.”

“The website only had a PO box. No street address was listed. Not under her name. Not under his. I think her husband . . . he’s a cop, right? A retired officer. He must monitor their personal information online.”

“So you hired Northledge. With Thomas’s blessing?”

Nicky shook her head wildly. “No, no. Absolutely not. I did it on my own. Used a cashier’s check and everything. I didn’t want him to know. Not after . . .”

“After what, Nicky?”

She looked away, head down. “I think he figured out about the quilt. I never told him, but the first time I held it, I cried and cried and cried. I couldn’t help myself. I think he guessed where it came from. He grew shorter with me, less patient. ‘Aren’t we happy?’ he’d say, over and over again. ‘We have each other; isn’t that enough?’ I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I didn’t want to upset him after everything he’s done for me . . . But no”—she looked up slowly—“it’s not enough. I’m still sad even when I know I shouldn’t be.”

“Wednesday night, you went in search of Marlene Bilek,” Wyatt stated firmly.

“Yes.”

“You drove to the liquor store.” He tapped it on the map. “You went inside, hoping to see her.”

“I recognized her. Even from the back. Then I panicked. I saw her, but I wasn’t ready for her to see me. What if she didn’t remember me? Worse, what if she didn’t want me? Thirty years later, what kind of daughter simply reappears from the dead?”

“You bought a bottle of Glenlivet.”

Nicky didn’t look away. She held his gaze while she nodded miserably.

“And then you followed her.” Wyatt returned to the map. “I spoke with Marlene Bilek this afternoon—”

“You told her about me?”

“I spoke with Mrs. Bilek this afternoon,” he continued brusquely, “determining her usual route home. It’s a forty-mile drive, mostly back roads, passing through here, here and here.” He traced the red line with his finger. “Leading at long last to her house.”

He tapped the blown-up picture of the Bilek’s front porch. Taken during daylight, not at night, when Nicky would’ve viewed it, but close enough.

Her gaze remained locked on the tiny yellow house. As if she could drink it up.

“Did you tell her about me?” Nicky whispered. “That I’m Vero. What . . . what did she say?”

“Don’t think that’s my story to tell.” Wyatt gazed at her hard. She couldn’t return his look.

“According to Mrs. Bilek,” Wyatt continued, “her daughter was also home that night. Sixteen-year-old Hannah Veigh. Look like anyone you remember?”

“Vero,” she whispered.

“What did you do, Nicky?”

The sternness of his question seemed to catch her off guard. “What?”

“What did you do? You’ve been up half the night. You’ve been drinking; you’ve been driving. Now you’re at a cute little house, peering in the window, and there she is: your long-lost self. Vero. What did you do?”

Nicky sat back, pushing against the table with her hands. “Do? I didn’t. I don’t think. How could I?”

He crossed swiftly to the table. “Tell me about the collapsible shovel, Nicky. Tell me about the gloves. Covered in blood. Human blood. We know; we already tested it. You’re drunk, you’re alone, and you’ve just discovered your long-lost mom hasn’t been pining for you after all. In fact, she’s remarried, has a new kid, Vero 2.0. Your mother has gotten on with her life. She doesn’t miss you at all.”