“Which leads us to six months ago, when Chelsea, who’s been trying to live happily ever after with her husband, I-will-always-take-care-of-you Thomas Frank, decides she can’t keep running anymore. She wants answers to her troubled memories, trauma, depression, et cetera. She demands they move to New Hampshire.”

“And suffers her first accident almost immediately. A fall down the basement stairs of her new home. Followed by wiping out on her front steps.”

“Followed by,” Tessa continued, “Wednesday night. When she meets Marlene Bilek, who she’s obsessed with as a living link to Vero. Unfortunately, Nicky then discovers Vero’s beloved mom has a whole new family and isn’t mourning Vero nearly as much as Nicky-slash-Chelsea is.”

“Nicky calls Thomas. And he puts his own plan in gear? Turn his confused wife into Veronica Sellers?” Wyatt stared at Tessa. “Now, see, this is where things break down for me.”

Tessa nodded. She eyed him thoughtfully. Opened her mouth, paused, then shook her head. “No. I agree. It makes no sense.”

“I’m gonna get Kevin on the phone. Have him start comparing prints and analyzing those rubber gloves. Then you and I are gonna run through this all over again. We’re missing something.” Wyatt glanced at his watch, noting it was now nearly midnight. “We have about nine hours left to find it.”

Tessa nodded in agreement. “Where do you think Thomas is now?” she asked him.

Wyatt had no doubt: “Somewhere close.”

Chapter 31

VERO AND I are fighting.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I tell her. “I want my life back.”

“What life? You don’t have a life.” Vero sits calmly at the wooden table in the tower bedroom. She has finally put on clothes, that dreadful floral dress, though her skin is hanging from her skull in leathery flaps.

“I didn’t know about the scar!”

“Should’ve. Lived with me long enough. Not my fault you weren’t paying attention.” She holds out her left arm, but she’s gone all skeletal again, revealing only the twin bones radiating from her elbow down to her wrist. “Oops,” she says. “Maybe I forgot something after all. But again, not really my fault. I am you, you know.”

I rub my forehead. In my mind’s eye, in real life? The lines are too blurred; I don’t know anymore.

“I want to be free.”

“No. You want to be me. Always have. Again, not my fault you’re so jealous. First time I told you about my mother, that someone out there actually loved me, that someone out there actually cared about me.” Her tone is mocking. “You’re the one who set out to make my life miserable.”

She’s right. There are other images in my mind. Deeper, darker memories I never visit, because I prefer Vero’s stories. From the very beginning, hearing about the magical queen, the evil witch. Vero might have ended up in the dollhouse, but for six years prior to that, six long, glorious years . . .

A mother who hugged her. A mother who let her crawl on her lap. A mother who once slept with her on the floor and begged her to live.

I have none of those memories. Not even three concussions later. I have only Vero, whom once I hated and then . . . grew to love in my own way. Incarceration can have that effect on people. Her stories became my stories. Her hope, my hope. Because all those years we were together, Vero never stopped talking about one day seeing her mother again.

Except, of course . . .

“You shouldn’t have killed me,” she says now, voice conversational. She is pouring herself a cup of tea, a shot of scotch. “If you hadn’t killed me, maybe you would’ve escaped me in the end.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Who hoarded her drugs? Who left them someplace you knew your roommate was bound to find?”

I finally stop pacing, do my best to take a stand.

“Vero wants to fly,” I state flatly. “And that’s what you did. You gave up. You shot up, anything, everything, the entire supply. If you hadn’t done that . . .”

Vero grins at me. “If I hadn’t done that . . . ,” she goads.

I try to stay on track. “You had someone out there who loved you. You should’ve put the drugs back. If not for yourself, then at least for her.”

She is definitely in a mood now. “Then what? I would’ve lived happily ever after? You and me, best friends forever in the dungeon of the dollhouse?”

Abruptly, the room grows hazier. The rose mural nearly disappearing. As if the room is suddenly filling with smog. Or smoke.

In my mind, in real life, I feel myself automatically reach out my hand.

But of course, Thomas isn’t there.

“Tell me,” Vero demands now. “Tell me what would’ve happened if I hadn’t taken the drugs.”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t! I never—”

“Yes, you do. Yes, you did!”

And of course she’s right. More dark shapes shift. Memories I can’t afford to have. Willful ignorance I’m still waiting to bring me bliss. Except now I can feel them, looming larger, darker, chilling the very corridors of my mind. Sergeant Wyatt had been right; none of this is about Vero. It’s about me. It’s always been about me and, three concussions later, the past I’m still not ready to face.

“Go away,” I order now. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”

“Can’t. I’m you. Only one talking here is you. Only one arguing here is you. Only one who can’t handle the truth is you. I’m not just a pretty little ghost, you know. I’m your fucking conscience.”

She holds out her arm. Her skin is back, and now the left arm’s scar stands out prominently, a thick, jagged pucker ripping savagely down smooth white skin. Proving once and for all what I did know, even if I later chose to forget. Vero smiles, except this time her mood isn’t antagonistic. Her ghost, my conscience, appears sad.

“I wanted to fly,” Vero says quietly. “Once. A long time ago. A little girl who didn’t know any better. Then Ronnie picked me up and hurtled me into a coffee table. There are many ways to die, Chelsea. And not all of them happened in that dollhouse.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You wanted the princess to have a happy ending. You wanted her to reunite with the magical queen and everything to turn into sunshine and rainbows. In your own way, you believed in me long after I stopped.”

I don’t say anything.

“But you also know, Chelsea,” she continues soberly, “deep down inside, why that couldn’t happen; my story was only a work of fiction. Now you can visit me as much as you want and resurrect me in your head for as long as you’d like. But there’s still no going back. There’s just you: the lone survivor.”

“I loved you,” I whisper.

“I know. But take it from me, love alone can’t save you in the end.”

Abruptly I feel more shifting in the dark corridors of my mind. Memories I swear I didn’t stir up, and yet . . . I look up sharply. Vero is watching me, her look cunning.

“Stop,” I tell her.

“Can’t. I’m you, remember?”

“I’m not ready for this.”

“For what? The smell of smoke? The heat of flames. Fire, fire, everywhere. Why’d your husband burn your house, Nicky? Why? And better yet, when did Thomas get so good with flames?”

“Shut up!”

But she won’t. Vero shoves away from the table. She marches across the room. Her dress is gone. Her skin is gone. Now she is nothing but decaying flesh, marching closer and closer, reaching out with her bony hands.

“Thomas,” she singsongs. “Handsome Thomas. Caring Thomas. Thomas who’s always been there. Is it your past you’re trying to escape, Nicky? Or is it the man you married?”

Her skeletal hands reach my neck, scrape across my collarbone.

Abruptly, the door to the tower bedroom crashes open behind me. But I don’t turn. I keep my eyes on Vero’s grinning skull. Because I already know I don’t want to see who’s standing there.