“She said she wasn’t ready, looked nervous and scared on the subject . . .” Tessa shut up. Nicky Frank wasn’t even Veronica Sellers in the end, so what did it matter?

“Report says Vero and her mother, Marlene, went to the park. Mom ended up falling asleep on the park bench. When she wakes back up, her six-year-old daughter is gone. Uproar ensues, cops are called. But here’s the deal. According to the individual witness statements, Marlene wasn’t calling her daughter’s name. She was just walking around the park. It wasn’t until another woman approached her, asking about her daughter, saying she’d seen Vero leave the park, wondering what had happened . . . That’s when things got off and running. Police came, Marlene gave a statement, a reward was hastily assembled, a local case was born. But you tell me, mom to mom”—D.D. was speaking to Tessa at this point—“would you walk around a playground, never calling your vanished child’s name?”

Tessa didn’t have an answer. It was unfathomable to her.

“Hold on,” Wyatt spoke up. “This was nearly thirty years ago. Missing children’s cases didn’t have the publicity they do now. It might not have occurred to Marlene to assume the worst.”

“True. And the investigating officers at the time apparently agreed with you. Case was worked, ran out of steam, put away, taken back out, reworked, ran out of steam, and eventually, ten years ago, pulled again as a cold case. Because you never know, right?”

“Sure,” Tessa and Wyatt agreed.

“Now, that detective, in his notes, raises some questions right off the bat about Marlene Bilek. And not just her behavior, or lack of urgency in the park. No, what caught his attention was that six months later, Marlene opened her first-ever savings account with five thousand dollars cash.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Now, by this time, Marlene had taken up with a fellow officer, Hank Bilek. He swore the money came from her abusive ex. Basically, this Ronnie guy had bashed in her face one too many times. Hank did the noble thing, stopped by, told Ronnie if he ever laid a hand on Marlene again, Ronnie would spend the next six months assembling all his broken body parts. To make it official, Ronnie would cover Marlene’s moving expenses, hence the five grand so she could leave him and get a place of her own.”

“Okay,” Tessa interjected, “I gotta say I like Hank’s style.”

“Sure, what’s not to love? One problem, though . . . Ronnie’s account never showed a five-thousand-dollar debit. And he had the money. He’d just finished up some major plumbing job. But while Marlene has a record of cash coming in, Ronnie has no record of cash going out. So where’d the money come from?”

“You think Marlene might have sold her six-year-old daughter for five thousand dollars,” Wyatt said slowly.

“It’s a question worth considering.”

“But Marlene didn’t even get the money until six months later,” Tessa protested.

“Case was front-page news. That kind of cash appearing in Marlene’s name within twenty-four hours of her daughter’s abduction? Please, they would’ve had her in handcuffs for sure. Six months later, however, with no leads, no suspects, no theories . . . Press had moved on. And so had the police.”

“Any proof,” Wyatt asked now, “linking the money to Vero’s disappearance, or, say, a person of interest?”

“Not that lucky. The deposit was in the form of cash, so no way to trace. And for that matter, Marlene has a clean record. A history of alcohol abuse, yes, but criminal mischief, no. So . . .” Tessa could hear the waffling in D.D.’s voice. “Marlene hardly made for a great suspect. Especially given the grieving-mother act that had already been filmed on TV.”

“What about her new life with her new family, new daughter?” Tessa quizzed.

“Clean as a whistle,” D.D. reported. “By all accounts, Marlene is a law-abiding citizen. The worst may have happened to her thirty years ago, but she turned things around.”

“Well, a mysterious cash infusion of five grand doesn’t hurt,” Wyatt muttered.

“Now,” D.D. spoke up, “you’re saying Nicky Frank is not Veronica Sellers, right? So who is she?”

“We’re running her fingerprints now,” Wyatt provided. “We believe she was Vero’s roommate in the dollhouse, first name Chelsea. But we don’t have a last name or any other information as of yet.”

“She looks like Vero, right? Same general description, brown hair, blue eyes? Same general age?”

“Sounds like she arrived in the dollhouse first, so maybe a few years older.”

“Got it. I’ll go back through the runaway reports. See if I can find a record of any girls with that name and description. Never hurts to try.”

“Appreciate it,” Wyatt said. They wrapped things up, ended the call.

Tessa set down her phone. She recognized the look on Wyatt’s face. He was tired and pissed off but still thinking hard.

“I feel like we’re being played,” he stated abruptly. “Nicky who’s Vero who’s Chelsea. Marlene who’s a tragic mom who’s maybe the kind of woman who sold her own child. Thomas Frank who’s a caring husband who’s an accomplished arsonist who’s a criminal mastermind. They’re all knee-deep in this, but how to make the pieces fit?”

“We need Thomas Frank,” Tessa said quietly.

“Trust me, I know. I got uniformed patrol officers sweeping every hotel and motel in a fifty-mile vicinity. We’re monitoring any and all cell phone and credit card activity. Unfortunately, the man’s a ghost. We don’t even know what vehicle he’s driving. The one he stole from the hotel he ditched ten miles away, where his trail stops cold. It’s almost as if he’s done this before.”

Wyatt raked a hand through his hair. “Here’s a question,” he said abruptly. “Given that Nicky isn’t Vero, how’d she recognize Marlene Bilek Wednesday night?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, you told Nicky Marlene worked at a New Hampshire state liquor store. Now, according to Nicky, minute she entered the store, she recognized Marlene as Vero’s mom. How? Based on stories told to her more than twenty years ago?”

“Nicky said she looked her up online.”

“Maybe, but the way Nicky spoke, her reaction was more personal, even visceral. She knew Marlene to be Vero’s mom.”

“You think she saw her before?”

“Why not?” Wyatt was off the bed, pacing. “If Marlene collected five thousand dollars, she had to get the cashier’s check somehow; it’s not the sort of thing you send through the mail. Dammit! I showed her Nicky’s sketch of the house. I showed her the picture of Madame Sade. She looked me right in the eye and told me she didn’t recognize either one. But I bet you now, she was at that house one day. She personally picked up that check, and Nicky saw her there. That’s why Nicky’s been hell-bent on tracking her down. Marlene isn’t just some link to Vero. She’s another trigger for Nicky’s suppressed memories. That’s it, we’re picking her up.”

“Marlene Bilek?”

“Absolutely.” Wyatt was already crossing to the room’s round table, grabbing his keys. “And while we’re at it, wake up Nicky, too. We’re taking them both for a ride.”

“You think Marlene can lead us to the dollhouse?” Tessa was up off the bed now as well.

“Dollhouse, Madame Sade, I want it all. Bet you anything”—Wyatt turned, eyes gleaming—“we find them, we find Thomas Frank. And we get to the bottom of this once and for all.”

Sounded good to Tessa. She crossed to the adjoining room to rouse Nicky.

Except . . .

“Wyatt,” she called urgently.

Rechecking the first bed, the second, rounding to the bathroom, the small closet. But the room was small enough, the truth unavoidable.

“What is it?” Wyatt stalked into the room, jiggling keys.

“She’s not here. Wyatt, Nicky Frank is gone.”

Chapter 33

IT’S NOT HARD to sneak out of the hotel. Middle of the night, off-season in the North Country. Summer, a hotel like this one would be overflowing with families eager to jump in the pool, hike the mountains, raft down the rivers. Early fall, tour buses would cram the parking lot with aging leaf peepers, armed with cameras and heavy knit sweaters. Of course, December brought snowfall, teenage boarding dudes, and impeccably clad ski bunnies. But now, mid-November, when the mountains were denuded of leaves, covered in nothing but dirt . . .