“I know.”

“My name is Chelsea Robbins. My mother sold me to Madame Sade when I was ten. And I hated her for that and I loved her for that because the house was nicer, the food better, and at least Madame Sade pretended we were family. Then Vero came along and kicked me out of the tower bedroom and I hated her for that, but I loved her for that because she became the sister I never had and spun our world into a fairy tale.”

I look at him. “And I met you, the boy I watched in the distance, walking free about the property. And I hated you for that and I loved you for that, but mostly . . .” My voice breaks. “I loved you. From the very beginning, I’ve loved you and I’ve never forgiven myself for it.”

Thomas smiles. I think it’s the saddest expression I’ve ever seen on a man’s face.

“It’s time,” he says simply. “She’s waited long enough.”

He holds out his hand. This time, I take it, following him across the parking lot. Because there is nothing else to do. There is nothing else to say.

Thomas had been right: I never should’ve returned to New Hampshire; I never should’ve hired an investigative agency; I never should’ve tried so hard to discover the memories I’d worked even harder to forget.

But what is done is done.

And now, twenty-two years later, for both of us, for all of us, there is no going back.

Chapter 34

MY CAR KEYS are gone,” Tessa reported ten minutes later. She and Wyatt had snapped on the lights, giving the room a cursory glance, before tearing outside to the parking lot. With no sign of Nicky inside or out, they’d returned to the room and summarily ripped it apart. Senseless, really, given they were looking for a full-size female, which wasn’t exactly something you could lose beneath a sofa cushion.

“She doesn’t have wheels of her own,” Wyatt commented.

“But where would she go? She doesn’t have a house of her own either.”

Wyatt nodded. He straightened, took in the wreck of the hotel room and finally exhaled in defeat. “All right. Time to regroup. We’re reacting. This whole damn case, frankly, has been one reaction after another, and it’s not getting us anywhere. From the top, what do we know?”

“Nicky Frank is missing,” Tessa supplied sourly. She’d stripped the covers from both beds. Now she was on her hands and knees, peering under the first, then the second, as if locating a missing witness was no different from finding a lost pair of shoes.

“Nicky Frank who is not Veronica Sellers,” Wyatt emphasized, “the girl who went missing thirty years ago.”

“Meaning she’s probably not running to Marlene Bilek’s house,” Tessa muttered, still crawling on the floor. “Her only contact in the area remains her husband, Thomas.”

“Who most likely engineered her car accident and set things up for her to be falsely identified as Vero.”

Tessa finally paused, sat back on her heels. “Could they be in this together? A joint ruse to pass Nicky off as a missing girl? Maybe as part of that, Thomas and Nicky set a predetermined rendezvous point for if things got too dicey, and that’s where Nicky’s headed now?”

Wyatt grimaced. “Except what is this ruse? What could Nicky possibly gain as Marlene’s long-lost daughter that would justify the risk of a major auto accident, let alone Thomas burning down their home?”

Tessa had to think about it: “Revenge? Marlene failed her daughter, maybe was even part of Vero’s abduction? Nicky wants payback, and what better way to get it than masquerading as the lost child?”

“I think Thomas is behind it.”

“Okay.” Tessa resumed her search, slipping a hand beneath the box spring and top mattress of the bed closest to the door.

Wyatt ticked off on his fingers. “Nicky’s concussions are real. Her memory loss certainly appears real. Then there’s the multiple accidents, house fire, et cetera. In all those scenarios, Nicky’s a victim, not a perpetrator. Given all this started when she decided to move to New Hampshire and search for answers, I think her desire for the truth upset the apple cart. Meaning Thomas is the one with something to hide.”

“Hang on.” Tessa paused. “What do we have here?” Her fingers worked between the mattresses; then she slowly withdrew an oversize piece of paper, top edge ragged where it had been torn from the sketch pad. Tessa eased it carefully from where it’d been stashed, between the mattresses on Nicky’s bed.

Wyatt immediately crossed the room to study the black-and-white pencil sketch. “That’s Thomas Frank.”

“Little young, don’t you think?”

“She must’ve drawn this earlier, when you had her working, because you’re right; this isn’t the Thomas Frank from present day. This is him, easily twenty years ago.”

“The time of the dollhouse. My God, look at his face.”

Wyatt understood her point. The Thomas he’d interviewed had been a stressed-out middle-aged male. Clearly tired, maybe a bit frayed from caring for his ailing wife, but not the kind of man you’d look at twice.

Whereas younger Thomas—teenage Thomas? He looked haggard. Haunted. Hard.

A kid who already had plenty to hide.

“Nicky never showed this to you?” Wyatt asked.

Tessa shook her head. “No. I left to take a call. Bet she stashed it then.”

“She’s sitting here. Candle’s lit, the air smells like grass. She draws the house. She draws rooms in the house. She sketches Madame Sade, and then: this.” Wyatt turned over the matter in his mind. “She didn’t expect it. I bet that’s why she hid it. Of all the details to start returning to her, that Thomas is part of the dollhouse, that she knew him before, better yet, he knew her from before, must’ve rattled her.”

“He was part of it,” Tessa whispered. “And judging by his expression, not a nice part of it either. You think she contacted him somehow, set up a meeting time? But how? She doesn’t even have a phone.”

Wyatt shrugged. “If she really wants answers, Thomas is the next place to start.”

“Except . . .” Tessa’s voice trailed off. “I don’t think this boy”—she tapped the sketch—“has anything good to tell her.”

Wyatt nodded. He was worried about the same. If even half of what Nicky had said about the dollhouse was true, then there were plenty of secrets worth killing to protect.

“We need to get eyes on your car. Immediately.”

“Shit! We’re idiots. It’s my vehicle, dammit. And I have OnStar!”

*   *   *

TESSA MADE THE call. Once given the password, the operator of OnStar was more than happy to be of assistance. In fact, he pinpointed the location of her Lexus in less than thirty seconds as sitting in the hotel’s parking lot.

“What the hell?”

She and Wyatt walked out together, discovering Tessa’s black SUV, sitting beneath an energy-efficient lamppost.

“Why take my keys if she wasn’t going to take my car?” Tessa exploded. She sounded genuinely insulted.

“Slow us down, keep us from following her?” Wyatt reasoned. “She already hid Thomas’s sketch. Clearly, she wants some privacy.”

Wyatt took his hands out of his pockets, walked the space. One A.M. Lot held four vehicles, which made for a quick inventory. Bushes, trees, shrubs, nothing.

“She didn’t walk out of here,” he stated. “We’re too far away from civilization, let alone any major roads. So if she’s not here, but your car is, then she found another mode of transportation.”

“Maybe she didn’t have to drive to meet Thomas. He met her here.”

“She called him from the hotel room?” Wyatt tried on.

“Can’t. I asked the hotel manager to block all incoming and outgoing calls. Containment issue. Plus, I have my cell. We didn’t need anything else for making contact.”

Wyatt was impressed. “You didn’t trust her?”

“Hey, just because she’s my client doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Plenty of people ask for help, then maneuver around your back, which, of course, gets the savvy investigator in trouble. One form of contact means I always know what’s going on. For example, she didn’t call Thomas.”