Crash & Burn by Lisa Gardner Page A

unfocused.
    And he’d just given him most of his and his wife’s life story, without ever mentioning a little girl name Vero.
    Wyatt leaned forward. He stared deep into Thomas’s eyes, as if searching for the truth, or maybe just trying to figure out if the man really was as big an asshole as they suspected. From the other side, Kevin did the same.
    Closing in. Dropping the hammer.
    â€œTell us about your daughter,” Wyatt said. “Where was she last night?”
    Thomas Frank didn’t recoil. He didn’t shudder reflexively or even jerk away. Instead, he regarded them blankly. “What?”
    â€œYour daughter, Vero. The little girl who’s missing.”
    Of all the reactions Wyatt had been expecting, this wasn’t it. Thomas closed his eyes. He sighed heavily. “I don’t have a daughter.”
    â€œNicky’s daughter, then—”
    â€œSergeant . . . We don’t have kids. Any kids. Not mine, not hers, not ours. And I would know. We’ve been together twenty-two years.”
    *   *   *
    â€œL OOK , EVER SINCE the first concussion, Nicky has had trouble sleeping. She has horrible nightmares, except the dreams, episodes, whatever, don’t always happen at night. It’s like her brain has been turned inside out and upside down. She can’t remember people she knows—say, my name, but on the other hand she rants about people who don’t exist. Best I can tell, the real has become imaginary, the imaginary, real. We’ve consulted with doctors, played with some meds. But the best advice the docs have for us is to practiceour patience. Traumatic brain injuries take time to heal.”
    â€œVero doesn’t exist.” Wyatt had to test out the statement. Because of all the information he’d expected to learn from this conversation, that wasn’t it.
    â€œThere is no Vero.”
    â€œBut you know the name,” Kevin pointed out, looking as perplexed as Wyatt felt.
    â€œShe’s called it out before, mostly in her sleep. Plus there’ve been some . . . episodes. Look, in the beginning, I got confused myself, maybe there was something I didn’t know. But here’s the deal. If you really get her going about this . . . Vero . . . the story, who she is, constantly changes. Sometimes Vero is a little girl, maybe a baby that Nicky is caring for. But once I found Nicky hiding in a closet, because she and ‘Vero’ were playing hide-and-seek. Then there was the evening she burned dinner because ‘Vero’ had been yelling at her all evening. Teenagers, she told me. I think . . . Hell, I don’t know what to think. But Vero isn’t a real person. More like a massive mental misfire.”
    â€œWhen Officer Reynes was at the scene,” Wyatt pressed, “he claimed your wife was pretty adamant. She’d lost Vero. She was just a little girl. She had to be found. Your wife sounded pretty convincing.”
    â€œWelcome to my world.” Thomas Frank sighed again. He didn’t sound sarcastic; more like a man who was very tired. “I can give you the name of our neurologist, Dr. Sare Celik,” he offered. “Maybe she can help you understand.”
    â€œCould the name come from a family member? A sister, past friend?”
    â€œNicky doesn’t have any family. When I met her she was just a teenager and already on her own, had been for a couple of years. She doesn’t like to talk about it. In the beginning, I pressed. But now, twenty-two years later . . . What does it matter? Everything”—Thomas Frank paused, eyed them meaningfully—“
everything
has been great since then. We’ve never had any problems; Nicky’s never had any problems. You have to believe me on this. My wife is just . . . sick. Ask the doctors. Please, talk to them.”
    â€œWalk us through last night. What