Crash & Burn, by Lisa Gardner
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Crash & Burn, by Lisa Gardner
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In the new novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling “master of psychological suspense,”* featuring a cameo by fan-favorite Boston detective D. D. Warren, memories can be murder... Nicole Frank shouldn’t have survived the car accident, much less the crawl up the steep ravine. One thought allows her to defy the odds and flag down help—she must save Vero. If the girl even exists.Arriving at the scene, Sergeant Wyatt Foster joins the desperate hunt for a missing child, only to learn that Nicky suffers from a rare brain injury that causes delusions. According to her husband, there is no child. Never has been. And yet Nicky remains adamant. She must save Vero. For Wyatt and investigator Tessa Leoni, nothing about this case is simple. It turns out Nicky has recently suffered more than one close accident. Is she indeed delusional, as her husband claims, or perhaps she knows more than she thinks? Because clearly someone out there won’t rest till Nicky crashes and burns....*The Associated Press
Crash & Burn, by Lisa Gardner- Amazon Sales Rank: #25355 in Books
- Published on: 2015-11-03
- Released on: 2015-11-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.56" h x 1.00" w x 4.25" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 480 pages
Review Praise for Lisa Gardner“No one owns this corner of the genre the way Lisa Gardner does.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels “Lisa Gardner always delivers heart-stopping suspense.”—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Stranger “Nerve-shattering suspense.”—Tami Hoag, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Cold Cold Heart “No one writes this kind of modern horror tale better than Gardner, no one.”—The Providence Journal “Frighteningly real.”—People
About the Author Lisa Gardner is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her Detective D. D. Warren novels include Fear Nothing, Catch Me, Love You More, and The Neighbor, which won the International Thriller of the Year Award. She lives with her family in New England.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
I died once.
I remember now, as much as I am capable of remembering anything, the sensation of pain, burning and sharp, followed by fatigue, crushing and deep. I’d wanted to lie down, I recall that clearly. I’d needed to be done with it. But I hadn’t. I’d fought the pain, the fatigue, the fucking white light. I’d clawed my way back to the land of the living.
Because of Vero. She needed me.
What have you done?
I am weightless now. I understand, absently, this is not a good thing. Cars shouldn’t be weightless. A luxury SUV was never intended to fly. And I smell something sharp and astringent. Alcohol. More specifically, whiskey. Glenlivet. Always prided myself on drinking the good stuff.
What have you done?
I want to cry out. As long as I’m sailing through the air, about to die for the second time, I should at least be able to scream. But no sound comes from my throat.
Instead, I stare through the plunging windshield, out into the pitch black night, and I notice, of all things, that it’s raining.
Like that night. Before…
What have you done?
It is not so bad to fly. The feeling is pleasant, even exhilarating. The limits of gravity defied, the pressure of earthbound life left far behind. I should lift my arms, spread them wide and embrace the second death looming before me.
Vero.
Beautiful little Vero.
And then…
Gravity takes its revenge. My car is weightless no more as it reconnects savagely with the earth. A shuddering crash. An echoing boom. My body, once in flight, now tossed like a rag doll against steering wheel, dashboard, gear shift. The sound of glass cracking. My face shattering.
Pain, burning and sharp. Followed by fatigue, crushing and deep. I want lie down. I need to be done with it.
Vero, I think.
And then: Oh my God, what have I done?
My face is wet. I lick my lips tasting water, salt, blood. Slowly, I lift my head, only for my temple to explode in agony. I wince, tucking my chin reflexively against my chest, then rest my aching forehead against hard plastic. The steering wheel of my car, I realize, is now crushed against my chest, while my leg is twisted at a nearly impossible angle, my knee wedged somewhere under the crumpled dash. I have fallen, I think, and I can’t get up.
I hear a sound. Laughter. Or maybe it’s keening. It’s a strange sound. High-pitched, continuous and not entirely sane.
It’s coming from me.
More wet. The rain has found its way inside my vehicle. Or I have found a way outside. I’m not sure. Whiskey. The stench of alcohol is so strong it makes me want to vomit. Soaked into my shirt, I realize. Then, my gaze still struggling to take in my surroundings, I spy glass fragments scattered around me; the remains of a bottle.
I should move. Get out. Call someone. Do something.
My head hurts so damn much, and instead of velvet black sky, I see bursting white lights exploding across my field of vision.
Vero.
One word. It rises to the front of my mind. Grounding me. Guiding me. Urging me forward. Vero, Vero, Vero.
I move. Laboriously, the keening sound replaced by a soul-wrenching scream as I attempt to extricate myself from the driver’s seat. My vehicle appears to have landed on its front end, the dash nearly crushed against me. I’m not upright, but tilted forward, as if my Audi, once it broke its nose, couldn’t regain its balance. It means I have to work doubly hard to unpin myself from the accordionized space between my seat and the steering wheel and the collapsed dash.
Airbag. The excess mass wraps around my arms, tangles up my hands, and I curse it. Back to screaming and fighting and ranting gibberish, but the senseless rage spikes my adrenaline until at least the crushing fatigue is gone, and now there is only pain, an endless terrible pain I already understand I can’t afford to contemplate, as I finally wiggle my way sideways from between the driver’s seat and the dash. I collapse, panting heavily, onto the center console. Legs work. Arms, too.
Head’s on fire.
Vero.
Smoke. Do I smell smoke? I suffer an immediate bolt of panic. Smoke, screams, fire. Smoke, screams, fire.
Vero, Vero, Vero.
Run!
No. I catch myself. No smoke. That was the first time. How many times can a woman die? I’m not sure. It’s a blur in my head, from the smell of wet earth to the heat of flames. All separate and yet together. I am dying. I am dead. No, I am merely dying. No wait, I am dead. The first time, the second time, the third?
I can’t sort it out.
Only one thing matters, has ever mattered. Vero. I must save Vero.
Back seat. I twist myself around. I hit first my left knee, then my right, and scream again. Knees are shot. Fuck it. Don’t care. Back seat. I have to get to the back seat.
I fumble around in the dark, licking rain and mud from my lips as other impressions start to register. The front windshield is shattered, but also the moon roof, hence the inside rain. My once gorgeous, relatively new and luxurious Audi Q5 crossover SUV has been shortened by at least a foot, if not two, the front end sustaining the worst of the impact and the front doors most likely too warped to open. But the back appears to be relatively intact.
“Vero, Vero, Vero.”
I realize for the first time I am wearing gloves. Or, used to be wearing gloves. The glass has shredded them into large bloody flaps which hinder my movements. I wrestle the first one off, then the second, then jam them self-consciously in my pants pocket. Can’t toss them on the floor. That would be littering and I treat my car better than that. Used to treat my car better than that?
My head hurts so damn much. I want to curl up in a ball and sleep and sleep and sleep.
But I don’t. I can’t. Vero.
Forcing myself to move once more, I rummage right, then left, fingers fumbling in the dark. But I find nothing. No one. I search and search, first the back seat, then, more shakily, the floor. But no small body magically appears.
What if… She could’ve been thrown, tossed from the airborne vehicle. The car had tried to fly, and maybe so had Vero.
Mommy, look at me. I’m an airplane.
What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?I must get out of the vehicle. Nothing else matters. Out there, something in the dark, the rain, the mud. Vero. I must save her.
I drag myself by the elbows from the front of my crumpled car to the back. Then, a sharp turn for the rear passenger’s door. But it won’t open. I yank the handle, shove against the door. Cry, beg, and plead, but nothing. It won’t give. The damage, the child’s safety lock. Shit!
One other exit. The way back, rear cargo hatch. Moving again, painfully slow as the pain in my head turns to nausea in my stomach, and I know I’m going to vomit, but I don’t care. I have to get out of this car. I have to find Vero.
The puke, when it comes, is a thin liquid spew that smells of expensive single malt and a long night’s regret.
I drag myself through the heinous puddle and keep going. First lucky break: the collision has jarred the rear hatch open.
I push it the rest of the way up. Then, when crawling proves too much for my bruised—broken?—ribs, I drag myself out with my arms and belly flop onto the ground. Mud, soft and oozing, eases my fall. I roll over, panting from the pain, the force of my exertions, the hopelessness of my situation.
Rain, rain go away, please come back some other day.
Mommy, look at me, I’m an airplane.
I’m tired again. Fatigue, crushing and deep. I could just lie here. Help will come. Someone who saw the accident, heard the crash. Another motorist passing by. Or maybe someone will miss me. Someone who cares.
An image of a man’s face pops into my mind, but is gone before I can catch it.
“Vero,” I whisper. To the falling rain, the oozing mud, the starless night.
The smell of smoke, I think idly. The heat of fire. No, that was the first time. Focus, dammit. Focus!
I roll back over, and begin my journey.
The road appears to be high above me. There is mud, grass, scraggly bushes, and sharp rocks between it and me. I hear distant sounds, cars whizzing above me, like exotic birds and I realize, as I belly crawl forward inch by inch, that the vehicles are too far away. They are up; I am down. They will never see me. They will never stop and help me find Vero.
Another inch, two, three, four. Gasping as I hit a rock. Cursing as I tangle in a bush. My trembling fingers reaching forward, searching, searching, searching. While my head screams in agony and I pause, time after time, to retch pathetic little spits of bile.
Vero.
And then: Oh, Nicky, what have you done?
I hear that keening noise again but I don’t stop. I don’t want to realize that the distressed animal making all those sounds is actually me.
I don’t know how long I wriggle myself up through the slipping, sliding mud. I know by the time I crest the hill, I’m covered head to toe in black ooze and far from disturbing me, it amuses me. It’s fitting, I think. I look as I ought to look.
Like a woman who’s crawled from the grave.
Lights. Twin pinpricks, looming closer. I get up on my hands and knees now. Have to, if the passing motorist is to see me. And it’s okay, because my ribs don’t hurt anymore. My body has gone numb, the screaming in my head having overloaded all circuits and left everything else curiously blank.
Maybe I’m already dead. Maybe this is what the dead look like, as I get one foot beneath me, and slowly but surely, rise to standing.
A screech of brakes. The oncoming car, fishtailing briefly as the driver overapplies the brakes in the wet conditions. Then, miraculously, it stops, right before my raised hand and pale, rain-streaked face.
“Holy—” An elderly man, clearly shaken, is briefly illuminated by the interior light as he opens the driver’s side door. He steps out uncertainly, rises to standing. “Ma’am, are you all right?”
I don’t say a word.
“Is it an accident? Where’s your car? Ma’am, you want me to dial nine-one-one?”
I don’t say a word.
I just think: Vero.
And suddenly, I remember. I remember everything. An enormous explosion of light, terror and rage. A shooting pain not only through my head, but through my heart. And in that instant, I recall exactly who I am. The monster from underneath the bed.
Across from me, as if sensing my thoughts, the old man recoils, takes a small step back.
“Um…just stay there, ma’am. Just…I’ll um, I’ll phone for help.”
The man disappears back inside the dimly lit interior of his car. I don’t say anything. I stand in the rain, swaying on my feet.
I think, one last time: Vero.
Then the moment is gone, the memory passed.
And I am no one at all, just a woman twice returned from the dead.
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Most helpful customer reviews
43 of 48 people found the following review helpful. "Before I Go To Sleep" crossed with a manual on "How To Investigate A Motor Vehicle Accident". By Mimsy Itonia Sgt Wyatt Foster and his partner Kevin (whose surname I've already forgotten - but his nickname is "The Brain") must solve the mystery behind a motor vehicle accident in which sole driver Nicky Frank desperately asks them to search for "Vero". It is only later when they get to the hospital that Nicky's husband Thomas Frank tells them that Vero doesn't exist. This car accident is the third time she's suffered serious concussion, so they can't be sure that anything she says is the truth. So how did the car wind up at the bottom of the ravine? And where did Nicky conjure up this little girl by the name of Vero?For the first 40% of this novel, I felt as if it should have been renamed "How To Investigate A Motor Vehicle Accident". It was so, so dull. And so, so dry. Every other chapter we'd keep going back to that ravine for more information on How To Investigate A Motor Vehicle Accident. At one point Wyatt even says "I hate this damn ravine" three times in one page. By that point, I was in complete agreement. Enough already! Get on with the plot! I don't know any police department that would spend so much time on a MVA (motor vehicle accident) in which no pedestrians were injured and the driver wasn't over the legal alcohol limit. In my opinion, 40% (nearly half a novel) is too long to spend on something like that. In Australia we have tons of "factual" shows in which road traffic police investigate accidents. I don't watch them. So I didn't relish reading about it so much.By 45%, the novel has delivered a decent, if predictable, twist. Thankfully, from that point on the pace begins to pick up and the story begins to resemble the sort of thriller I've come to expect from Lisa Gardner, one of my favourite authors. Gardner manages to deliver a few more plot twists that nearly had me gasp out loud while I was surreptitiously devouring the novel on my Kindle at work. So she still knows how to pull the rug out from under her readers. But it was still lacking. That very slow start to the book really damaged proceedings. Also, she eventually tries on one too many plot twists. With only six main characters (Nicky, Thomas, Wyatt, Kevin, Tessa, Marlene), and three of those investigators, there are only so many places she can go, and her bag of tricks empties out. The finale was more soap opera cliffhanger than genuine suspense.But it was a nice try. I'm glad I persevered past 40%, because I got some nice thrills and spills out of "Crash And Burn". It was far from her best, however. Sometimes I got the feeling she had read "Before I Go To Sleep" and thought to herself "I can do better than that". She did, but it's a hollow victory. If it weren't for that first 40%, this one would have been four stars.Note: the book's subtitle says "Tessa Leoni #3". It's not really. She's very much a secondary character, but she serves more purpose here than she did in "Touch & Go", where (I felt) she just kept getting in the way. Also, why do they keep saying that Wyatt worked with D.D. Warren on the Denbe case ("Touch & Go")? No, they didn't. D.D. Warren only had a cameo in that book (like she does here).
35 of 39 people found the following review helpful. Don't know what to say............ By Deborah J. Pfiffner I did not care for this book in the least. "Twice back from the dead......Vero wants to fly...." Those two phrases repeated over and over and over and over and over.....well, you get the idea how annoying it is. In my opinion this was a senseless jumble of words and ideas that were hard to follow and made too little sense to consider this a novel worth reading. I feel like Lisa Gardner is losing her touch in creating a great mystery that you can just dive into and thoroughly get lost in. I can't in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. Truly awful!
39 of 46 people found the following review helpful. Gardner blends mystery, suspense, and thriller elements seamlessly into one heck of a read! By meigan Lisa Gardner is one twisted lady and I mean that in the most complimentary of ways, of course. Otherwise, she wouldn't be so good at what she does and believe me, she's good.In every Lisa Gardner novel, each one is drastically different, while still sharing the same traits as all of the others: more twists and turn than you can shake a stick at, combined with villains and victims alike that are all morally ambiguous. There is a definite shade of grey to be found in Gardner's novels, and Crash & Burn is a perfect example of that fact. The bad guys aren't always bad in every sense of the word, but more importantly, the good guys aren't always as good as they want to be perceived.In Crash & Burn, the action happens immediately from the first page. A woman, seemingly the victim of her own making in a drinking and driving accident, crawls up a ravine afterwards in search of rescue. After being loaded into an ambulance, Nicky Frank pleads to everyone listening that a little girl, Vero, is missing and needs to be found. Naturally, the police immediately start a search for the missing child, coming away with more questions than they have answers and evidence. According to Thomas Frank, Nicky's husband, there is no child, there is no Vero, it's all just a figment of Nicky's thrice-concussed brain. Such brain trauma would lead to false memories, fantasy pasts, a definite inability to separate the fact from the fiction. Nicky's brain injuries also lead to more questions for the police; how does one woman end up with three concussions in a span of 6 months? And is Vero real? In short bursts of coherence, Nicky's recollections seem more like truths, which just leads the police deeper and deeper into a twisted mystery.Although this isn't one of Gardner's famed D.D. Warren novels, fans of hers will be delighted that she does make an appearance. Still recovering from past injuries, D.D.'s future as a cop still hangs in the balance. Another recurring character, Tessa Leoni, plays a more prominent role in this novel. Aside from helping during the current investigation, her past is also still haunting her. Tessa is one of those great ambiguous characters that Gardner is so good at. While her story has already been told, it's definitely far from over. I will be waiting with bated breath to see what the future holds for her regarding her own case, and also where she and Wyatt end up.As with all of Gardner's novels, I recommend this for readers of thrillers and mysteries who love a good twist and turn. Gardner provides many and just when you think you've figured it out, she throws in some more. Despite some recurring characters, most of these novels can stand alone, but I recommend reading previous character-labeled novels just to get the full scope and get any missing backstory.**eARC received on behalf of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.
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