Chapter 19
Staring at an empty pocket was not going to make that necklace appear.
Tessa pawed, frantic, through the rest of her suitcase, pulling out sheets of wrinkled tissue paper and two shoe bags that held her event pumps.
She had unpacked when she arrived, because living out of a suitcase felt like the first step in personal travel defeat.
So right now she was clawing through an essentially empty roller bag, looking for something that was not there.
She stood, not taking her eyes off the suitcase, hands on hips, and she imagined a slideshow of possibilities.
Had she not packed it? Had she left it in—wherever she was before?
Indianapolis? No, she definitely hadn’t forgotten it.
Taking it had been a Rubicon moment. Had she shown it to Geneva, that driver?
Handed it to her, forgotten to take it back?
No. She’d shown her the picture on her cell phone.
She had not let the suitcase out of her sight as it went through luggage screening, and she herself had lifted it into the overhead compartment on the plane.
And she remembered, distinctly, seeing its lumpy outline, concerned it might make her suitcase too thick for the overhead compartment.
And no one could have taken it on the plane, impossible, she would have noticed.
So she hadn’t been crazy. She hadn’t been wrong. She lowered herself to the side of the bed, sticking out her slippered feet and staring at the toes. Someone had been in this room, and they had taken the locket. Only the locket.
And what’s more, and she was certain of it, that was the purpose of the note. As she’d suspected. Getting her out of the way to give them the opening to steal it. But who? And why?
She flopped back onto her pillow, slippers on top of the duvet. What was she supposed to do? Call the desk and say someone had been in her room? And, she realized in a wave of distress, she wasn’t even supposed to possess that locket. She herself had stolen it from her Indianapolis hotel room.
Now, if someone on social media recognized it, and claimed it, and wanted it back, she didn’t have it.
She puffed out a dismayed breath, imagining what would happen next.
Calling DJ, and reporting to her publicist that someone had stolen #LocketMom’s necklace from her room.
That would be a conversation. She should never have taken it in the first place.
When would she learn not to get involved in other people’s lives?
“I was only trying to help,” Tessa said out loud.
She stared at the ceiling, unseeing. She had to go to sleep, she had to get up for her plane tomorrow, it was now past one in the morning and there was no one to call. No one to ask. No way to figure this out.
Her door was chained closed; she could see the lock.
Fans were supposed to be good people. Weren’t they?
Loving and supportive? She adored hers, relied on them, and could not bear the idea that someone had weaponized the personal connections of her book tour.
She’d always scoffed when celebrities complained about people loving them, but now…
She was beginning to understand how having a world of strangers know your every move could be frightening.
She grabbed her phone and googled how to get into someone’s hotel room . When an array of answers popped up, she realized it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how someone got in. They had.
Tessa brushed her teeth— good girl , she reassured herself, everything will be fine —assessed her weary face in the unforgiving bathroom mirror, then turned off all the lights except for the one in the entryway, and slid under the covers, punching her pillow into shape.
She closed her eyes, and they stayed closed for, she estimated, approximately ten seconds.
She reached to the nightstand for her plugged-in phone, opened her Facebook.
The ReadRunner Bookstore page had accumulated an even longer list of comments.
She skimmed them for clues or personal questions or negative remarks, even knowing she’d be better off going to sleep.
Did one of those people—one of the people she had signed a book for—carry some seething animosity toward her?
“Stop,” she ordered herself. And then went to her own Facebook page.
There was her crying, and dangling the now-missing locket, with thousands of likes, and now, hundreds of comments.
Nine hundred and fifty-three comments. How could 953 people possibly have something to say about that locket? Or the man in the photo?
The locket you no longer have.
“Go to sleep,” she said out loud.
But she could not resist reading the new comments.
Did you see her in Phoenix? So beyond.
I wore my blue earrings #periwinkle
So what about this photo? Who did she cut out of it?
Weird that no one knows that man
Told you #salesploy
Go away.
She wouldn’t talk about her hometown, notice that?
This is supposed to be about the man in the picture.
Agree with ^^ Why doesn’t anyone know him?
Maybe he’s dead.
Not everyone is on social. Tessa is trying to help. #supernice
All these people, talking about her. She’d embraced it, and certainly the support from her #MomsWithDreams friends had changed her life, but now the chatter felt unsettling.
Personal. Invasive. She’d taken a photo of the attendees tonight, a wide shot from the podium, her standard “class photo.” She could compare it with the ones from her other events.
See if anyone looked out of place. Or, even more disconcerting, familiar.
Tessa paused. Footsteps. In the hallway. She closed her eyes, derisive. It’s a hallway. People walk in hallways.
She waited. The footsteps came closer.
But they did not pause outside her door, and continued into silence.