Chapter 21
“You okay, ma’am?” The desk clerk’s voice came across muddled, as if Tessa’s fear had muted the sounds of the hotel and the entire world outside her head.
“Um, sure,” Tessa managed to answer. Still standing at the counter, she removed the package from the paper bag. It was wrapped in gray plastic, with stretchy black closures tied in a tight knot.
Her heart clenched. Her brain caught fire. This was no longer irony or coincidence or a mistake.
She picked at the stubborn black knot, fumbling, pulling at the unyielding plastic, frustrated, impatient. The drawstring finally came loose, and revealed another gray plastic bag.
As she knew it would.
It was all she could do not to rip it apart.
She whirled, but no one was in line behind her.
She scanned the hotel lobby for anyone watching her, or pretending not to watch her.
A massive cactus in a huge red lacquer pot stood sentinel over three women perched on their taupe leather club chairs, but each seemed intent on their phone screens.
A florid-faced man with a suitcase was yelling at the concierge, leaning halfway across his wooden desk and focused on his outrage.
And the Diamondback Bar was empty, a metal gate drawn around its perimeter.
Except for the clueless clerk, no one was paying attention to Tessa and her bags.
She picked at the plastic ties of the second bag, her face feeling flushed and her chest tight. Hoping, and bargaining, and trying to explain an impossible thing.
When the final drawstring loosened, she pulled the plastic open, and there, exactly as she had left it, in these very same bags, with the very same knots, was the locket.
“You have no idea where this came from?” She had to ask, though she knew it was futile.
“It had your name on it,” the clerk said. “I mean, is it not yours?”
An impossible question.
“Is it a mistake?” the clerk persisted.
Another impossible question. Not a mistake on their part. But seemed as if somehow it was a mistake on hers.
Tucking the package into her tote bag as if it belonged there, she skirted the clerk’s inquiries. “No, just checking.”
She turned away, heart still racing, wondering what acting normal would look like. Then turned back to the clerk.
“I wonder if my husband was trying to surprise me with this. Cowboy boots, sandy hair?” She pantomimed big guy, broad shoulders, testing, on a gut instinct, to see if it might be Sam from seat 3A. “Like I told the other clerk when I asked about the package last night.”
“Huh?” the clerk said.
Any second now, her heart would explode.
“Can you find out who left this for me?” She hoped she didn’t look as terrified as she was.
“’Fraid not.” He shrugged, the silver metal ends of his bolo tie moving with the motion. “It didn’t come on my shift. We could find out tonight, maybe? Midnight shift?”
Her phone pinged. Her Uber was one minute away. The guy behind the desk was not going to be helpful. There was no one who could be helpful.
Had someone—the housekeeping staff—taken it by accident? Then returned it?
Taken it by accident from your suitcase? Annabelle asked.
At least now if someone recognized it, she could give it back, and have this monkey paw—wasn’t that the story? Or hot potato?—out of her life.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that the “housekeeper mistake” story could not be true. Someone was toying with her. Taunting her. Proving she was findable. Vulnerable.
In a daze, she managed to get a cup of coffee from the lobby dispenser. She had to leave. She had to catch her plane. And someone—someone unknown—knew her timing, and her plans, and exactly where she’d be.
“Tessa?” The Uber driver greeted her at the open back door of a crimson Charger. A woman wearing a denim midi skirt and a cowboy hat. She blinked, a double take, pointed a long Charger-red fingernail. “It is you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, good morning.” Tessa tried to focus. Someone was playing a game with her. A nasty game. An upsetting game. And she had no idea what the game was, or who else was playing. Which made it impossible to win. Tessa put on her face-the-fan expression. “Tessa, yes. Calloway.”
“Oh, I’da sold my soul for this. Died and gone to heaven. Will you sign my—” The woman stopped, grimaced. “Sorry. Not very professional. Airport?”
“Airport. Thanks, yes.”
“Your book is on my front seat,” the driver went on. “And you won’t believe this. My name is Annabelle, too.” She handed the book over the front seat, then shifted into drive. “Can you sign it ‘To the real Annabelle’?”
Tessa uncapped a pen and waited for a steady moment when the car wasn’t accelerating or changing lanes.
“For…” She paused, pen in midair, considering what she was about to write. This stranger, this “Annabelle,” or so she said, would be able to tell people that she truly was the inspiration for Annabelle. And Tessa might never know, at least not until it was too late.
The cactus-dotted Arizona landscape whizzed by her window. The woman could say she and Tessa had known each other for years, that Tessa had adored her, and named a character after her. Who wouldn’t believe it? It would be right there in black Sharpie, written by Tessa herself.
Thank you for everything . Tessa wrote that at every book signing without a second thought. But someone could present that as meaning anything they wanted. “She was thanking me for—” and then make up a lie. And Tessa’s inscription became incontrovertible evidence.
Even the innocuous “So nice to meet you at the Burlington Barnes & Noble” and the date—what was that but a perfect alibi?
Good one, Annabelle said. You could use that.
“For another Annabelle,” Tessa finally wrote. She handed the book to the driver as they stopped in a crowded line of cars in the departure drop-off lane. “So glad you enjoyed this.”
“Well, yeah, Annabelle’s my total role model.” The driver had come around to open Tessa’s door. “Screw ’em, right? And go after what you want, even if you have to sell your soul to get it. Because deals are made to be broken. She rocks. And you do, too. Since you made her up, right?”
The book is fiction , Tessa didn’t say. It would never fail to astonish her, how one decision could change your life. Or change someone else’s life. Or ruin it. “Thank you. You made my day.”
Tessa stepped out into oven-like heat, the sun glaring on the airport’s hot-as-hell white sidewalks. Thinking about selling one’s soul. What was destined to happen if you did.
“Wow,” Tessa said. “Brutal.”
The driver took Tessa’s suitcase from the trunk. “It’ll be better in Denver. Not as hot.”
“Denver?” How did this random driver know her destination?
“I googled your website when I was driving,” Annabelle said.
“Oh,” Tessa said. She needed to rein in her paranoia. That was the purpose of her events page. So people would know about her events.
“And can I ask…” The driver almost touched her on the arm, then pulled back. “Did you ever find Locket Mom?”
Locket Mom. Tessa’s heart sank, as the terror and confusion of the morning washed over her again. There was no way to fight back if she didn’t know who she was fighting. Or why.
“Not yet,” Tessa said. “But I know she’s out there.”