Chapter 22
She slid into a green pleather booth in an airport diner called Avocados, directly across from her gate, which offered a nichey menu with varieties of avocado toast and “artisanal” coffee.
Tessa ordered a Desert Dark Roast and set up her FaceTime, putting her back to the arriving customers so no one would recognize her.
She propped her phone against a ketchup bottle, and held it in place with a sugar shaker.
She needed to call Henry. In the midst of his “fun thing” or not, she had to talk to him.
“They found it?” Henry’s expression, in miniature on the FaceTime, was a portrait of skepticism.
He’d said he and the kids were on the town center green, getting ice cream for “breakfast dessert” after having waffles at some place called DeMarco’s.
She had a pang of worry about Linny’s tummy, but hey, if Henry wanted to be in charge, he could be in charge.
She’d kill him if anything happened to her daughter. Their daughter.
But he’d assured her Linny was fine. They’d even met some of the “terrific” new neighbors. And a cool—“Linny’s word,” Henry assured her—dog walker.
“That’s totally hotel CYA, honey,” Henry was saying now.
The sun was bleaching out the video, and sometimes all Tessa could see on the FaceTime was a burst of light, or trees. She heard laughter in the background, music from a band, or a carousel.
“Someone took the thing by mistake,” he went on, “when they left the chocolate on your pillow. They had to get it back to you without having to admit someone stole it. And thereby avoid potentially crippling liability.”
“They don’t leave chocolates anymore.” The restaurant smelled like salsa, and it was stomach-churningly too early for that. “But that’s not the point.”
“Honey—”
The shot shifted, and Tessa could see Henry was not looking at the camera lens. His attention was elsewhere, but she could not see what had distracted him. He was living an entirely separate life, and she could only view the tiny fraction of it that he allowed her to.
“Hey. Hen? You with me here? The point is the thing was in my suitcase, wrapped up and zipped in the pocket, like I said, so it’s not like someone thought it was trash, and then discovered later that it wasn’t, and had to create a face-saving cover-up to return it.
Believe me, I tried to get myself to buy into that. But—”
“Wrapped?” Henry interrupted. “Like a gift? What was it wrapped in?”
Tessa paused, took a sip of coffee.
“Trash bags,” she muttered. “But it—”
Henry’s laugh was so loud Tessa flinched, and lowered the volume on her phone.
“You must be so tired, hon. Look, possibly you didn’t actually put it into the pocket. There’s got to be an explanation.”
“There sure does.” Tessa heard the hiss in her own voice. “But I don’t have any idea what it is. It didn’t look like trash. It was in my suitcase. Someone wanted to prove they could get into my room, and get into my stuff, and why would they only take that? And give it back?”
“That’s pretty complicated,” Henry said. “You and your imagination, Tesser.”
He’s wrong, Annabelle said. You know that.
“I’m not imagining anything,” she said.