Chapter 26
The jetway had never seemed longer. Tessa followed behind Karine, matching her hurried footsteps, as they strode down the ramp toward the gate. Deplaning passengers moved aside to let them pass, probably assuming Tessa was getting VIP treatment. When quite the opposite was true.
Don’t check a bag, DJ had warned her, the airlines will certainly lose it. Only take a carry-on.
She’d obeyed that sound advice, but it wasn’t the airlines she was worried about now. It was who else had been on her plane.
The jetway dog-legged to the left and Tessa struggled to catch her breath, wondering if that was the result of fast walking or altitude sickness or fear or all of the above.
What was in that bag? Her laptop was with her in her carryall, and her wallet and phone and schedule in her purse.
Her suitcase had her jewelry, which would be sad to lose. And her oh-so-replaceable clothes.
Oh. And her engagement ring from Henry. A silly glass “diamond,” set in tin and nickel so tarnished it stained her finger to wear it.
All this could be yours, he’d said, expansively, selecting it, with utmost gravity, from the Halloween costumes at their college bookstore.
And offering himself, and his life, to her.
He’d replaced the ring later with a real one, but she could not bear the thought of losing it. It meant nothing, nothing, to anyone but her and Henry. No one would keep such a trinket if it weren’t massively meaningfully sentimental.
Also inside the suitcase, of course, that millstone of a locket.
And outside, that revealing luggage tag—a beacon that would lead someone right to her address in Rockport. And, it struck her with a heart-stopping realization, right to her vulnerable family.
But who? She had absolutely no answers.
You sure? Annabelle asked.
Her suitcase had been on the plane. For the entire journey, it had been out of her sight, closed off in the first-class cabin. Thirty-five thousand feet in the air. No one but first-class passengers were allowed to be there.
The jetway took a final jog and revealed an arc of Denver daylight. Without question, someone in the first-class cabin had taken her suitcase. And the airline company could discover who that was.
Her temper simmering and her fear at the boiling point, she tried to steady herself as she hurried down the jetway.
Someone had known she was on the plane. Someone had taken her bag.
On purpose. If she had only looked, she might have recognized them.
She had been on that inescapable plane for hours with a person who was obviously targeting her.
And she had slept through it all, unaware.
Her chest tightened, remembering her engagement ring. Silly and cheap and one of the most valuable things in her life. She’d tucked it, a talisman of joy, into her book-tour suitcase. She’d die if it was gone.
Her mother had tried to teach her to make loss of possessions less devastating. Like the time she’d left her beloved stuffed Teddy in the park. Six-year-old Tessa, wailing, had discovered the disaster hours later, right before bedtime.
“It’s not this particular bear that was important,” her mother had reassured her, back when her mother did things like that. “It’s what you made the bear mean. If you get another bear—and you will—tell yourself it’s the real Teddy, and soon you won’t even think about the other one. I promise.”
“But—” Tessa, weak from sobbing, had not believed that. She had not relied on her mother’s promises, not even then.
“You can make your mind decide whatever it wants to be true.” Her mother had tucked Tessa’s hair behind her ear, then, whispering, “You won’t even remember the bear that used to be.”
Her mother had been right, and her new Teddy had succeeded in its remaining brief shelf life as a childhood necessity.
But her mother had been wrong, too. When bad things happened, whatever circumstance ripped her from peaceful equilibrium and into despair—those things were always remembered.
She was simply good at hiding them. “Compartmentalization,” her long-ago therapist had mansplained the term to her.
He’d assured her it was useful. Valuable.
Necessary. The way people got through life.
“Storytelling keeps us safe,” he’d said.
“We can believe in the comfort of our stories.”
She arrived at the gate one step behind Karine. Saw the look on Karine’s face.
“Look, Ms. Calloway.” Karine leaned behind the agent’s desk, and rolled out Tessa’s suitcase. “Apparently, someone—an embarrassed someone”—Karine glanced at the gate agent, who nodded in confirmation—“inadvertently took it off the plane.”
“She was totally mortified, ma’am.” The gate agent, a romance novel cover model whose name tag said Lex, came up beside Karine, looking sympathetic. “She said she couldn’t face you. She was so ashamed, and left it for us to give back.”
“So all’s well that ends well,” Karine added, double-teaming. “I’m sorry we both had such a fright.”
Tessa reached out, grabbed the extended handle, spun her suitcase toward her. She looked for the outline of the padded locket. And it was there, exactly as she had left it. So was all well? The ring, and everything?
“Well, first, thank you.” Tess turned toward the crowded concourse, teeming with fast-moving travelers, striped with moving metal walkways, a highway of beeping golf carts. “What did she look like? Do you have her name? Could you tell from the flight manifest?”
Karine and Lex exchanged glances; with Tessa watching, they were unable to confer.
After a beat of silent decision-making, Lex stepped back behind the desk.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he said, looking contrite.
“It’s a privacy thing. We cannot reveal the names of any passengers, you understand that.
And frankly, there’s no way for us to get in touch with that passenger. ”
Tessa felt her fear battle with her relief. “But—”
“There are lots of passengers and lots of luggage, and…” Lex pointed. “Yours is black, like everyone else’s. It’s found, ma’am. Is something else wrong?”
Don’t let anyone else have your bag , everybody knew that warning. And there were scary reasons for that. But she had put her own bag on the plane. Someone else had taken it off.
“Where’s her suitcase, then?” Tessa asked. “If she took mine by mistake, where’s hers ? The one she didn’t take?”
This time Lex looked happy. “Oh, ma’am, I asked her that.
She told me she usually travels with a bag identical to that, but this time she only needed an under-seat bag, she’d only be here in Denver briefly?
But in her haste, she grabbed yours. By mistake.
Since she was so used to having a suitcase.
” He stopped, maybe waiting for her reaction. “See?”
Tessa pictured it, the exodus from the plane, the hands reaching up and yanking down identical-looking black suitcases.
If she had only been looking, she would have seen who took hers.
Someone who was in this airport right now.
Someone who had taken her bag, her clearly marked name-tagged bag, on purpose.
“Calloway,” Lex said then, pointing to her luggage tag. “Are you the author? With the…” He two-finger pantomimed drawing a rectangle over his face, like a book cover. “Book?”
Tessa imagined them regaling all of their airline friends with the story of the day.
“Guess who I met,” they’d gossip. “That author? Listen, she’s absolutely a bitch, even when we found her suitcase, which she hadn’t even put over her own seat, can you believe it?
, she was still annoyed. Celebrities, they’re all impossible. ”
If it hit the socials, there’d be an instantaneous cancellation, with sneery dismissive hashtags like #celebrityprivilege, or #pushyauthors.
#TerribleTessa. Social media had fueled her dreams. It could blow them up just as quickly.
“I’m so sorry.” Tessa placed her hands together at her lips, as if praying for forgiveness.
“I’m incredibly appreciative of your efforts, safe travels to you all, and thank you for all you do. ”
“No problem,” Lex said.
“Doing our job,” Karine said. “Hope to see you on the return.”
The two waved at her as she pivoted, bag in hand, to hurry down the airport concourse.
But as she hustled away, dodging the window shoppers and parents corralling rambunctious children and panic-faced back-packed teenagers running for their gate, she had a major decision to make.
Should she grab a stall in the nearest bathroom and open the suitcase now?
Or should she wait till she got to the hotel?
She had to get out of this airport, though.
Whoever was targeting her might still be watching.
Her agent had once instructed her that “What does someone want, and why?” was the key question in every novel. When she wrote her books, Tessa knew everyone’s motive. But in this particular disturbing circumstance, she had no idea.
Like I said earlier. You sure about that? Annabelle asked.