Chapter 28
By the time she had yanked the zipper and flapped open her suitcase, her brain had become so teemingly full of worry about Zack and everything that went with it, including his childhood totally ending, that she had forgotten to be terrified.
Now she stared at it, the tissue paper precisely centered over her clothing, the mesh clicked tight to hold it in place.
Heart thumping, and hearing the sound of her own breathing, she slowly flapped open the inside webbed pocket, revealing her shoes and two clear plastic zipped bags of cosmetics and toiletries.
Her jewelry pouch, bulky and full, was still in its concealed outside compartment.
She pawed through it. The ring was there.
The locket wrapped in plastic. Everything looked exactly like it had before. Undisturbed.
She stood there, alone, in the pristine and silent box of yet another hotel room. Under the spell of uncertainty.
“Whoa,” she said out loud. “Paranoid much?” She plopped down on the bed, on yet another quilted bedspread, and regretted the brain space her worry had occupied. In reality, hard-edged reality, nothing had gone wrong. Her suitcase was fine. Her life was fine.
Zack’s life was fine, too. He needed friends. Henry had given his approval. For whatever that was worth, but Henry was the one in charge. Conquer your fears , her therapist had told her long ago. Face them, erase them. Experiences are real. But their effects are in your control.
True. But difficult.
Turning on the television for company, she sat at the funky hotel desk with its too-low chair and view of the wall, and swiveled the TV to watch an episode of Chopped , eating the turkey sandwich she’d bought at the airport.
When she got home—soon soon soon—she could cook again.
Who would have thought she’d ever miss that.
Linny’s tummy , she remembered. She hadn’t even asked Zack about it. But he would have mentioned a disaster, and anyway, Henry was in charge. She had to let go. Her past was not part of her family’s present.
Still.
The hotel had scented soap, and fluffy towels, and blissful water pressure, but it was impossible to wash away her fears.
She selected a black dress and black jacket, struggling to stay focused.
Her troubles had begun with that locket, which still no one had recognized.
And her not-so-brilliant idea about #LocketMom, also still a puzzle.
But the locket went missing, and was returned.
Then the exact same thing with her suitcase.
She was obviously meant to notice. But notice what? And what was she supposed to do?
And the questions about her hometown. And the appearance of Sam. Were those things connected?
You know they might be, Annabelle said. And if they are, you might know why.
Pulling her black velvet jewelry pouch from the zippered suitcase pocket, she eased open the drawstring top. “Go away, Annabelle,” she said out loud.
Good luck with that, Annabelle said.
She’d packed inexpensive but photogenic event necklaces, and four sets of periwinkle-blue earrings. Now tangled, as always, because Tessa was always hurrying too much to wrap them properly. Impatient, she held the pouch from the bottom and dumped the entire contents onto the bedspread.
Her precious ring tumbled out. A jumble of periwinkle and gold and fake pearls, dull in the muted light of the hotel room, heaped in a pile on unfamiliar bedding.
She picked up the pieces of blue, one by one, matching them as she did.
Two dangly rectangles, two thin hoops, two filigreed periwinkle daisies, and the chunky periwinkle squares.
Four pairs of periwinkle earrings. When she had moved her four pairs away from the jewelry chaos, there was still blue in the pile.
Another pair of earrings.
She had never seen those blue earrings before. She had not purchased them, had not worn them, had not been given them, had not packed them. Someone had put those earrings in her suitcase.
They sat, like blue kryptonite, on the bed.
Periwinkle. In the shape of hearts. There was only one solution.
The person who had taken her suitcase had slipped in the earrings, and then returned it.
The pouch was a lucky find—they might as easily have stuffed them into her bag.
Either way, the inside of the suitcase with her clothes wouldn’t have been touched at all.
They hadn’t taken her bag. They had added to it.
Someone was fast, and someone was deliberate. Someone had targeted her. Someone had found her. Someone was letting her know they had control of her belongings. And her life.
She felt her heart race, faster now. But there was no time to do anything, no one to tell, no one to explain it, no one who would even believe it.
“Nine-one-one, where’s your emergency?” she imagined a dispatcher’s voice answering her call. “I’m in my hotel room,” she’d have to say, “and I found earrings in my suitcase that I didn’t put there.”
That would be super effective. Super convincing.
All she could do now was put on one of her own pairs of earrings, because her fans expected it, clasp on some pearls, and go. And leave the whole rest of the mess on the bed.
“ Take it,” she said out loud, daring the universe. She snapped up the engagement ring, tucked it into her purse. “Go ahead.”
Slipping on her black suede pumps, she grabbed her tote bag, checked her hair, made sure she had her key card and phone. She had forty-five minutes to get to the bookstore. Tessa opened her hotel room door, and gave the pile of jewelry one last withering glare.
“You don’t scare me,” she said.
But that was not true.