Chapter 30
Salad, a bathrobe, a hotel key card that worked.
The things Tessa had come to be grateful for.
She saw the jumble of jewelry, untouched, on the bedspread, surprised the earrings hadn’t burned a hole in the bedding.
There was no other explanation but that someone had put them in her suitcase. On purpose.
But no answer about who. Or why.
The TV still flickered the news, she’d left it on with the volume loud enough to convince burglars the room was occupied.
As if that would fool anyone. She put down her plastic-clamshelled salad, dumped her tote bag, and kicked off her shoes.
The bookstore had sold out of All This , Kenley Hayes had implored her to write faster, and, equally reassuring, that final earring question had been benign.
But Phoenix Woman’s “friend in Denver” meant someone—someones—were coordinating their questions to her.
But again, who? And why?
You need to find out, Annabelle said. You need to take control.
Before she could think too much about it, she flipped open her laptop, clicked on her social, clicked on Go Live.
As the computer organized itself, Tessa sat on the bedside, taking the shade off the nightstand lamp to create semi-reasonable lighting.
She still had her book event hair and makeup and blazer.
She selected the mysterious earrings from the jewelry pile.
Where did they come from? And why? Whenever characters in a novel avoided a question, Tessa would mentally yell at them, sometimes even said it out loud: “Why don’t you just ask what happened?”
Now, that’s exactly what she would do.
And you are live , the screen said.