Chapter 35
The light from her laptop, white and glowing, revealed the pronouncements of strangers, the select group of people who had shared tonight’s event with her, but were now sharing their reactions to the whole online world. As long as they were positive, Tessa’s career would continue.
It’s fab when an author lives up to your expectations. Tessa= incredible
LOVE her. See me? Blue shirt and blue earrings? #Annabelle
Kenley Hayes had posted Tessa standing in the aisle between the two sections of seats.
Two hundred people, all smiling, all holding her book, and Tessa herself cradling one in her arms. It seemed the picture of success, but someone out there was a potential villain in the story.
She looked, again, for the auburn-haired woman.
But the person who’d questioned her so intently was definitely not in the shot.
Don’t you need to sleep? Annabelle asked.
Tessa continued to scroll.
It’s weird, IMO, she never talks about her childhood.
Someone tonite even asked, she totally dodged.
She’s trying to keep things pri, OK? Everyone deserves privacy.
She’s famous. We get to know about her. #thedeal
#wrong
Did she find out who was in that photo thing? #LocketMom
I think it’s in Maine. Looks like Maine to me.
Maine, Tessa thought. She pursed her lips, remembering Maine.
Picturing it. Maine in the daylight, Maine at night, unfamiliar and rural, the pine trees higher than she’d ever seen, the nighttime sounds.
She’d learned to recognize crickets and cicadas and katydids, different than at home.
Lightning bugs, magical and impossible, carrying their personal luminescence.
Even the blackflies, so viciously predatory, seemed born of a fairy-tale forest. The sky seemed farther away there, and the earth denser.
Emily still inhabited every mental image she created of those days.
The two of them whispering, sharing, laughing, promising.
Crying, once. Long ago, and not ever forgotten.
Did the photo look like Maine? Impossible to tell from that shot. Unless there was some unique native foliage, trees or flowers, or a lighthouse in the distance, something she had failed to recognize.
Part of her wanted to check the locket right now. Was it Maine? Was there something she’d missed? But she was so tired, and the locket would be in her suitcase tomorrow, and she’d look then.
Her yawn encompassed her entire body, and the screen blurred in front of her. She flapped it down, and too tired even to get up, she put the laptop beside her on the king-sized bed. Sleeping with her laptop. That had to be some kind of metaphor.
She stopped herself from wondering what—or who— Henry was sleeping with.
Sometimes her own zero-to-sixty imagination led her down unnecessarily distressing paths.
Barbie. Nellie. The nosy neighbor and the beautiful mom with an out-of-town husband.
She could write about that stuff, but that was not her life.
Her book was not her life, no matter what her readers conjectured.
She’d apologize to Henry tomorrow. Having a pessimistic imagination doesn’t mean something isn’t wrong. But no way to know tonight.
Her alarm was set, but she set another one for fifteen minutes after that.
She could not miss a plane. She could not be late.
Everyone gets one hundred percent, that’s what she’d told a newspaper interviewer recently.
And she’d meant it. Some days, though, it felt like her one hundred percent was not what it used to be.
The sound vibrated against the shiny wood of her nightstand, insistent, and though she tried to ignore it, the message buzzed again.
She opened her eyes, barely, saw the glowing green numbers on the nightstand clock.
Fifteen minutes after midnight. Two fifteen in Rockport and New York.
Way too late for news that was anything but bad.
Scrabbling for the phone, trying to make her eyes focus, swimming out of her half sleep, she squinted at the screen.
Is it too late?
A 303 area code. Denver. Someone who’d messaged her before. She zip-scrolled up. Kenley Hayes. From the bookstore. Tessa typed back.
All good, I’m up.
It was easy to lie on a text. No one could see your expression.
You okay?
What? Sure yes. Why?
Three dots meant Kenley was typing. Stay awake, Tessa ordered herself. Why would Kenley be asking if she was okay?
I feel horrible. I know it’s too late to text. But forgot to tell you I had customers. Wanting to send you gift.
The dots paused, and Tessa, propped on unfamiliar pillows, typed back quickly.
Yes, candy. I got it. They told me you told them where I was staying.
Tessa typed again, yearning for sleep.
Okay?
No! I didn’t. Tell them.
Call me?
Tessa’s phone buzzed almost instantly.
“I’m so sorry.” Kenley’s voice was a whisper. “I didn’t tell them. And you say they said I did?”
“They said—well, it was on a card that came with the chocolates. From Hammond’s?”
“Yes, Hammond’s, delicious, very Denver. But… I’m concerned. Someone said I told your hotel? No. I didn’t. I would never.”
“I know.” Tessa closed her eyes, opened them again. “I’m sure it’s fine, Kenley, and you’re so kind to call. But the customers—did you recognize them from the event?”
Tessa heard footsteps in the hallway, then laughter, then silence.
How many people were in this hotel? Hundreds, maybe thousands.
She was alone, in this anonymous room, where only a select handful of people knew where she was.
But also someone who was not in that handful. Someone who was not supposed to know.
“Recognize? I don’t think so. A man and a woman.
They looked like…” She paused, and Tessa could almost hear her thinking.
“People who would go into a bookstore. In fact, that was their deal. They said they’d have to miss the signing, but were massive fans, and wanted you to know they were ‘thinking of you.’ So no. They weren’t at the event.”
“Handsome guy?” Tessa pictured Sam in 3A. A man and a woman. His daughter, Anna, like Savannah? Not two female flight attendants. “Kinda cowboy?”
“That’s like fifty percent of the male population in Denver, Tessa.”
The phone went silent, white noise from Kenley’s end.
Tessa pictured her in some Denver-looking house, broad windows, stark mountains in the background, the ghostly moon high above, Kenley wrapped in an earth-toned quilt, surrounded by stacks of books.
Again, making reality into fiction. But those two people in the bookstore were not fiction.
“Want me to call the police?” Kenley asked.
“And tell them what?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“You have security video?”
“Nope.”
“And on this end, what am I supposed to do? Call 911? And when they say what’s your emergency, I would have to say ‘someone sent me chocolates’?”
At that, Kenley burst out laughing, and then Tessa did, too, and Tessa could tell both of them were trying to stop but could not.
“Whew,” Tessa finally managed to say, wiping her eyes with the edge of a pillowcase. “I’m tired, and I guess you are, too. Seems like we’re both used to fans.”
“True. But fan comes from the word ‘fanatic,’ doesn’t it?”
“Does it?”
“Let’s hope it comes from ‘fantastic,’” Kenley said. “Or ‘fantasy.’ Look, it’s late. I’m sure you’re right, but…”
“Who knows.” Tessa couldn’t ignore the troubling reality. Had they followed her from the bookstore to the hotel? They.
“Yeah.” Another silence.
“People are funny,” Tessa lied. “But we won’t solve it tonight, and I’m grateful you called.” She remembered her author etiquette; what DJ would want her to say. “I had a terrific time, and hope you’ll invite me back.”
“Well, of course, rock star. We sold more of your books than any other so far this year. So yeah, Ms. Bestseller, come anytime you want. Bring Annabelle, too, ha ha. Keep in touch, okay? And sweet dreams.” Kenley laughed again. “Oh, I’m sorry. Reflex. That’s what I say to my kids.”
Tessa added “kids” to her mental picture of Kenley. And as she said goodnight to the bookseller, she thought of her own two children, and hoped they would have sweet dreams as well. She herself—would not.
Because whoever sent the chocolates would know what they claimed in their note could easily be proven untrue.
Which meant whoever sent it wanted Tessa to realize that. Wanted Tessa to know they could find her. Get to her. No matter where she was.