Chapter 41
“Here’s what worries me, Tessa.” Tessa muttered the words out loud as she pulled her roller bag down yet another hotel corridor, this one the red-and-gold faux opulence of the Emperor Suites. She found her hotel room key, and tapped. “Whether you’ve lost your mind.”
She had not slept on the plane. She’d stared out into the cotton-filled sky, wondering what Linny had meant by if Zackie “ever decides to come home.” When she’d called back, after slogging through security and finding her gate, Henry’s phone had gone straight to messages.
She’d felt her shoulders droop. Where had he gone?
Saturday mornings they always went for bagels—but they lived in Rockport now.
She had no idea where to get bagels in Rockport.
Or where to get anything. Bagels, ha. She had no idea where her family was.
Or what they were doing. The nosy Barbie woman, obviously stalking Henry. Zackie off with the glamorous Nellie.
She could not bear to think of her children alone. Before the trip, she’d told Henry, looked him in the eyes and held his shoulders— do not leave our children by themselves. Ever . He’d thought she was oversensitive. Or doubting him. “What could happen?” he’d asked.
She had opened her mouth to answer, then couldn’t.
“Come home,” Henry had urged her. He might have meant it, in a flash of impulse, until he thought about it. Until he thought about the money.
Now she thought about how much money there would not be if she panicked and took the next flight to Boston.
She hauled her suitcase onto the webbed wooden luggage stand, unzipped it.
Took stock of her dilemma. Which disturbingly unusual things on this journey were connected—causation—and which were coincidence?
Sam in 3A showing up at the bookstore? She hadn’t gotten his last name, which now she regretted.
But he could have made one up, too. Anna like Savannah?
The contentious audience questions in Phoenix and Denver?
DJ had even warned her, be careful on the road.
Everyone isn’t always nice . And that was certainly true.
The chocolates. The fire. Her briefly missing luggage. Those earrings.
The locket. Which was still in her suitcase.
Sheepishly, she knew it was absurd, she took the five steps to the nightstand in her new room, yanked open the drawer. Nothing. She opened all the drawers in the room, still so weary and muddled. But there was nothing in them that shouldn’t be.
She clipped her black pants onto a hanger, and draped the jacket over them. The locket had to be a coincidence. They would have no way to make sure that she’d do anything about it.
She paused, still holding the hanger. “They.”
“They” managed to get her the chocolates. “They” pulled the fire alarm. And “they” destroyed the chocolates.
“There is no ‘they,’ Tessa,” she admonished herself. “Set the alarm, lie down, take a nap.”
There might be a they, Annabelle said.
Tessa yawned, a deeply exhausted yawn, and peeled off her leggings and T-shirt and tossed them on one of the double beds. Being on the road was grueling; Sadie and Olivette and DJ, all of Team Tessa had cautioned her about that.
But secretly, she’d looked forward to some time alone.
The idea of flying around the country, staying in lovely hotels, having one event each day where people lauded her and bought her books, how could that be terrible?
But strange pillows and time zones and unpredictability and strangers took their toll, and now someone was trying to unsettle her. Taunt her. Stalk her. Destroy her.
She’d relied on her family for equilibrium.
And now she didn’t know where they were.