Chapter 47
Until she looked, until she faced it, it would haunt her. The cursor on her open laptop blinked at her, almost daring her to search again, as she sat cross-legged on the black-and-gray striped duvet on yet another king-sized bed.
Safely landed, and now in yet another hotel room, this one in Seattle, with wisps of fog out over the water, bleak and gorgeous at the same time.
Now she had to take control.
The cursor beckoned. She settled her shoulders against the headboard. Time to turn a page in her life.
Hundreds of people would applaud her tonight, but right now, she felt entirely alone. She peered out the hotel window into the gray nothing.
She typed in the words without looking at the keyboard. Annabelle Browning . Warrenton Ohio .
The past was not controllable, that was the dilemma. The past had its own agenda. And what was unleashed when you started to poke at it might not always be what you hoped.
But it still exists.
Okay, she thought, feeling like Pandora. Do it .
She hit Enter.
All the old stories came up, she’d seen them before, of course, some blurry photos of their local newspaper’s front page.
She knew her name had never been mentioned—the press had called them “juveniles.” It was still breathtakingly tragic.
Embarrassing. Humiliating. But there was nothing new. Nothing recent.
She added her real name to the search. Theresa Savannah Mattigan .
Nothing additional. She tried it with Tessa Danforth. Nothing.
One more try. She’d searched before the book came out, fearful and doom-plagued, but there’d been no results. What if something had changed?
Annabelle Browning. Warrenton Ohio. Tessa Calloway .
She held her breath. And clicked.
No search results match your selection , the screen reported. See results without Tessa Calloway?
Her phone pinged; the sound so unexpected, so in the present, that it made Tessa flinch.
Henry is asking for FaceTime , her phone screen announced.
She hit Accept, closed her laptop, turned off her memories. Henry would apologize. She’d let him.
“Hey, Hen.” She saw the still-yellow kitchen walls surrounding him, the fridge behind him. “What’s new?” She paused, congenial. “I almost hesitate to ask. Is Zack home? Is Linny—”
“All good, honey,” Henry cut her off. “Where are you?”
Tessa blew out a breath, looking out her cottony window. He had her calendar on the fridge, why didn’t he just look? “Seattle. My event’s in four hours, so I’m…” She paused, then lied. “Working on the new book.”
“You’re a machine,” Henry said. “What’s it about?”
“Oh, too boring to tell.” Tessa saw a shadow in the background, a movement. She refused to ask about a dog. If there was a dog, Henry would have to own up to it. “Are the kids with you?”
“Uh, no, they’re in their rooms, doing whatever they do. Why?”
Zack is home , she thought. Thanks for telling me . “I thought I saw… someone.”
“It’s the afternoon shadows.” Henry looked both ways. “The ocean light here is different. So, Tessie?”
Tessie. Did he have any idea how revealing a tell that was? That nickname meant he wanted something; she’d learned that early on. Here came the puppy, she bet. “What’s up?”
“Um…”
“But first let me ask—did Zack have fun at what’s-her-name’s?”
“Nellie? Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to discuss.”
“Discuss?” Tessa uncurled her legs, and propped a pillow behind her on the white wicker headboard.
“Stop moving the phone, you’re making me dizzy,” Henry said.
“Discuss?” Tessa said again. She swore there was movement, someone was there, in that house, and it wasn’t the afternoon light.
“So Zack had a great time, two nights, and now he’s home and he and Tris are upstairs bonding over Magic cards. I know you were worried about them making friends in a new place, and so far, so good.” Henry nodded. “Nellie says she’s psyched about it, too. Apparently—”
“Nellie.”
“Yes,” Henry went on, not reacting to the emotion iceberged under her statement. “And she’s wondering—”
“Is Mr. Nellie home yet?”
“Huh? Uh, no, he’s out of town, something like that.” Henry tilted his head, seemed to be considering. “Is there something ominous about that? I mean— you’re out of town.”
Tessa blinked at the fog, trying to picture their new house, and their new neighborhood, and Linny’s chopped-off hair.
“How long have Nellie and her out-of-town husband lived in the house next door to you? To us, I mean.”
“Well, uh, I guess, years? I don’t know. Anyway. She was worried about Tris making friends and here we were. She says—sometimes things just work.”
“Sounds like you two are getting along.” Tessa didn’t mean to sound accusatory, though she could hear it in her own voice.
Her family should be making friends, and neighbors should be neighborly, and if she were home and not exhausted and not in an emotional limbo trapped in a hotel room and waiting for showtime, she would be friends with the fabulous Nellie, too.
“Anyway, Hen.” She’d change the subject. But not to the imminent dog. “What’s up?”
“Like I was trying to say.” Henry made a face. “Since the two boys hit it off so well, Nellie was wondering about Zack coming with them to their summer place.”
“Their summer place?” She hadn’t turned on the television, and stared now at the flat black rectangle across from her, picturing a summer place.
“Yeah. Is that an alien concept?”
“Hey. It’s a reasonable question. Why are you acting all mad?”
“I’m not acting all mad. You’re acting all mad. It’s only for a week. Or two. Zack is incredibly hot for it, and really, Tessa, why not?”
Tessa chewed her lip, thinking of all the dozens and hundreds of reasons why not.
Her author imagination could concoct more horrifying and gruesome stories than were probably rational in the real world, but all you needed was one bad thing.
One decision with an unintended consequence. And everyone’s lives could be ruined.
That she was not making up.
“We can go into ‘why not’ in infinite detail, if you like, Henry, but I don’t think you do. So let’s go on. Where is this summer place?”
“Well, that’s why I called,” Henry said. “Funniest thing. Barbara, you remember Barbara?”
“Barbie the dog walker. How well I remember.” She seems more interested in you than me , Henry had told her.
“She’s not a dog walker.” Henry did not even attempt to hide his eye roll. “Anyway, she was there when we were discussing it.”
“Sounds cozy, all of you chatting. About me. Is the dog walker going, too? To the summer place? It must be gigantic.”
“Do you have low blood sugar again?”
“No, I do not have low blood sugar.” Tessa had to concentrate to keep her voice even.
The computer search had unnerved her, and she was taking it out on Henry.
“I just feel far away from you, sweetheart,” she said, conciliatory.
“So yes, tell me about not-a-dog-walker Barbie and Nellie and the summer place.” Cannot wait, she didn’t say.
Henry paused, and stared into the lens at her, as if trying to decide whether to escalate the battle from three thousand miles away.
“Great,” he finally said. “Anyway. Nellie’s house is in Maine. And—”
“Maine.”
“Yes, and so she wondered if you’d heard of a town nearby. A place called Blyton?”
The fog outside threatened to seep its smoky tendrils through the windowpane and entwine them around Tessa’s entire body. Choke her with their grayness. Cloud her eyes and dull her into oblivion.
“Blyton? Are you saying—do you mean Blytheton?”
“Exactly.” Henry nodded. “That must be it, so she was right, you do know it. Blytheton. Blytheton, Maine.”