Chapter 50
Tessa looked out over the audience of smilingly attentive faces.
Blue earrings dotted the room like so many holiday decorations.
Row after row of women, each holding that periwinkle book, elbow to elbow in matching silver folding chairs.
A few days ago, Tessa would have focused on engaging her fans, meeting them, talking with them, signing their books.
Now, standing behind a weathered wood podium that matched the facade of the bookstore building, Tessa scanned for a false expression, a frowning face, a woman in a wig.
She remembered Dorrit in San Diego, holding up that bobbed gray hairpiece like some sort of dead creature, and how Tessa had searched every face in her social media photographs to find who had been wearing it.
How she’d failed. Every moment of tonight’s book event was Where’s Waldo again, this time with Waldo out to ruin her.
Her first move tonight, after her warm greeting, had been to take the “class photo” of the group—ostensibly, and truly, for her memories and her social media, but now it was even more important to get a picture of the audience. For evidence. Would she need it?
“Smile,” she’d said. “Hold up the books—but don’t block your faces, okay? You’re the important ones.”
Even with her ulterior motives, it still touched her, the smiles and the raised periwinkle rectangles. But this time there might be someone in this audience who was poised to harm her.
Now all eyes were on Ethan as he pulled another question from a crystal container embellished with hand-painted tropical fish. The Fishbowl, he’d called it, and everyone had laughed. Apparently this crowd was familiar with the Q and A routine. Tessa knew he’d trashed the vacation questions.
“This is from Nakato from Phinney Ridge. Are you here, Nakato?”
A woman in a black Nirvana T-shirt and ripped jeans stood, front row center. Blue earrings, Tessa noted.
“Nakato wants to know when Annabelle first came to you.”
Tessa’s heart dropped. Did she— no, Tessa assured herself. This was innocent. Logical. Expected. “Well, I wish I could remember. I’m sure it was before I began writing. Since she gave me the idea for the book, of course.”
The audience murmured, knowing the story.
“Does she still talk to you?” Ethan asked the follow-up.
This needed to be over with. She needed to get back to the hotel, escape to another town.
Won’t matter, Annabelle said. It’ll be the same wherever we go.
“She sure does,” Tessa said. “I rely on it. I’m sure you’ve heard from other authors who say their characters talk to them. It’s a gift, isn’t it?”
A soft ping from under the podium—she’d stashed her handbag there, phone in an outside pocket. It pinged again, the VIP tone.
She calculated, lightspeed, as Ethan made a show of mixing up the secretly curated questions, dramatically choosing the next, reading it out loud.
“Why don’t you do your weekly live broadcasts anymore? I loved them.”
It was 8:00 p.m. in Seattle, 11:00 p.m. in Rockport.
And in New York. The ping could only be her agent, her editor, her publicist, or her family.
Every one of them would know she was onstage.
But tonight had started on shaky ground, and this event was almost over.
Tessa could not risk Ethan’s ire. Whoever it was would have to wait.
“Well, I promise to go back to them. And I’m so touched that you miss them. But I had to focus on writing, you know? And now I get to see you in person.”
Ethan pulled the next slip of paper. “Dakota wants to know if you found Locket Mom. Or who sent the earrings.”
“No, perplexingly.” Tessa had posted that locket with such joy. So much for that idea. “I’m beginning to think—well, I’m not sure what to think. But who knows what’ll happen.”
Her cell phone pinged again. The last time this had happened, it was Henry, who’d forgotten she was at an event. Go away , she thought. Be nothing .
Question after question then, softballs. Process, dreams, her viral corporate exit. Nothing with subtext, nothing unsettling.
Except—someone in the audience was waiting to hear a question that would not be asked.
“One more, then Tessa will sign, okay?” Ethan finally said. “Marielle from Seattle asks—Marielle?”
A woman in the middle of the room raised her hand, fluttering her beringed fingers.
“Marielle wonders—do you have a dog?” Ethan asked.
A dog , Tessa thought.
“So funny.” Either the most benign question in the world, or the scariest. How would someone know about the dog? She risked telling the truth. “My family’s threatening to get one while I’m on tour. Can you believe it?”
Her phone remained silent while she said thank you, silent while the audience applauded, silent while Ethan escorted her through her rows of clamoring fans, some of them reaching out to touch her, one handing her a bag of macaroons, which Ethan took away.
If she were in an airplane, or somewhere else inaccessible, whoever was messaging her could handle whatever it was until they could talk to her. Tessa could not control everything.
That’s for sure, Annabelle said.
Ethan stood sentry next to her at the signing table, while his assistant Tara Gordon made yellow name stickies, managed the line, took photos with readers’ phones. Tessa’s own phone had not pinged again. Whoever it was must have figured it out on their own. Done and done.
As the line diminished, Tessa’s apprehensiveness diminished, too. This had all been for nothing, their worry and their speculation. Her fragile world, her entire future, depended on what someone else did; her publisher. Her family. Her fans. Her enemies?
“Handle this for a sec, Tara, can you?” Ethan was saying. “I need another pile of books.”
Tessa managed to say goodbye to an effusive customer, then welcomed the next one.
Fortysomething, Tessa calculated; heavy tortoiseshell glasses and wearing too much eyeliner over hollow, weary eyes.
No earrings. Blond hair so glossily perfect…
it might be a wig. Tessa had a flash of fear, but there were so many reasons for wigs these days.
“Oh, there’s no sticky.” Tessa said. “Who should I sign it to?”
“No names. Just sign it, please.” The woman had leaned closer, so close Tessa could smell the cloying fragrance of roses. “I saw what you all did.” She’d lowered her voice. “Avoided my question.”
“Your question?”
Tessa wrote the date, as slowly as she could. Indicating exactly when Tessa and this woman had been together. Where was Ethan? He was supposed to stay with her.
“Would you like a photo, ma’am?” Tara was holding out her hand for a phone.
“No. Thanks.” The woman waved the assistant away.
“You sure?” Tessa persisted. Evidence. “I’d love to. We can use my phone.”
“No pictures,” the woman went on. “I mean, where your family spent your summer vacations, why would anyone avoid that question?” Her voice stayed excruciatingly, quietly, pleasantly, polite. “Unless there were some very, very good reasons.”
Ethan had returned, a stack of periwinkle in his arms, his forehead creased with concern. He must have heard the last of what the woman said.
Tessa saw him shift professional gears, could almost see him conjuring some devastating bookstore disruption, then watched as he turned on the full-wattage charm. He put the books in front of Tessa, almost a barrier.
“Thank you so much for coming, ma’am.” He stood at Tessa’s shoulder, a smiling but wary guard dog. “Hope you enjoyed it.”
“More than you can imagine,” the woman said.
Three more women waited in the line behind her, one pretending to read her book, the other two whispering behind their hands. Probably curious about what was going on.
They weren’t the only ones.
Tessa stood, put her palms on her stack of books, and faced the woman head-on. The woman looked back at her, unflinching. Lifted her chin.
Tessa was too tired, too worried, too everything. She scanned the woman’s cheekbones, her eyebrows, those tired eyes behind her thick-framed glasses.
“Wait,” she whispered. “Emily?”