Chapter 65
Ask your husband , that revolting woman had suggested. And what new friends was he making? How would she even know?
Did that mean Henry was in danger? Or that he was dangerous?
Had “they” already gotten to him? She contemplated that disturbing thought as she headed toward the concierge desk at the Midlands Hotel.
She would ask Henry, that was for sure. As soon as she figured out how to phrase it.
She’d texted him, frantic and fearful at the same time, with a guarded landed , you okay? He hadn’t replied.
Dog-walker Barbara. Cool Nellie Delaney. The new neighbors—new friends?—with the alluring summer place and the probing questions. No way either was Emily. Still. She needed to see their faces. Just to be sure.
“Ma’am?” The concierge, natty in a khaki jacket and tattersall tie, looked at her over a mahogany desk topped with a plastic rack of colorful Des-lightful Des Moines brochures.
“Can you point me to the library?”
“Ma’am? The hotel does not have a library,” he said, looking baffled. “Do you mean gift shop? There’s—”
“Oh, thank you, no,” Tessa interrupted, realizing what different worlds people lived in. “I mean—a public library. The Des Moines Public Library. I’m hoping it’s nearby.”
“Got it. Library.” He pointed toward the revolving doors. “Go out, turn left, look for the rabbit.”
Now it was Tessa’s turn to look baffled. She’d already had a day right out of Through the Looking Glass , and now this guy was talking about rabbits?
“Yes, it sounds strange,” he went on, maybe reading her expression. “But the library looks like a big copper box with a rabbit in front. You’ll see.”
Tessa felt as if every rule in the entire world had changed, as if sinister eyes watched her, and strangers listened to her thoughts.
She’d quickly stashed her roller bag in her hotel room, not opening any drawers, not opening any closets, not even unpacking.
Haunted, too, by the fact that Emily, driver-Emily and the real Emily and whoever else was involved with this, were monitoring her.
She had not known what “alone” meant until now.
Now there was absolutely no one—no one—she could trust. No one in the world.
Ask your husband, that woman had said.
She pushed her way out the revolving door, looking for the rabbit , for God’s sake, carrying only her phone and a credit card in her pants pocket, terrified that anything else she carried would be tainted or wired or compromised.
The library had to be safe. Didn’t it? She had time before her event. She’d do her work there.
Her phone pinged with a text. VIP. DJ .
She paused on the sidewalk, scanning. None of the pedestrians seemed to be interested in her—some with carryout bags, heads down, headed for offices, probably, sticking to routine. Probably wishing for excitement in their maybe mundane lives. If they only knew. She clicked open her message.
Event fixed, plan as usual. Why you not meet your driver at DSM? $$$
Tessa gaped at the words. And what must have happened.
She had met her driver at the airport, the person she thought was her driver.
But DJ had sent someone else. The poor real driver had probably been standing out of sight, or late.
And finally figured, as the last of the Seattle passengers filed by, that Tessa had stood them up.
But instead, too-stupid-to-live Tessa had gone with an impostor.
And how was Tessa supposed to explain that to her publicist?
I did not see them.
Tessa continued typing her lie, seeing her silhouette as a fidgety shadow in front of her.
I am incredibly sorry. Thank you for making tonight OK.
She hit Send, then considered typing “I’m sorry” again. They’d think she was a complete flake. DJ probably thought she had canceled the event, and then avoided her driver. So much for Team Tessa.
Talk soon.
Tessa waited for the three dots that meant DJ was replying.
The phone screen faded to black.
Like her life. Fading to black.
Nope, nope, nope, Annabelle said. Onward.
One step at a time. Tonight she’d apologize to the booksellers; another wacky book-tour experience, she could say. And they’d forgive her, and the audience would love her, and everything would be fine.
At least the genre fiction of her life, the glamorous adventure, would be fine. Tessa as main character, the supremely relatable best-selling author, with her book-club-worthy story of sisterhood and empowerment intact.
The nonfiction version, though, the tragedy, would relentlessly play out in secret.
Ask your husband, those three words thrummed in her mind as she strode along the petunia-lined sidewalk toward her destination.
A few blocks away, she could indeed make out what looked like a big copper box, so at least she would not get lost. Physically at least. In every other realm of her life, she felt totally lost.
Ask Henry what? “Have you met anyone named Emily recently?” might be an opener. But his next answer would not be whether he had or not. He would ask why.
And for that, Tessa could not possibly provide an answer.
She tried to steady herself and quiet her heart as she kept walking, the early summer sun on her shoulders, still feeling the bondage of that seat belt.
Harper had let her out in front of the hotel with a chirpy “have a successful event!” and it was all Tessa could do not to slam the door, or kick it.
But she was so relieved to have her suitcase back she simply strode away.
She noted the plate number of the car, though that would never matter.
She needed advice. But Henry was unreliable, her publisher already furious with her, and her agent would freak out. All this could be yours. That was supposed to have been such a good thing.
When reading a suspenseful book, Tessa sometimes flipped to the ending, to ease the tension and learn who was left alive and how the villain was captured.
In real life, she couldn’t take that shortcut.
Something would happen at the end of this chapter of her life, and it was impossible to read ahead to find out what.
She thought about the chapters she had already lived. If she were writing the rest of her own story, how would her fictional heroine triumph?
Oh, Annabelle said. Shall we write this in the next book?
“Shush,” Tessa said out loud. She pictured herself not on a Des Moines sidewalk, but at the kitchen table of their old house, typing on her beloved laptop.
There were days when her fingers flew as if possessed, typing so quickly, the story pouring out of her, that afterward, rereading, she honestly didn’t remember that she herself had written it.
Other days she sat staring at the screen, wordless.
She had read somewhere that when you were stuck, a trick was to go back over what you’d already written, which unearthed what mistake your subconscious was trying to reveal.
A story element you had forgotten. A broken link in the story chain.
A hole in the plot. What were the holes in this story?
Harper had not mentioned Annabelle.
But Harper had mentioned… what? Her mother. Sheriff Owen. The real Emily, of course. Tessa had asked “who did I kill?” She winced, remembering. But Harper had not answered.
There. That was a critical story point. Harper had not answered that question.
She’d also brought up her mother’s will. How would that woman know what it said? Back then, Tessa had gotten a call from a lawyer, whose name had irretrievably vanished from her memory, informing her she’d been left nothing in the will, because there was nothing to leave.
The lawyer had then asked if Tessa wanted a copy of the document, and Tessa had said no.
She didn’t want anything from her mother, the way her mother had never wanted anything from her.
Tears came to her eyes now, of confusion and regret.
If Harper had been telling the truth, her mother had been protecting her, and she had done so until she died.
And even from beyond the grave. The lawyer must have known about that.
Could Harper be that lawyer? And that’s why she knew so much?
Tessa tilted her head, considering that plot line.
The lawyer, conniving with Emily, to have the payments continue, only this time paid to her, and by Tessa.
Meh, Annabelle said. Totally contrived.
Annabelle was right. That was not the solution.
As a result, Tessa needed the library.