Chapter 68
“Oh, it said unknown caller. Hi, DJ.” Tessa’s unzipped black dress hung open in the back, her jacket still flat on the bedspread.
She aimed her voice at the phone on the ruffled pillow sham, trying to sound happy and normal.
Trying not to worry that her publicist was breaking her radio silence with more hideous news.
“I’ve got you on speaker because I’m getting dressed for the event. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” DJ said. “You cannot be late, not after all that. And I’m using my other phone. But it’s about Locket Mom. And that photo.”
Tessa had yanked up the back of her black dress, trying to reach the zipper pull. Now she stopped, frozen. At least DJ was talking to her again. About Locket Mom.
“Did you find her?”
“Listen, I’d thought it was a fake photo, like a computer-generated or clip art sample. But it seems to be real.”
“How do you know? Did you find the person?”
“Nope.” DJ was still talking. “I got a dude to check a database on the down-low, don’t tell, but no matches. Which only means, though it’s a good thing, the guy in the photo isn’t a criminal, or wanted, or has a warrant. That they know of.”
That they know of, Annabelle said.
That they know of. A phrase like that, such a land mine.
“Well, that’s good, at least.” Tessa tried not to gulp. Had to risk it. “Um, DJ? Might it mean he’s dead? The man in the picture?”
“Dead?” DJ paused. “I guess so. Why would you ask that?”
“Just—nothing. Thanks, DJ, for thinking about me. I know it’s a lot.
” Tessa had conquered the zipper, finally, and clasped her necklace into place.
She was running on empty now, in mental overload, the clock ticking away the minutes until she had to be erudite and engaging.
And sell enough books to keep her family safe.
“Well, yeah. That picture is still getting comments on Facebook,” DJ was saying. “That’s the other reason I called. Someone posted that they’d analyzed the shoreline behind the father.”
Tessa pictured the photo. The man, the corner of a cabin, and the water’s edge. The comment must have been what Zack saw.
“How?” was all she could think of to say.
“Whatever. It said it’s topography, and easy to do with a computer. And they said it turns out that it’s—”
“Maine.” The word came out before she could stop it.
“So you saw it.”
“No.” She sat on the edge of the bed. Doomed. “I just guessed. Maine. Mount Desert Island, right?”
“So that means something to you.” DJ’s speakered judgment hung in the flat hotel room air.
Tessa stayed silent. That was unanswerable.
“Tessa? Is this place your hometown, where you told us someone was asking about?”
“No.”
“The picture is on Facebook, Tessa.” DJ’s voice from the pillow had hardened again.
“It doesn’t matter who has the actual locket and photograph now.
You posted it. It’s public. If there’s anything secret about it, you’re the one who revealed it.
And we’re the ones who are gonna get buried in the blame for it. ”
Tessa lowered herself to the edge of the bed, stared at the dreary wallpaper. DJ had thought posting it was a great idea at the time, but this wasn’t the moment to bring that up.
“I’ll take it down.”
“Too late for that , I’m afraid.”
Too late for everything , Tessa thought. And I’m afraid, too .
“But listen,” DJ was saying, “no one’s tried to claim that locket. If someone wanted to get rid of it, they’d trash it. So it must have been left behind for a purpose. For you to find it.”
“But why? And how would anyone know I’d be in that room?”
“A million ways. Tessa? Do we need to bring you back? Call this tour off? You have to tell me, right now.”
Silence again, and Tessa pulled on her shoes. She wore her event makeup, and her book-tour outfit, but there was no way to dress up her emotions. The past was indelible, immeasurably deep, and now threatened to drown her in its reality. And drag her family down with her.
Because once her mother’s money ran out, Tessa had received a locket.
And then been given an ultimatum in the back seat of a stranger’s car.
They had to be connected.
Tessa could almost hear the police knocking on her door. Could almost feel the handcuffs. Watch her family disappear into the prison van’s rearview.
She was the loser in a bargain she did not know she’d made.
“Tessa? Do I pull the plug? I’m about to. Even though it’ll be an unmitigated disaster.”
“DJ, no,” Tessa began, praying in earnest now. “It’s fine. All fine. I promise,” she lied. “But the commenter who said it was Maine. Did they say anything else?”
“In fact, yeah, as if this whole thing isn’t already enough of a debacle. They wondered if you wrote about Maine in your pink diary. Does ‘pink diary’ mean anything to you?”