Chapter 73
Three exits until the airport. The woman in the front seat had not spoken.
Tessa had been tempted to record the whole thing on her phone, but that would simply result in creating evidence of Tessa’s crime.
The key here—the entire goal—was to keep this woman from talking about what had happened that night.
Money, apparently, had accomplished that for all these years.
So said her mother’s will. Would money work again?
She loathed the thought of it. It sickened her to her core. But how much was her family worth? Happiness? Safety? How much would she pay for that?
“ You should have seen your face when I asked about your Facebook post last night.” The traffic had slowed, rubbernecking at some fender bender, and Harper had twisted over the front seat, maybe to gauge Tessa’s reaction.
Tessa saw her carefully outlined lips, and the reflection of Tessa herself mirrored in the dark lenses of her oversized sunglasses.
Harper clicked on the turn signal as the traffic picked up, steered into the fast lane. “You were completely gobsmacked.”
“I wasn’t anything.” Tessa put as much scorn as possible in her voice.
“My publisher took it down. Exactly as I said.” Tessa had texted DJ last night from the Uber, trying to sound cheery and chirpy, reporting the successful event, then mentioning the missing photo.
She’d also told her, lying, that she didn’t need a driver to the airport today .
I’ll take the hotel shuttle , she’d texted.
It’s easy, and only hotel guests allowed. Totally safe .
It’s your tour , DJ had texted back. And stolen photo was distraction. Cld not allow. Told you we watch yr socials. We have access. TTYL .
DJ’s enthusiasm had vanished. And maybe all of Team Tessa’s, too. “Distraction.” If only DJ knew.
“Why do you care anyway? The locket?” Tessa now asked.
“What do you think?”
The highway traffic surrounded them, people on their particular journeys, shifting gears, changing lanes.
“So you did put it there. How? Why? And who are you, anyway? Who is Locket Mom? Is it you?” The necklace had been in the nightstand in that Indianapolis hotel room. “How did you manage to get someone to stay in that room before I did?”
“Please. Locket Mom. Kidding me? That was the fairy tale you invented. After we learned which room you’d been given, we put it in the drawer, and waited.
Not me personally, of course. We’d made a backup plan, because you might have simply turned it in.
But you didn’t. As a result you added our tracker to your luggage. ”
“A tracker?” A sinister surveillance system materialized in Tessa’s mind, some electronic thing mindlessly, silently, mapping her every move for these people. “But why? And how did you get into my room in Denver to steal it again?”
“Tessa, you are incredibly entertaining. You write fiction, what ways could you think of that we might do that? It was one of those. Moving forward, though. We want to impress upon you that you are never really alone. We always know where you are. We can get to you. And your family. We run your life. Remember that.”
“That’s impossible.” Tessa pushed at her suitcase, bitter. Its wheels were digging into her thigh. This was supposed to be her triumphant book tour. Not a kidnapping on a Midwestern highway.
“Hardly,” the woman said. “Your website? Your social media? Your out-of-town events? Your life is pretty much—forgive me—an open book.”
“No. You know more than that. And who are you?”
“Pass. Next question.”
“Is Evelyn Wickwire working with you? Or a person named Sam?”
“Good lord. Whatever. We saw you give that woman the locket. As if that could extricate you. At least now we know where she is all the time. Until the tracker battery dies. And we won’t need to steal it back to replace it, like we did for you.”
Tessa’s heart deflated like an exhausted balloon.
“But who’s in it? The picture?” Tessa had searched the image, and came up with nothing. But DJ had told her it was a real person. Devastating as it was, she had to know. “Who’s the family?”
Harper made a sound like a game show buzzer. “Nope. We’re finished with the Q and A part of this ride, Tessa. And excellent timing. There’s the sign for the airport.”
“That’s not… fair,” Tessa said. “You’re asking me to pay to keep something quiet. I don’t believe what you’re accusing me of is true. So, since you insist it is true, whose life is it that you allege I ended? If you can’t tell me that, then we have nothing more to discuss.”
“You’re a better writer than you are a negotiator, Tessa. You have nothing to bargain with. As for the photograph. Come on. You know who it is.”
Harper swerved right, crossing two lanes, narrowly missing a speeding red Jeep. Tessa braced herself against the front seat to keep her balance, and her tote bag fell onto the floor. The Jeep driver leaned on the horn. Harper barked a sharp laugh. “If only you had been as good a driver as I am.”
“I was not —” Tessa stopped herself, mid denial. “The man,” Tessa said. “The man in the photograph is the one who…”
And at that moment, everything she already knew rearranged itself into gasping clarity. The man in the photo was the victim. It was his family photo. Treasured by his survivors. The family who, it was immaculately clear to her now, demanded retribution for their loved one’s death.
“You always were a smart girl,” the woman said.
Tessa barely heard her words. How could anyone even argue with retribution?
If she—and the real Emily, the one who’d been driving—had killed someone—she could barely think it—then they both did owe his family something.
Nothing could make up for a life, but they had taken something precious, and money was the only way to try to make up for it.
Her brain raced ahead. Why hadn’t they simply sued her?
Or her mother? And Emily’s parents? The answers came quickly.
Emily’s parents were not well-off; her father a county employee, and if Tessa remembered correctly, her stepmother a stay-at-home parent.
But Tessa’s mother—an outsider, aggressively affluent, prowling for status—was a perfect target.
Plus, she’d already admitted, by setting up the payments to continue even after she died, that her daughter was guilty.
Why argue in court if there’s nothing to argue about?
The man in the photo was dead. Emily had killed him. Tessa was complicit. Guilty. And her mother had acknowledged it.
She was part of a Faustian bargain she’d never known she’d made. And now she’d be the one to pay. Her mother had sold her soul… for her. Now it was her turn.
That was her mother’s legacy. Or her own.
“Tessa?” Harper slowed, pointing. “Airport exit dead ahead. Do we have an understanding?”
Silence in the car now, the only sound the tick-tock click of the turn signal.
“Tell me who it is. Was. Tell me.”
“So we’ll contact you to arrange for your mother’s agreement to continue?” Harper went on, as if Tessa had not spoken. “Or will you have to miss your plane?”
“You don’t win if I miss my event,” Tessa said. “You need me to be a bestseller. You need me to sell books. If I fail, you lose.”
“I never lose,” the woman said.