Fawn nodded excitedly and took a sip of hot chocolate, not taking her eyes off the screen. Buzz kept typing, fingers clicking on the keyboard.
“No listing for them in Woodhaven, but I get, like, a zillion hits for Thomas and Bridget O’Rourkes all over the country. We’ve got doctors, actors, you name it. Picking the two of them out from all these names would be like finding a needle in a haystack.” He took a sip of coffee, then typed some more. “But it just so happens that there are two O’Rourkes listed here in town, William and Candace. Don’t know if they’re related to our couple, but I got their addresses and phone numbers. At this point, I’d say they’re our best lead.”
“Let’s go,” Ruthie said, hopeful once more.
“I thought I was gonna try a computer game,” Fawn said, her face serious.
“When we get back to Vermont,” Buzz said. “Right now, we’re going to go check out these addresses.”
“Because maybe the people can help us find Mom?” Fawn said.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Ruthie told her. “Slip your coat back on and grab your cocoa.”
Buzz jotted down the addresses and closed up his laptop, and they carried their drinks to the truck.
Back on Main Street, waiting at the next traffic light, Ruthie studied the landscape of stores and restaurants in a strip mall up ahead: Woodhaven Liquors, Donny’s New York Style Pizza, Pink Flamingo Gifts. There, at the end of the strip, was a closed business with boarded-up windows and a FOR RENT sign out front.
She blinked, bit her tongue to make sure she was awake and not dreaming.
“Stop!” Ruthie yelled, gesturing wildly. “Pull in there, next driveway on the left.”
Buzz turned left, pulling into the strip mall parking lot too fast—Ruthie bumped against Fawn, and Fawn leaned into Buzz. Ruthie’s coffee spilled all over her lap.
“What the hell?” Buzz said once he’d stopped the truck, but Ruthie was already hopping out of the cab, heading for the closed shop, the faded red sign drawing her in: FITZGERALD’S BAKERY.
She held her breath as she approached it, walking in slow motion, suddenly unsure if she really wanted to do this. She shuffled like a sleepwalker, half of her brain lost in a dream-state, the other half scrambling to make sense of what she was seeing: could this place really be here, existing in the waking world?
She approached cautiously, heart thumping in her ears. Plywood covered the windows, and newspaper was taped to the inside of the glass front door. But a square had fallen away, and Ruthie pressed her face against the glass, hands cupped around her eyes to keep out the glare.
There it was: the long glass-fronted display case that had held rows of cupcakes, cookies, and pies, now empty except for a broken lightbulb and a few forgotten doilies. Even the black-and-white-checked floor was the same. She could practically smell the yeasty warm fragrance of fresh-baked bread, taste the sugar on her tongue, feel her mother’s hand wrapped around hers.
What do you choose, Dove?
“No way!” Buzz had come up behind her and caught her enough by surprise that she jumped in alarm. “Is this the bakery you keep dreaming about?”
Ruthie shook her head. “It can’t be,” she stammered. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence?” The words felt hollow. But some part of her brain, the part that held dearly to all that was rational and made sense, couldn’t let her accept the truth.
“Coincidence, hell! How many Fitzgerald’s Bakeries can there be? Does it look the same inside?”
“I don’t know,” she said, turning away, the lie making her throat tight, the truth making her dizzy and disoriented. “Come on, let’s go check out those addresses.”
As they pulled out of the parking lot, Ruthie’s eyes stayed on the boarded-up bakery. She grasped for some kind of explanation, but all that came to mind were the sort of crazy theories Buzz might conjure up—a dream from a past life, a psychic link to some other girl—things there was no way she could ever make herself believe in.
She rested her head against the cool glass of the truck window and closed her eyes, thinking.
How was it possible to dream about an actual, physical place you’d never been to?
And if the bakery was real, did that mean the woman with the cat’s-eye glasses was, too?
Katherine
Katherine hurried along the slushy sidewalks, realizing how completely inadequate her uninsulated, smooth-soled city boots were. She should have taken the car. But it hadn’t seemed like a long walk, and she’d thought the exercise and fresh air would do her good.
She was on her way to the bookstore. After finishing Visitors from the Other Side last night, she’d looked up Sara Harrison Shea on her laptop and learned almost nothing. Her hope was that the local bookstore might have something else by or about her.