“But I . . . I dropped it in the toilet, Miss—Meg. I truly apologize. It was messed up bad. Completely soaked. I told Doro about it, and she said she’d get another copy from the basement. She used to sell them, you know, to the tourists and whatnot and even autograph them. That one’s from her leftover supply.”
I paused, flummoxed. It was a plausible enough story. So why didn’t I believe her?
She put one gnarled hand over her heart. “Was that a special book? I didn’t know.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay, it really is. I’ll talk to Doro. But . . .” I cocked my head. “You wouldn’t happen to have the book, would you? I had made some notes in it. Some important notes, and I’d like to see if I could retrieve them.”
She looked stricken. “I’m sorry. I . . .”
“What?”
“Koa was burning the garbage earlier, when I was cleaning, and I threw it in the fire along with the rest of the trash.”
I lifted my eyebrows.
“So sorry.”
I stared at her for an uncomfortable minute. She didn’t flinch.
As I turned to go, I could feel her eyes on me. I turned back. She was watching me—only her hand had dropped from her chest, and her face looked suddenly and inexplicably placid. I hurried to the library and was about to rap on the door when I heard voices coming from inside. Doro’s, then Koa’s. My hand froze in midair.
“I don’t think that’s a wise move,” I heard him say.
There was a pause, then Doro said something I couldn’t hear.
“Doro,” he cut in. “I really don’t think you want to do that.” His voice had a deliberate, ominous tone to it. Maybe even threatening—I couldn’t tell for sure.
I waited, hoping for more. What was he saying that Doro shouldn’t do? Call Neal Baker? Or something to do with me? The possibilities seemed hopelessly unclear. I had no idea what anyone around here was up to.
It dawned on me, then, that no one was saying anything, that their conversation was over, and Koa might be headed for the door. Panicked, I knocked quickly on the door. It swung open.
“Hi,” Koa said.
“Sorry. Uh . . .” I peered around him. “Is Doro there? I mean, available?”
“Come in, Meg,” I heard her trill.
Koa stepped aside, let me pass.
The dusty, wood-paneled room was lined, ceiling to floor, with ancient-looking books. The tall, narrow windows were shuttered and the floors bare wood except for a yellowed zebra hide. Toward the rear of the room, near the far wall of books, was an old oak desk.
A large leather checkbook lay open in the middle of the desk, flanked by precarious towers of paper. It appeared Esther hadn’t been in here to clean, in maybe . . . forever. Behind the desk, Doro nodded a greeting. A pair of green-rimmed reading glasses perched at the end of her nose. Her hair looked windblown, even though she was sitting inside.
“Morning,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, thanks. I was wondering if I could speak to you about something.”
“Of course. You can talk to me about anything. Anytime.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just talked to Esther.”
Her eyes traveled to the paperback tucked underneath my arm. “Oh, dear.”
“She told me what happened.”
She removed her glasses and tapped them on the desk. “You know, I used to order them in bulk from the publisher. Nothing better than a souvenir copy of Kitten signed by the little devil-girl herself, right? I happen to have boxes of them left over from back then. So when you came back from the hospital, I rummaged around and found one just like it.”
I laid the book on the desk. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes went wide.
I cleared my throat. “It’s just . . . that book, the one that got ruined, it was my mother’s. So, it felt a little sentimental, I guess.”
Her brows knit together. “Really? You’re sentimental about one of Frances’s books?”
She studied me. I shrugged. Offered a hangdog smile.
“Okay, well.” She put her hands on the desk. “I had no idea. I thought I could take care of it without bothering you.” Her face was neutral, but her blue eyes lasered into mine.
I swallowed. “It’s just . . . You should’ve said something. There’s no reason to keep secrets from me.”
She pushed her hair back from her face. “You’re absolutely right. Absolutely right. I was trying to protect Esther. She’s been with me for a long time.”
I wavered. I was starting to feel like I was being an asshole.
“I’m glad you felt like you could come to me with this. I want you to feel that way, that we’re friends. That you can trust me. Because you can.”
“Okay.”
“In fact”—she stood—“I want to trust you with something too.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Ambletern’s attic. It’s full of boxes. Guest registers, ledgers. Odds and ends.” Her eyes were bright. “I don’t know if there’s anything up there that relates to your research. But you’re welcome to rummage around, if you think there is.”
“Thank you. I will.”
I headed back upstairs, tossed the replacement book on a table, and dropped on the bed. I flipped open my laptop, gnawing at the inside of my lip and thinking. I didn’t believe Esther, not for one minute. Or Doro. The hitch was, there was only one thing that made that particular paperback of Kitten unique.
Susan’s notes.
I adjusted the screen on my laptop, went to Facebook, and typed her name.
Assuming Aunt Jo had given her darling niece a brand-spanking-new book, Susan had been twelve in 2007, which made her roughly twenty-one now.
Eight Susan Doucettes popped up, none with the middle name Evelyn. Six of the pages were public, only two were the right age. One, a redhead with yellow cat glasses and a houseful of actual cats. The other looked like she could hang with Aurora’s Glitter Girls.
This Susan Doucette wasn’t age twelve anymore, that was for damn sure. Her profile was full of pictures of her partying—taking bong rips, throwing back shots, guzzling from kegs. She had smudged eyeliner, cropped tops that showed too much under-boob, side-boob, plain old boob. She was all sticky coral lips and sweaty hair, perpetually surrounded by her blurred-out girl squad. I went through the pictures in a haze of nostalgia. I used to take pictures like this, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.
This Susan Doucette had over a thousand friends and was in her junior year at Georgia Southern, double majoring in English lit and women’s studies. Cat Lady Susan only had a handful of posts—cats, cats, and more cats—and thirty-one friends. Both Susans’ contact information was sparse—no emails for either one of them. I requested friend status with both, then clicked over to my page.