In my photos, I found a picture of me and Frances from about six years ago at an awards ceremony. I was wearing a strapless yellow dress and my hair was swept up in an artfully messy twist. Frances was holding a plaque—she must’ve won something that night, I didn’t remember. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember anything about the night—which hotel ballroom we’d been in, what we’d eaten or drunk. How I’d felt—if I was proud or indifferent or uncomfortable in the strapless dress. We were smiling, but that didn’t mean anything. We always smiled when a camera flashed.
It didn’t matter what that night had been about. What mattered was that the picture made it appear that Frances and I were close. I made it my cover photo and waited for both Susan Doucettes to accept my invitations.
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 11
Herb had said it was the change in the barometric pressure that had made the guests sick. He said it with such an air of finality, Fay didn’t argue.
But she knew better. It had been Kitten’s tarts. She must’ve put something in them—acorns, maybe. Fay knew the guests suspected the girl of murdering Cappie. Kitten was the real reason the guests had left.
The days that followed felt endless. Every morning after breakfast, Herb went out to haul up the plywood storm panels stored in the cellar and lay them out on the lawn in their places below the windows. Delia scolded him for it, saying he was imagining things and scaring their daughter and that he must put a stop to this nonsense immediately. He ignored her and went about his task. Delia locked herself in the library.
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After forty minutes of obsessively refreshing both Susan Doucettes’ Facebook pages, I had bitten all my fingernails down to ragged half-moons and neither had accepted my friend request. I took a bathroom break and then, for what seemed like the millionth time, clicked on Cat Lady Susan’s page. I hit the Message button.
Hi Susan, I hope you get this message. My name is Meg Ashley. I’m the daughter of Frances Ashley, the author of Kitten. I’m writing a book about my mother, and I was wondering
My fingers froze on the keyboard. If Susan was a member of the Kitty Cult, she worshipped the ground my mother walked on. There was little chance she’d have any part of a nasty tell-all from her hero’s ungrateful daughter. She might even go so far as to try to discredit what I was doing.
Or—who knows—maybe she’d go full-on Housewives and make up a bunch of baloney to get more attention.
I deleted the message and slammed my laptop closed. One thing I knew: I had to wait. I needed to let Susan Doucette, whichever one it turned out to be, come to me. In the meantime, I needed a break. I needed a break from my problems. I needed to see the foal.
I climbed out of bed and threw on a long-sleeve T-shirt, a pair of yoga pants, and sneakers. I might suffocate from the heat, but if I ran across another rattlesnake, that fucker wouldn’t be able to find an inch of bare skin. I jammed a baseball cap on my head, threading my tangled ponytail through the hole in back, and doused every inch of my body with bug repellent.
Outside, the humidity-thickened air closed around me. It sank into the pores of my face, filled my lungs, and dampened my clothes. If I found the horses, maybe I’d find Koa. I knew he and Doro kept them on a rotation among about four grazing sites around the island. They should be in the center now, in the few patchy spots of grass that bordered the forest between Koa’s cabin and the mission ruins.
I set off in that direction, keeping to the main road that bisected the island. It was the road Koa had driven me on when I first came to Bonny. After a good forty minutes, when I was thoroughly coated in sweat and dust, I caught a glimpse of a chestnut flank and swishing tail through the brush to my right. I slowed my pace. The horses were here, just as I thought, weaving their way through the trees, browsing in pools of sunlight. I crept closer, searching through the herd for the roan mare or the foal.
And then I saw her. The foal, butting against her mother’s belly, trying to nurse. The mare kept walking away. I pressed myself against the rough bark of a gnarled old oak and watched the foal trot after her.
“C’mon,” I muttered. “Have a heart.”
I heard a scrape of metal against dirt, then saw Koa on the opposite side of the herd, his trusty snake-killing shovel arcing over his head. I sucked in my breath and pressed myself against the tree. He circled around, then stopped a couple of yards away from my hiding spot.
“Meg,” he said. “Hey.”
I stepped away from the tree. “Oh, hey.”
We stared awkwardly at each other.
“So, you saw me right off?” I said. “I guess I suck at hiding.”
“Well, you kind of”—he gestured with his free hand—“don’t blend into the woodland habitat too well.”
Was that a compliment? Or just Koa being blunt? Regardless, I felt myself go warmer than I already was.
“I was thinking I could find the foal.” I smiled at him. “I wanted to check on her. See how she was doing.”
“Yeah. I was checking on her too.”
I twisted my fingers. “Looks like her mom’s kind of a deadbeat.”
“Give her time. Sometimes they come around.” His eyes dropped briefly down to the yoga pants, then back up to my face. He adjusted the shovel.
“Also, to be truthful, I was hoping to find you,” I started. “I wanted to tell you not to worry. I’m not going to tell Doro you know Kim Baker’s father.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I don’t want to tell her . . .”
He started to say something.
“. . . that Neal Baker thought of you as family. As a son.”
His eyes slid away from me. He swung the shovel down to the ground. Planted it with a whump.
“Although,” I went on, “you realize, she’s a smart woman; she knows how Google works, and she’s going to stumble across the same information I stumbled across, if she hasn’t already. And when she does, she’s going to flip out.”
His eyes stayed unreadable.
“Unless she’s already found out, and that’s what you guys were talking about in the library earlier.”
“We were just talking about the horses.”
“Koa, come on. I know it’s none of my business, but we’re friends, right? You trusted me enough to tell me about him that night in the kitchen.”
His eyes met mine. “We’re friends.”
“Then talk to me. Did Neal Baker send you to Bonny Island to find out who killed his daughter?”
He shifted. “I can’t say. I made a promise I have to keep.”
I nodded. Just when I thought I had him on the ropes, this guy went and showed just what a loyal, steadfast person he could be. Shit.
“But even if I was here for that,” he said, “why would you care? It doesn’t have anything to do with your book.”
“Well, no. Not directly.”
“And, if I may be so bold, it seems like you’re doing your own Sherlock Holmes–ing around here, too.”