“Good to hear.” She signed the chart, unclipped the folder, and handed it to the woman behind the desk. “I’ve been thinking—if you have time, I’d like to do some X-rays. I know we think this is lead-paint exposure, but I want to rule out any additional factors.”
“Ah . . .” I glanced at the clock in the waiting room. Eleven thirty. A half an hour before I was supposed to meet with Susan.
“My tech goes on vacation tomorrow.”
“I have an appointment.”
“He’s quick, I promise. Any chance of you being pregnant?”
“No.”
I signed a couple of papers, then she hustled me down the hall and into a room where a guy wrapped me in lead blankets and took pictures from every imaginable angle. Shortly afterward, I was jogging down the street, computer tucked under my arm, in the direction of the library.
The St. Marys library was one large octagonal room—bright, pleasantly cool, and mostly empty. The room was bordered four shelves thick, around a collection of scarred oak tables. As I shivered in the air conditioning, I scanned the tables. There were old men reading and students drumming away on laptops. No sign of Susan. I strolled to the shelves and began casually perusing the books, a row of military biographies. After about five minutes, I peeked out from behind the stacks. Still no Susan.
I ambled around the room, inspecting nearly every nook of the place, save the children’s reading corner, which was jam-packed with kids and their harried moms or nannies. By one o’clock, Susan still hadn’t showed, and I was in a foul mood.
I had to be at the St. Marys dock no later than five p.m. in order for Captain Mike to ferry me back to the island. He had a standing Friday-night dinner with his wife at the local pizza place, and no amount of bargaining would persuade him to miss it. If Susan was late or lost, I was screwed. And I didn’t have her phone number, just her Facebook page. At exactly one fifteen, I found a deserted corner and typed a message on my phone.
Where the hell are you?
I waited five endless minutes, but an answer never came.
Susan, I wrote, I’m here at the library? Are you coming?
Nothing.
Suppressing a growl, I headed to the front desk. I smiled at the librarian, a man who looked like he should be on an NFL defensive line instead of sitting behind a desk.
“Hi,” I said, smiling through gritted teeth. I was starting to feel light-headed and numb all over. “I was supposed to meet someone here. Has anybody called . . . or left a message or something? My name is Meg.”
His head tilted, eyes filled with commiseration. “Stood up for the hookup. Exactly why I don’t do Tinder anymore.”
I darkened. “So, no message?”
“No message.”
I turned, my jaw working in frustration. The library had just about cleared out, and it was nowhere near five o’clock. I might as well check the stacks one more time to see if Susan was hiding somewhere in their depths before I gave up.
I started with the kids’ section, stepping over the detritus of story time, then headed over to adult fiction. I peered down each aisle but found nothing except one teenage boy, ears plugged with buds, wagging his head and reading a fat paperback. Third row, fourth, fifth. I headed down the last row, where, at the end, one book—a hardback—had been halfway pulled out. It perched precariously over the edge of the shelf, and I moved to push it back in. The title on the spine jumped out at me—Kitten—and my hand froze.
Feeling my pulse hammer in my neck, I gingerly pulled the book out. Opened it. Turned a page or two. As I proceeded to flip through the pages, a scrap of paper slipped out and fell to the carpet. I crouched, scooped the paper up, tucked it into my bag, and strode toward the main entrance.
I hurried down the sunny street. She’d been there; Susan Doucette had been in the library and left me a clue. But why hadn’t she approached me? Was she too scared somebody would see her with me? Did some stupid contract she signed with a literary agency really hold that much power over her?
It seemed almost too far-fetched to believe.
I felt the slip of paper between my fingers, then stopped, realizing I’d been walking for a good ten minutes and had no idea where I was. I leaned against a brick-walled storefront and read the words written on the scrap. Then grabbed my phone and typed in one more Facebook message to Susan Doucette.
Thank you.
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 14
The deputy settled his hat on his head. “Everything’s a muddle with the Strongbow girl being murdered and her mama . . .” He frowned down at his dusty boots. “Anyway, the sheriff decided the kid might be better off here, with you. So that’s that for now. You’ll be her temporary guardian until we can figure out a plan.”
While Fay was trying to formulate her protest, she realized the deputy had taken her silence as consent and had started talking again.
“The sheriff thought that if the Murphys did come back, well, we wouldn’t want them to be alarmed or anything, that their daughter wasn’t here. We wouldn’t want to spook them. Tip ’em off, you understand. If they killed the Strongbow girl.”
Fay felt herself grow faint. She didn’t relish staying one day longer on the island, even for Kitten’s sake. Herb and Delia were gone. They might be fugitives from the law or just two unbalanced people who’d been cut off from civilization so long they’d lost their marbles. Regardless, if they were hiding out there in the woods, she did not feel safe.
“There’s something else,” the deputy said. “Bad news, I’m afraid.” Fay managed to focus again on his narrow, sweating face. “Last night, June Strongbow went and killed herself. How about that? Hanged herself right in her jail cell.”
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Thirty-One
I popped into the little indie bookstore I’d stopped in front of and got directions to the Bloody Bowl, as Susan had instructed me.
I walked for fifteen minutes or so, all the way to the other side of town, finally arriving at an old brick building with an English-pub-style sign swinging over the heavy oak door. The sign was carved with a Native American chief headdress and tomahawk and, below that, the words THE BLOODY BOWL.
Inside, the place was dim and deserted, except for the rotund bartender, who sported an enormous, waxed handlebar mustache and matching beetle-brow. The place looked like a Kitty Cult clubhouse: its walls papered with photos of cosplayers dressed as Herb Murphy, Fay, Cappie Strongbow, and, of course, every version of Kitten. There were blonde-wigged, pigtailed Kittens; Kittens in pinafore dresses and overalls; Native American Kittens in the iconic green dress, red turban, and ostrich feather. Also several homicidal-maniac Kittens, smeared in blood and wielding chunky rocks as weapons.
I was definitely in the right place.