A loop of the original ’70s movie played on TVs suspended overhead. The scene currently playing showed Kitten rifling through the newly arrived guests’ rooms, presumably looking for items for her Indian-princess getup. I turned my back to the TVs and found a stool at the bar. The bartender ambled over and leaned on the polished bar. He looked like somebody’s uncool but perfectly nice dad.
“Afternoon,” he said, putting down a coaster. “You want a drink?”
I nodded. “Food too, if you have it.”
He cast a look over his shoulder. “Not usually this early, but the cook likes me. If I ask her real nice, she could make you a cheeseburger.”
“Add a glass of your house red, and I’ll love you forever.”
He lifted one enormous brow. “Well, don’t tell the cook. She’s my wife.” He headed to the back, kicked through the swinging door. “If you need the Wi-Fi, password is BobbisSweetAss—three b’s, one i, no e, no apostrophe.”
“Thanks.”
“Mac and cheese okay?” he asked when he returned, setting down the glass of wine. “She already made a batch.”
“Sounds great.”
“Anything else I can do for you?” He had one elbow on the bar and was studying me with interest. Like he maybe recognized me. It wouldn’t be so out of the question, in this place.
“Um.” I stared at him. “Not right now.” I sipped the wine and pulled out my laptop. Pretended to peruse something interesting. Susan hadn’t said what I was supposed to do once I got here, and now I wasn’t sure exactly how to proceed. I was feeling wary. The whole thing felt a little Jason Bourne.
The bartender finally gave up staring and sidled down the bar, busying himself pulling glasses out of a dishwasher and wiping them down.
After a few minutes he returned, an apologetic look on his face.
“Hey, you mind solving a bet?”
I looked up. “I guess not. Sure.”
“Bobbi!” he yelled. Then gave the bar a few swipes with his towel.
A painfully pretty young woman, with beauty-queen bone structure and two fat plaits of blonde hair that hung over her impossibly huge breasts, emerged from the back bearing a steaming bowl. She plunked it down in front of me—the mac and cheese aroma rose up and made my mouth water—then pressed herself against the bartender. She nuzzled his cheek.
“Don’t yell for me, Shug. I don’t like it.”
He gently pushed her back, reached to the top shelf, and pulled out a crisp hundred-dollar bill. He pointed at me, held it out to her, and then she squealed.
“Are you sure?” she asked him.
“Ask her.”
She turned, aimed the most intense stare I’d ever been the recipient of, and then flashed a blindingly white smile. “Megan Ashley?” she breathed. “Frances Ashley’s daughter?”
My heart did a funny little jig in my chest. And I nodded.
She flapped the hundred-dollar bill and giggled maniacally. “I told him so! I said, ‘Build it and they will come.’ And you did. You did! I mean, technically, what I meant was your mom would show up, but you count. You totally count!”
She screamed. She literally screamed, then started jumping up and down, her enormous chest jouncing half a beat behind each leap. I smiled gamely.
“What are you doing here?” Shug asked.
“I’m trying to find a defunct Kitty Cult website,” I said.
Bobbi stopped jumping and fixed me with a stare. “Oh my God, you are?” She lowered her voice. “Which one?”
“Ah . . .” I said.
Bobbi’s eyes flamed in the shadows. “I know every Kitty Cult site that has ever existed.”
“She speaks the truth,” Shug said.
“Okay,” I said. “There was this girl . . . she was young, twelve, back in 2006 or 2007—”
“Who is Susan Doucette, Kitten Kid Detective!” Bobbi screamed out.
“It’s not Jeopardy, babe,” Shug said.
I blinked in disbelief. “You’ve heard of Susan Doucette?”
“Sure,” Bobbi said. “Kitten Kid Detective was a website, a really popular one. The hardcore Cultists were all over it. For some reason, they took it down.”
“Even off the archive sites?”
She nodded and then smiled.
“What?”
“I mean, I don’t like to show off—”
“Please. By all means.”
“Do you mind?” She pointed at my computer.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard, then, after a couple of minutes, she swiveled the laptop back to me. It was Susan’s website—or at least screenshots of it, rows and rows of them.
“I kept a folder,” Bobbi said. “I always had a feeling that kid was on to something. She came here once. Had a hot dog.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed, drinking in the site.
It was classic early-2000s look, black with cramped pink and green text in a bubble font. I scanned a page, which was a long thread where about five different people discussed their recent visits to Ambletern.
. . . and then one night I caught Dorothy standing outside our door at three a.m. She said she was just passing by, but she was HOLDING A CROWBAR WITH GLOVES ON.
. . . my fiancé found a bloodstain on the desk in the library. He gouged out the wood and put it in a baggie. Anybody know anyone who works in a freelance CSI lab?
. . . she’s soooooo weird. OMG. Dead eyes. Motherfucking dead eyes. She might wear blue contacts because I KNOW her eyes are green. Bitch carries this thermos around with her all the time, even drinks out of it at meals, like the water’s poisoned or something. During dinner, she was like lurking in the corner and watching us. That woman gave me the fucking heebie-jeebies, seriously.
“Okay,” I said, looking back up at Bobbi. “Are there any pictures of earlier posts? Any of the originals?”
“Sure.”
Within seconds, she crowed and swiveled the laptop. My eyes widened as I took in the site.
“Oh my God. That’s it. I can’t believe it.”
“I’ll get you a berry tart, house special, okay?” Bobbi said. “And would you mind signing my first edition? I’d be so honored.”
From www.kittenkiddetective.com