A long way, baby…
Porter shrugged, then waddled into his booth, where he resumed whistling.
Amanda stood perfectly still just inside the shade of the south entrance, her heart pounding so hard she wondered if she should take an aspirin. Rachel had convinced her to carry the pills in her purse to ward off a heart attack, should the need arise. But Amanda was only twenty-eight years old, unlikely to expire from a bum ticker, and besides, her purse was at the far end of the building, locked in her desk.
Get a grip. As she struggled to understand what had just transpired, she saw her sketch pad splayed open on the gravel beside Marc’s truck. She must have dropped it there when Marc grabbed her arms.
When she ventured outside and bent to pick it up, the relentless sun beat down on her head and she was suddenly dizzy. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with her? Was she destined to faint and die on the spot?
Disgusted by her infirmities, Amanda moved back into the building, where the temperature still topped ninety degrees. Yes, she’d had only a few hours’ sleep, she’d consumed only toast and black coffee for breakfast. Thanks to her confusing, intense lovemaking with Sara and the finality of her breakup with Rachel, she was running on emotional empty. The violent encounter with Marc didn’t help. But mostly she really badly needed to pee.
She glanced wistfully at the public restrooms, now locked since the cops were gone. So her only option was the exhibitors’ private bathroom, which she’d avoided ever since the trouble began. To access it, Amanda was forced to pass through the Thigpen booth and endure Porter’s glare of disapproval, but having no choice, she did so.
Fumbling with her key ring, including its many new additions, she found the one that worked and locked herself inside with the hook and eye Marc had installed. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Sinking gratefully onto the toilet seat, she buried her face in her hands and attempted to organize her thoughts, starting with the most troubling: why was Sara “licking her wounds,” as Marc had said? Had Amanda hurt or upset her in some way? She’d expected her to be at Metrolina today, if for no other reason than to return Amanda’s cell phone. Surely Sara had found it by now, and as everyone knew, no woman could live without her phone.
If, for instance, Amanda had her phone at that very moment, she’d call Sara and ask her what the hell was going on.
She finished her business, yanked the light chain above the sink, and saw her two old friends—the antique posters she’d so admired. She recalled saying to the sassy ladies in the 1940s ads, “We’ve come a long way, baby.” The framed pieces brought a smile, even today.
But as Amanda soaped her hands, she realized something was different about them. Before, the sexy blonde drinking a classic Coke had hung on the left, while the pretty brunette in pink plastic rollers had been on the right. Today they were switched around. She was certain of this because before, the girls had faced one another, now they looked in opposite directions. This was way wrong.
Unable to stop herself from fixing the out of kilter posters, she reached up and removed the blonde from the wall. She glanced at the backing, as any framer would, and noticed the piece had a gold label from a Charlotte art shop which, no doubt, had gone out of business decades ago. She placed it on the floor.
She removed the brunette holding a Sunbeam hair dryer, and again checked the backing. No gold label. Very strange. Instead of the peeling paper and stained cardboard one would expect, Amanda saw that someone had recently stapled a sheet of modern printing paper to the backside of the frame. Also, she could feel the outline of something inserted beneath the paper.
What on earth? Before she could control them, her fingernails gently lifted one end of each staple and swiveled it outward, so that the sides and lower edge of the paper could be lifted intact. Knowing full well she was committing a trespass, she carefully slid her fingers up and removed the object tucked within.
It was one of those frosted protector sheets. On one side Amanda found a plain leaf of acid-free paper; on the other, hinged to the paper in all its faded glory, was the Lincoln-Davis letter!
She covered her mouth and choked back her cry of surprise, then sank back down on the toilet seat. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost dropped the precious document.
Dear God in heaven!
Arguably, one of the owners was whistling right outside the door. But to put a fine point on it, it had been Michael Thigpen who bought the insurance for the letter. She could run to Marc with her discovery but the idea made her sick to her stomach. Only the police were trustworthy, but they had abandoned the search and left the building, exactly what the thief had been waiting for.
Her brain short-circuiting, incapable of rational thought, she slid the treasure deep between the pages of her sketch pad. With trembling fingers, she bent the staples back against the sheet of backing paper so that at a glance nothing appeared amiss, and then she hung the posters back on the wall as she had found them.
Buying time, she flushed the toilet again, and with all the poise she could muster, picked up her pad and calmly exited the bathroom. Naturally Carlson Porter was still there, sitting at his desk, watching the bathroom door with a snarly look on his face. His head followed her as she passed, so Amanda smiled and waggled her fingers to reassure him. Reassure him of what? That her long delay in the bathroom was just a woman thing?
Determined to keep from running, Amanda moved north up the hall, honing in on her own booth.