Throckmorton awoke with a start.
He didn’t know where he was, who he was with, or how long he’d been sleeping.
There was a rap on wood and the clink of a chain.
“Joe!” he heard a woman say. “What are you doing here?”
Throckmorton recognized the voice: Olivia!
Praise be . . . the bandleader had kept his word.
“I’ve got something for you,” Joe said. “Special delivery.”
“Now?” Olivia asked. “Can’t it wait until morning? I’m trying to get some sleep.”
“It’s from a little girl at that party,” Joe explained. “I ran into her backstage. I’d driven back to get my baton and the violin case that Bud left behind.”
“The pretty one in the long white dress?”
“Yeah,” Joe answered. “The girl with the straggly hair.”
“Come on in,” Olivia urged.
“She seemed pretty upset.”
“What is it?”
The violin case tilted upright and the lid swung open. “See for yourself.”
When Throckmorton’s eyes adjusted, Olivia’s face came into focus, haloed by bronze light. Her eyes were puffy. Smudges of makeup marked her face. And her hair! It was cut as short as Evan’s.
With one of her long painted fingernails, Olivia tapped his yellow duck diaper pin. “It’s Throckmorton!”
Joe gave his forehead a soft blow with the back of his hand. “Don’t tell me you know this guy!”
Olivia drew Throckmorton out of the case. “Tell me exactly what the girl said.”
For a split second, Joe hesitated.
“Tell me!” she demanded.
“Like I said, I bumped into her backstage. She startled me—I wasn’t expecting anyone to be back there. It was dark and she tripped.”
“Did she get hurt?”
“Nah, I don’t think so,” Joe said. “I helped her up and she seemed fine. Anyway, she had two sock monkeys. She shoved this one into my arms and made me promise that I’d give it to you.” He paused. “Like I said, she was really upset.”
Olivia looked deeply into Throckmorton’s black button eyes. “Why would she want me to have her sock monkey?”
Joe gripped the doorknob. “Oh, I forgot . . . she told me to tell you that it was a present from Great-Grandmama. You know, the old lady who hired us.”
Olivia turned Throckmorton upside down and right side up, examining every inch of his body. “Nothing else?” she asked Joe. “No note or anything?”
“Nope.” Joe threw up his hands. “I still don’t get it . . . but then again, I guess I don’t need to.”
“Thanks a lot, Joe. I owe you one.”
“Good night, Olivia. Get some sleep,” he said. “See you tomorrow in the dining room, bright and early.” Joe grinned. “Miss Chickadee Finch: A star is born . . .”
After Olivia locked and chained the hotel-room door, she set Throckmorton on a desk. His back rested against a wall, next to a coverless shoebox. The shoebox was stuffed with envelopes.
Olivia pulled up a chair, put her elbows on the leather desk blotter, and rested her chin in her hands.
“I can’t believe that Annaliese would give away her sock monkey, even if Great-Grandmama had asked her to . . . I mean, fans give me gifts all the time, but still . . . I was watching her—and the boys—and I could tell that they didn’t recognize me. . . .”
She pulled a pack of white envelopes out of the shoebox and removed the rubber band that held them together.
One by one, she shuffled through them.
“Judge Ellis W. Easterling, Eastcliff-by-the-Sea, Bay Fortune, Maine,” she read. “Return to Sender.”
“Evan Easterling. Return to Sender.”
“Theodore Easterling. Return to Sender.”
“Annaliese Easterling. Return to—”
Olivia dropped her chin and wept into her arms.
A few moments later, her facial expression changed from despair to anger. “I gave up,” she said, slapping the desktop. “I should’ve kept fighting!”
Olivia rose to her feet and started pacing, from the bathroom to the dresser, from the door to the nightstand. Twice, she picked up the telephone receiver and slammed it back down.
“It’s my fault . . . I shouldn’t have listened to Great-Grandmama. There was no reason to wait. We should’ve done it my way—up front and honest.”
Olivia covered the shoebox and tied it with twine. She laid two pieces of luggage out on the bed. One was a brown and ordinary suitcase. Into the second, a patent-leather hatbox, she placed Miss Chickadee Finch’s black cap.
She penned a brief note on hotel stationary and sealed it inside a matching envelope. Using Throckmorton’s yellow duck diaper pin, she secured the envelope to his chest.
Ouch!
“Sorry, little buddy,” she apologized, as if she’d sensed his pain.
She pulled a dark gray cape off a hanger in the closet and slipped it over her shoulders. Then she picked up the phone. “Operator, please connect me with Room 117.”
The telephone rang many times before someone on the other end of the line answered.
“Joe, I need to talk to you,” Olivia said. “I’m coming to your room. Yes. Right now. Let me in.”
Inside Joe’s room, Olivia pulled a road map out of her handbag.
The bandleader, dressed in slacks and a half-buttoned shirt, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“By what time do we have to be in Cannon City?” Olivia asked.
“Setup and sound check’s tomorrow, two p.m. sharp,” Joe told her. “Why?”
Olivia glanced at her watch. “How many hours will it take to get there?”
“In this weather?” said Joe. “At least three.”
“Then there’s time.”
“Time for what?”
Olivia explained that she wanted to borrow Joe’s station wagon. She needed to return to the house where the party had been. If he refused, she’d bow out of the Cannon City engagement entirely and find another way back to Eastcliff.
“Olivia, you can’t! Tonight’s gig is no costume party. It’s the Chesterfield Club,” he reminded her. “Bright lights, big city, big money—and,” he added, “the first night of Miss Chickadee Finch’s North American Tour.”
Bright lights in a big city . . . The Chesterfield Club . . . Oh, how glamorous and exciting that sounded.
Throckmorton almost wished that he could tag along.
“There’s been some kind of mistake,” Olivia argued. “The sock monkey is not mine. I have to take it back.”
“Mail it,” Joe said.
Olivia flashed two fingers in Joe’s face. “Two hours—max—that’s all the time I need to get there and back. It’s still dark. Come on, Joe, cut me a break.”
“I’m warning you, Miss Finch—you’re under contract.”
“In that case, I’d better get going.”
“No, we’d better get going,” Joe said, grabbing an overcoat and his car keys. “I have to make sure that you’ll be back in time.”
“Fine, but let me drive,” said Olivia. “I know the way like the back of my hand.”
Olivia followed Joe out the hotel’s front door. The moon, full and round and bright, beamed down on the street where Joe’s station wagon was parked.
“Once we’re on the road,” Joe said, “remind me to tell you what happened at that party after you left.” His voice dropped off. “Strangest sight I ever saw . . .”