Flying Solo(64)

My phone was hacked. By very dangerous hackers, she typed back.

Of course it was, Daisy answered.

I figured as much, Nick added.

Ryan came out of the bedroom with his overnight bag. “All right, my airport taxi is going to be here in about five, so I’m going to go stand on your porch like a doofus and wait.” He spread his arms wide. “This was so much fun. I’m glad I got to see you, Laur.”

She put her arms around him—he was so pleasantly tall and familiar, and out of all her brothers, he gave the best and most plentiful hugs—and said, “Thank you so much for your help. I couldn’t have done it without you. You’re a great liar.”

“It’s really rare that my profession comes in handy in a practical situation, so next time you need somebody to pretend to be somebody else in order to exact revenge, I’m here for you.”

She pulled back from him. “You’re the best. And thank you for the talk, too.”

“I meant all of it, you know. I think you’re exactly the right version of yourself,” he said. “And whatever it takes for you to be happy, I’m on your side. You know?”

“Yeah. I love you, buddy,” she said. “And don’t look at the group text.”

He frowned. “Well, now I’m going to look at it the minute I get outside.”

“Ugh, fine. Just don’t tell me you looked at it.”

“Deal.” He squeezed her hand and headed out the kitchen door.

When Ryan was gone, she looked at Dot’s wall clock. Enough time to get started.

She sat with her laptop and started with a simple search for “Rosalie Kittery-Kane.” At the top of her results, it said, Did you mean Rosalie Kittery-Lane? “What?” she mumbled. “No, I didn’t mean that, why would I mean that?” It spit out a lot of “Rosalie Kane” listings, and a smattering of Kitterys: Bruce, Donna, Daniel, Robert, Tom, Margaret. It seemed like there was only about a 75 percent chance that Ryan had remembered her name entirely accurately under such pressure, with a creep breathing down his neck and nowhere to take notes. Could he have remembered it wrong? Maybe she did mean Rosalie Kittery-Lane. But that turned up nothing.

Assuming that Rosalie was originally a Kittery and now she was a Kane, maybe she didn’t hyphenate under circumstances in which she wasn’t providing the provenance for a potentially valuable carved bird made by her grandfather. Maybe the “Kittery” was for emphasis. Maybe it hadn’t even said “Kittery-Kane”; maybe it had said “Rosalie Kittery Kane.” So she started digging into those Rosalie Kanes.

It seemed unlikely that Matt had traveled all that far to seek her out. And if Kittery was born in 1915, she figured Rosalie was probably born somewhere between, say, 1960 and 1995. So she wasn’t the one born in 1940, or the one who lived in London, or the one who had been dead since 2006, or the one who had danced the role of Clara in The Nutcracker in Sydney, Australia, in 2012. Probably.

But what about the Rosalie Kane whose Facebook profile, mercifully part public, placed her down the coast in Old Orchard Beach? Her birth year wasn’t there—just “November 12”—but in photos, she looked to be about fifty. Right on target. In two of the pictures, she was standing in front of a school, although all that showed of the sign were the letters ING STREET SCHOOL. A little more poking around placed Rosalie Kane as an art teacher at Nocking Street School in Old Orchard Beach. A celebrated artisan having a granddaughter who was an art teacher had a certain logic. This might have been wrong, but it was the best place she could think of to start.

It took a few tries, but Laurie managed to compose a Facebook message.

    Dear Ms. Kane: I’m writing with a curious question. Are you by chance the Rosalie Kane who’s related to Carl Kittery, the decoy carver? I’m so sorry to impose, but I’ve recently found out that your grandfather might have known my great-aunt Dot Bennett, who died recently. I’m hoping you can help fill in some gaps in her history for me if you don’t mind. I’m happy to come down from Calcasset to see you, perhaps for coffee? Delighted if you can help, and if not, that’s totally all right, and enjoy the rest of your day. Best wishes.



She fretted a bit over whether it was too formal or too casual or too much to ask, but if Rosalie had made time to write a letter for a dirty dishrag of a human being like Matt Pell, she would probably be willing to make time for Laurie. She hit Send, and as she’d done so often since she’d come back to Calcasset, she felt like she was sending off a wish with a flare gun, just hoping someone would see it and want to make it real.





Chapter Twenty-One


She had showered, using the soap and the shampoo that smelled like gardenias. She had changed. She had picked up in the living room, and the bathroom, and the kitchen, and the guest bedroom where she slept. Did that count as having expectations? Didn’t she have expectations? Didn’t he already know she had expectations? Didn’t the entire group chat know she did? Would pizza and beer give her dragon breath? If he had the same dragon breath, would that cancel it out?

Laurie flopped down on the couch on her back and put her bare feet up, throwing her forearm over her eyes. “I am going to be fooouuurrrrr-teeeeeeee,” she declared firmly. “This is so dumb.” She lightly slapped her cheek a few times. “Stop it, stop it.” She thought about Nick sitting next to her at the library desk, lit up by the monitor, trying to solve her mystery. She’d been chasing the duck for a while by then, but in that moment, she’d been distracted by his shoulder, his neck, the corners of his mouth, the familiar timbre of his voice.