Сьюзен Виггз - The Lost and Found Bookshop

“I’ll ask her tonight,” said Grandy. “I’m sure she’d like to help.”

Natalie felt a pulse of concern. “May Lin is—”

“I see her in my dreams,” he said. “Every night.”

She bit her lip, then reached over and covered his hand with hers. “Let me know what she says.”

* * *

“Where’s Prince Charming taking you tonight?” Bertie asked Natalie.

She was wearing her mother’s good red coat and heeled boots. “Not sure.” After the fiasco with her grandfather, Trevor had promised to cheer her up. A comedy club, maybe. She checked her phone to make sure Charlie was on his way. Lately, she worried about leaving her grandfather unattended.

“To bed, I hope,” said Cleo. “It’s time, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you,” said Natalie. “Don’t you have a book club to get ready for?”

She gestured at the snack table and the stack of mystery novels waiting for the club members to arrive. “I’m ready. Really, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. He’s great, and you’re great, and he treats you like a queen.”

“He’s wonderful,” Natalie agreed.

“I hear a ‘but,’” said Bertie.

She sighed. “I’m an idiot. He seems perfect for me.” She wanted Trevor to be the one. He was the easy choice, the no-brainer. Life with him would flow by with no effort. But she’d failed so badly with Rick. She questioned her own judgment now. And with everything going on with Grandy, she was in no shape to start something. Yet Trevor kept coming back, and she kept—

“Oh boy,” said Bertie. “We’ve got company.”

A woman in an army surplus jacket and scuffed boots came in, bringing along the ripe scent of alcohol and recently smoked cigarettes. Her face bore the crags of harsh living, and her eyes gleamed in a restless assessment of the displays. Given the shop’s location, they got their share of homeless visitors and panhandlers. Sometimes, though, people just wanted to talk.

This one made a beeline for the counter. “You Natalie?” she asked.

Startled, Natalie glanced at Bertie, then back at the woman. “Can I help you?”

“There are some things you might wanna know about your boyfriend.” The woman picked up a Trevor Dashwood book that was displayed on an easel. Real and Make-Believe.

Natalie’s gaze skated around the shop. There were a few browsing customers, though they didn’t seem to take notice of the woman. “Sorry, what?” she asked softly.

She turned the book around to the photo of Trevor on the back. “You think you know him? You don’t know him.”

“Ma’am,” Bertie said. “Is there something we can help you with?”

“Help me.” She curled her lip. “How ’bout I help you. For one thing, that ain’t his name. This is Tyrell Denton. I reckon I’d know, being as I’m his mother.”

Natalie looked at the woman through a blur of utter confusion. “Sorry, I don’t understand—”

“’Course you don’t,” the woman said. “I’m Doreen Denton, his dirty little secret.”

Now a few customers looked over. Natalie had no idea what to do. “Ma’am—”

“Hey, Doreen.” A young woman with a cell phone came into the shop. She looked vaguely familiar.

At first Natalie couldn’t place her. Then she realized it was Emily, one of Trevor’s assistants.

“Glad I found you,” Emily said to the woman. “We need to get going, okay?”

“I ain’t going nowhere with you, missy.” Doreen gave a disdainful sniff. “I got a few things to say about that boy o’ mine.”

Emily pressed her lips together. Natalie murmured, “I think she’s talking about Trevor.”

“I know. It’s complicated . . .”

“You mean . . .”

Emily nodded, then turned again to Doreen. “Can we go now?”

“That’s right, sweep me under the rug.”

The tension strained the very air in the room. A moment later, Trevor strode into the bookstore, phone in hand.

“Oh, look, everybody, Mr. Big Shot has arrived.” Doreen waved her hand at him.

A couple of the customers edged closer.

Trevor’s face was stiff and pale. “There’s a car waiting outside,” he said. “Come on, I’ll help you out.”

Doreen sneered at him, but somehow, he and Emily managed to escort her to the street. Doreen kept up a strange rant, laced with profanity, as she got into a shiny town car.

Natalie looked at Bertie and Cleo. “Oh boy.” She grabbed her bag. “I’ll fill you in later.”

“Mandatory,” Cleo said, shooing her toward the door.

Outside, Natalie joined Trevor on the sidewalk. He was watching the black car drive away, his shoulders rigid, his face impassive.

“Hey.” She touched his arm, and his muscles felt like stone. “What’s going on?”

“She told you,” Trevor said. It wasn’t a question.

“I imagine there’s another side to the story.” A flip side.

He took a deep breath. “Let’s walk.”

They fell in step together through the bone-chilling fog. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.

“I’m not sure what I saw.”

He turned up the collar of his charcoal-gray overcoat. “You saw my childhood,” he said. In the next block, he ducked into the foyer of a boutique hotel with a quiet lobby bar. He ordered two old-fashioneds and told the bartender to make his a double.

“We need to talk,” said Natalie.

Trevor gripped the edge of the table and looked across at her. She had never seen him unguarded before. She did now. He looked utterly bleak and defeated. “My mom’s a lot of things. But weirdly enough, she’s not a liar.” He took a deep swig of his drink.

“I’m listening,” Natalie said. “It’s okay, Trevor. Her name’s Doreen Denton?”

He nodded. “The two of us lived in a Carson City trailer park. My father was some drifter I never met. She drank and worked in a casino. Sometimes she remembered to toss me a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Maybe a box of cereal. I managed to drag myself through school, and every chance I got, I holed up in the library. That was my sanctuary.”

“So it’s all—your background, your bio—it’s all made-up.”

“As fictional as one of my novels. A total hoax.”

Natalie sipped her drink while her mind reeled. She was shocked—but also sad. Despite all his success, his wealth, his homes in San Francisco and Carmel, his jet-setting lifestyle . . . the nonprofit he’d founded for children of addicts, he had been living with this secret. “So your mother—Doreen . . .”

“She doesn’t live in Palm Springs. I got her a place in private care, and she’s been to rehab more times than I can count. I’m so fucking sorry, Natalie.”

“ I’m sorry you had to grow up like that, and that you felt you had to hide it.”

“You know how hard publishing is. When I was trying to market myself, I created this persona, and when the books took off, I just went with it. It’s shitty, I know.”

“The world loves you.”

“The world doesn’t know me.”

“You are who you are.” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “You know what I wish? I wish I could go back in time and find you as a little kid and give you a hug and tell you you’re going to be just fine.”

He took his hand away. “You wouldn’t have wanted to hug me. I was covered in lice and bruises.”

“Even more reason to hug you,” she insisted. “Ah, Trevor.”

He took a drink. “You know what they say—it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. I’m happy now, babe. You make me happy.”

Yet there was a sadness inside him, and Natalie knew she couldn’t fill that void. She wondered if his attraction to her, while seemingly romantic on the surface, actually stemmed from his wanting to be with someone who was steady and dependable and predictable, everything the awful mother was not.