The salesgirl picked out three different flavors and handed them to Katie.
“Here y’go, guy. Enjoy.” Then she moved off.
Poppy looked around the crowded store. Thank God it was a warm, sunny day. The whole boardwalk area was like mobbed with people getting out of their houses to take advantage of the summerlike day—after all, it was almost spring and they’d been cooped up all winter. The only bad thing was that they all seemed to be about a hundred years old, which made Poppy and Katie stick out more than she liked.
She hadn’t dared even to glance at the phones as she’d hurried Katie inside, but now she felt it might be like safe to risk a peek. As Katie unwrapped a strawberry taffy stick and began to chew, Poppy stepped toward the front of the store; from within a cluster of people lined up to buy lottery tickets, she stared south along the boardwalk.
Bright sunlight from a robin’s-egg sky glittered off the darker blue of the ocean. White sand, strewn with seaweed, stretched to the boardwalk where two people hung by the bank of four phones—one was a woman by a middle phone, the other a tall, dark-haired man standing by the last phone on the left. The Katie phone. And he looked a little like Katie.
No… he looked a lot like Katie.
And then it hit Poppy.
I’m gonna lose her.
Suddenly her throat was tight. She turned to look at Katie, happily chomping away as she began unwrapping another stick. She looked up at Poppy and waved, smiling around the huge wad of taffy bulging the side of her cheek.
Poppy felt her eyes fill with tears. Only like five days since she first laid eyes on that kid and yet right now she didn’t know how she was going to live without her. I can’t let her go. And yet she knew she had to. A little girl belonged with her Daddy. But still…
She rushed over and lifted Katie in her arms, hugging her tight against her.
“I love you, Katie.” Katie’s arms went around her neck.
“I love you too, Poppy. Can you come home and live with me?”
“Oh, I’d love that, honey bunch, but I can’t right away. I’ve got a few places I gotta go.”
“How about when you come back?”
“Sure. If it’s all right with your daddy.”
“I’ll ask him, ‘kay?”
“ ‘Kay.” The plan was to call the phone where Katie’s dad was waiting and tell him he could find her in the taffy shop to his left. She’d rented a cell phone earlier—on one of Snake’s cards—just for that one call.
She’d made it pretty clear to Katie’s dad that no one else was supposed to be involved in this. But she couldn’t like count on that.
She had to assume that a whole lot of people were out there waiting for this to go down. And she figured everybody would be expecting her to act like a typical kidnapper, like in the movies where they called people and told them to race to another phone to get the next call, and then to another phone for still another call.
But what if she told Katie’s daddy on the very first call where he could find her? Who’d be expecting that?
All right, maybe it was an Appleton scheme, but it was the best she could come up with. And Appleton or not, it felt right. She’d leave Katie here, chomping on taffy, and wander out of the store, off the boardwalk, down to the street, get into the truck, and call Daddy on her cell phone as she was like driving away. She didn’t feature leaving Katie alone, but it would only be a few minutes before Daddy got there, with maybe like a zillion feds and cops swarming into the store behind him.
She’d dump the cell phone somewhere, and keep driving… and cry all the way home.
All the way home…
Where had that come from? She didn’t have a home. Not anymore. And nobody in Sooy’s Boot much wanted to see her again.
Home. Sooy’s Boot wasn’t all that far from here. Was that why she’d chosen Atlantic City? So she could run home afterward?
She shook off the questions. She’d worry about them later. Right now she had to get Katie back where she belonged.
Sweet Jesus, how am I going to do this? How am I doing to let you go?
As Poppy closed her eyes and fought back the tears, she felt Katie stiffen and whisper, “Mommy.”
“I wish I was, honey bunch, but you’ve got—”
“No. That’s my mommy.”
Poppy froze. What the hell was Katie’s mother doing here? In this store? Despite the hair and boy clothes, had she recognized Katie and followed them in? Poppy couldn’t see how anyone could spot Katie unless they were right on top of her, but maybe mothers had like an instinct for their own child.
All right, she told herself, stay calm.
Still holding Katie against her pounding heart, she made a half turn, slow and casual like.
The store was filled with.women. None of them seemed to be staring at her or Katie.
“Don’t point,” Poppy whispered. “Just tell me who it is.”
“By the door,” Katie said softly in her ear. “With the big hat.”
Poppy saw her now: Big dark glasses, wide floppy straw sun hat, the kind you could buy anywhere along the boardwalk, worn over a silk scarf wrapped around her head. Either she was allergic to the sun or thought she was like in disguise.
And she didn’t even know they were here, right behind her. She was too busy staring out the door, watching the man who had to be Katie’s father.
That was it. Dear old Dad must have told Mom that they were getting their daughter back today and the poor woman just couldn’t stay away.
That lump in her throat again: She absolutely had to give Katie back to her folks. It was the only right thing to do.
And suddenly Poppy realized she’d been presented with a totally golden opportunity to do just that.
“Look, honey bunch,” she whispered, “I’m gonna put you down and let you go to your mother. You—”
“No!” Katie’s arms tightened around her neck. “I don’t want to!”
“You gotta, honey bunch,” Poppy said, deeply moved that Katie wanted to stay with her. “You gotta go back. Your mom will take you back to your dad.”
Katie straightened and looked around. “Daddy? Is my daddy here?” Poppy wondered at the change in Katie at the mention of her father. This was definitely Daddy’s little girl.
Like I was… once.
“Not right here. But he’s close by. You go with your mom and soon you’ll be with your dad too. Okay?
“ ‘Kay.” Poppy put her down and straightened her Jets shirt.
She bit her lip to keep from crying. I gotta get out of here before I start blubbering.
“You be a good girl, now,” she told Katie, crouching before her and smoothing her Chopped hair. “And you have a good life. And maybe you think of me once in a while, okay?”
“ ‘Kay.”
Poppy gathered her in her arms again and held her tight, never wanting to let her go, but knowing if she didn’t get out of here right now she’d explode.
“I love you, little girl.”
“I love you too. Poppy.” She forced herself to release Katie.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I’m going to miss you.” She wiped her eyes on her flannel sleeve. “But here’s what you do. Wait a second or two while I go outside, then go up to your mother and say, ‘Hi, Mom.’ Can you do that?”
Katie nodded, her blue eyes flicking back and forth between her mother and Poppy. “But where will you be?”
“I’ll be outside.” Not a lie. She would be outside—far outside, and getting farther every second. “Got that? Wait till I’m outside; then go up to her.”
“Kay.” Poppy straightened and took one last look into that little face.
She touched her cheek, then somewhere found the strength to turn and hurry past Katie’s mother—still fixated on the phones outside—and stumble into the afternoon sunlight.
Feeling as if she’d torn out her heart and left it behind, among the souvenirs, she made a sharp right and kept her head down as she forced one foot in front of the other away from the boardwalk.