“All righty, then. Gwen. Let’s cut to the chase. I’m here because I need your help.”
Gwen was beginning to feel impatient. “I can certainly give you a tour of the museum, if you’d like, but the exhibits are pretty self-explanatory. You might prefer to look around on your own. You’ll see Scarlett’s gowns and jewelry and memorable costumes from her films. Upstairs, you’ll find her bedroom and other rooms that have been restored to how they were when she lived here. Beyond that, you’re welcome to conduct your research in the archives, which is also upstairs. We have a summer student looking after the collection. It’s organized by year, starting from Scarlett’s childhood all the way to her death in ’79.”
Peter’s brow furrowed with a slight frown, as if he thought Gwen was trying to hide something from him. “What about the year she spent in New York?”
“What about it?” Gwen replied, too quickly. Her legs were crossed, and she started to swing her foot.
“I’ve never been able to find much information about that time in her life. No letters or anything.”
“That’s because not much happened,” Gwen said with a casual shrug. “She went there to get her acting career off the ground, and she was estranged from her family. Her father didn’t approve of the fact that she had run off to become an actress, and he expected her to fail. That’s why she didn’t write any letters—because she wasn’t having any success. But then she packed up and went to Hollywood and ... well, you know the rest.”
Peter continued to look at Gwen as if he knew something she didn’t.
“What?” she asked. “Obviously, if you’re writing a biography, you know all of this. Or at least I hope you do. It’s on her Wikipedia page.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with all that,” he said. “But I’ve done a bit of detective work, and what I really want to know, and the reason I flew all this way, is to ask if she ever spent time in Alaska.”
Gwen’s foot began to swing a little faster. “Not that I’m aware of. Why?”
He reached for his laptop case on the floor, unzipped it, and withdrew a file folder. “I stumbled across something a few months ago. I was watching a television documentary about the Alaska earthquake in 1964. Are you familiar with it?”
“Um ...”
“It was the second-largest earthquake of all time,” he explained, “after the Chilean quake in 1960. It registered nine point two on the Richter scale.”
“No kidding.” Gwen stared at the file folder on his lap and waited for him to show her what was inside. “What does that have to do with Scarlett?”
Her heart began to race because she was considered the world’s foremost expert on Scarlett Fontaine. Gwen was also the dedicated caretaker of her incredible legend. What could this tabloid photographer possibly have discovered that Gwen didn’t already know?
At last, he withdrew a photocopy of an article in an old newspaper and handed it across the desk. Gwen read the headline at the top of the page.
POWER OUTAGE CONTINUES
“Not the main article,” Peter said, pointing at the sidebar, which contained a photo of a young man smiling and holding a baby. Gwen read the caption out loud.
“Joyful reunion in Valdez: A baby in a carriage was found floating on debris from the tidal wave that destroyed the city docks. The infant was rescued from the sea and safely returned to the distraught mother, who had been injured in the quake.”
“Look carefully at the woman in the hospital bed,” Peter said.
Gwen squinted at the grainy black-and-white photograph and felt an explosion of heat in her belly.
“It’s Scarlett,” Peter said. “Don’t you think? If it isn’t, then she must have a twin or a doppelgänger.”
By now, Gwen’s pulse was galloping. She couldn’t speak for a few seconds. She held the photo at arm’s length to get a better sense of the young woman’s features. “It certainly does look like her. But it can’t be.”
“Why not?” he asked. “I’ve been digging everywhere, and I’ve never been able to find a single record of Scarlett Fontaine or Valerie McCarthy in New York in 1964. And then I saw this. It was a total fluke. I was watching TV one night ...”
Gwen shook her head and handed the photo back to Peter. “It’s not her because she never had any children.”
“Are you sure? Maybe that’s why she left home when she did—because she was pregnant. Maybe her family sent her away to have the baby and put it up for adoption. It happened all the time back then. And you know how strict her father was.”
“Yes, but it can’t be Scarlett,” Gwen insisted. “Someone in the family would have known about it.”
“And kept it secret,” he argued. “That was the whole point of sending unwed mothers away to have their babies—so that no one would find out.”
Gwen sat for a moment, considering it. Then she let out a breath. “Let me see that again.” She took the picture and read the caption a second time. “It doesn’t mention the woman’s name. Was there not a follow-up article on another day?”
“Nothing,” Peter replied. “I searched through all the local papers for weeks afterward. She was never identified, and neither was the man.”
