Page 26 of The Note

She headed for the roller bag, open on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, still unpacked. Pre-2020 May would have had the empty suitcase tucked neatly away within fifteen minutes of coming home. She pulled out her black shirt-dress while she untied the drawstring of her running shorts with her free hand.

“What about?” Josh asked.

“No clue,” she said, fumbling with the buttons of the dress. She paused in front of the full-length mirror next to the closet door and smoothed herhair into place.But I do have a clue,she thought.I have a terrible feeling that I know exactly what this is about.

“You don’t have to snap at me. What has been going on with you lately? You said that trip would help you get back to normal, but you’ve been high-strung ever since you got home.”

She looked at him with an arched brow. Sometimes she wondered if Josh even knew her.

“Very poor word choice,” he conceded.

“Indeed.”

The doorbell rang. They were here.

*

When Joe had first called up about police, she’d feared the worst: uniforms from East Hampton. But these two were plainclothes. Detectives. Detective Danny Brennan, specifically, with a second detective in tow. As far as she knew, Danny was still assigned as an investigator to the Manhattan DA’s Office. That was good, she was hoping.

“Hanover!” Danny’s voice was husky as he drew out the syllables of her last name playfully. “How have you been, lady? You look good. Rested. Getting out of the game has served you well.”

I am definitely not rested.“Not totally out of the game. More of a coach now.”

“As they say, those who can … do. Those who can’t—”

“Howdareyou?” she said with feigned outrage. “You know firsthand that’s not true when it comes to me.”

Danny Brennan had been her principal law enforcement witness in her last major trial—an attempted rape and murder case where the defendant was caught crawling through the window of a ground-level apartment, gloved and ski-masked, armed with a hunting knife, zip ties, and condoms. He claimed his only plan had been to steal anything valuable from the apartment, but May had been able to use two prior sex-offense convictions and a plethora of violent pornography found on his computer to persuade a jury he had more terrifying intentions.

Danny’s shoulders shook a bit as he chuckled quietly. “No question about that. Not too many ADAs charge as hard as you did. And, oh, say hi to Clark here. New to detectives. Trailing me today.”

“Hi, Clark.” One name only, but she was sure it was his last name. Even when she and Danny had gotten close enough that she moved to a first-name basis, she had always remained Hanover to him.

The trainee raised a sheepish hand. “Hey.”

“Have a couple quick questions,” Danny said. “Could’ve called but figured it’d be good to get the new guy outside for a bit since we had the time.”

“Sure, of course. Come in. Um, this is Josh.”Josh looked up from the pasta pot he was filling with water and gave an awkward wave.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna wait in the bedroom while you guys talk, okay?”

Gomez waddled behind him, almost like he knew trouble was coming.

*

“So what’s going on?” she asked once they were alone. Realizing how aggressive she sounded, she softened her tone. “Or are you just here to butter me up into going back to the DA’s Office?” It was the kind of harmless flirtation that women learned as a coping skill to avoid tension.

“I’d give it a shot, Hanover, if I thought it would work,” Danny said with a wink. “Clark, why don’t you lay it out?”

“Sure.” The new detective cleared his throat with a nervous cough. “So we got a phone call from a detective in Suffolk County. East Hampton, to be exact. They’ve got a missing-person case out there and are looking for possible witnesses. They got your name from a—”

Clark was cut off by thewrong answersound of a game-show buzzer.Aangh.May was happy for the interruption. So theywerehere about East Hampton.

“See, Clark, this is why I brought you here to get some training on safe ground with Hanover. Yougave up way too much information. You owe zero explanations, and you ask the questions, not them. Leave them wondering what you do or don’t know. Scare them, they might walk into a trap. Like this: So, Hanover—sorry, Professor Hanover—where were you last Friday, July twenty-first?”

She was relieved when he turned to Clark and said, “See, with a real interview, you got to do it more like that, you see?”

The younger detective was nodding eagerly. “Yeah, I got it.”

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