Page 37 of The Note

Ha ha. You called it. Will try again later. Just had something weird to tell you.

Can you text it?

Remember that woman Tinsley Smith?

The name felt vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t bring it into focus. She typed three question marks and hit enter.

Big donor to Wildwood. Owns newspapers around the NE. Lives in Rhode Island.

She felt a surge of panic. Rhode Island. May had looked up the area code on that missing-person flyer. It was Rhode Island. What had May said when she first saw the flyer? “Even his name is generic.” David Smith.

Oh yeah …

She stared at her phone, willing the blinking dots to turn into words. Please, please, please. Please let it be a coincidence. Don’t let it be him.

Her son is apparently missing … from the Hamptons.

What? For how long?She was about to hit enter and realized her mistake. May had already told the police they had seen the flyer, so that had to become part of the lie. She erased and started over.OMG, I saw a flyer about someone missing. I never would have made the connection.It was actually the truth. She hit enter, then immediately sent a new message:How’d you hear?

Tinsley called Jessica, who described her as quote apoplectic. I think she’s calling everyone she knows.

Lauren had grown used to how effortlessly Thomas mentioned Jessica in their conversations. Now that she was trying to remember Tinsley Smith, she recalled that she’d gotten involved as a camp supporter because she had been in the same sorority as Jessica at SMU.

As she composed a reply, she tried to pretend she didn’t know the things she knew.That’s scary. Hopefully he’s okay.Enter.

Keep your eyes peeled. How ironic would it be if you found him?

I’m sure Jessica would be thrilled for me to be the hero of the story.After she hit send, she realized it sounded cattier than she had intended.

She saw moving dots but no new message, and then spotted May heading in her directionfrom the far end of the platform.May’s here. Gotta run!

Have fun.

May reached out her arms for a hug, but Lauren grabbed her bag, tossed it in the open hatchback, and rushed May into the passenger seat. Thomas had said it would be “ironic” if Lauren found David Smith because it had been his mother, Tinsley, who called her sorority sister, Jessica Welliver, to warn her that Marnie Mann’s family was talking about suing Wildwood and the Wellivers.

“Did you just rob a bank or something?”

She was already pulling away from the curb onto Cooper Lane when she responded. “We have a problem. That missing guy? That’s the kid who was dating Marnie Mann when she died.”

Part Three

Wildwood

22

Carter had no problem spotting Christine Harper standing alone on Railroad Avenue. As she had described over the phone, she had shoulder-length strawberry blond hair and was wearing a purple T-shirt and white shorts. One hand shielded her eyes as she searched from one end of the street to the other. Carter approached cautiously. “Christine Harper?” he asked.

Christine’s eyes met his, and relief washed over her face. “Oh good, you’re here. Just you?” She shifted her hot-pink roller bag to make way on the sidewalk for other train passengers searching for their rides.

Carter had been irritated when Christine insisted on meeting him in person to tell him what she knew. She was probably one of those people who binged crime shows where the worn and weary detective magically discerns the truth about a witness’s character by searching their souls with a look in the eyes. “Were you expecting a cavalry?”

“I didn’t know what to expect. My head’s reeling. I still can’t believe this is happening. There was some part of me afraid that Dave’s mother would have pulled all her strings to have me rounded up and waterboarded. From what I’ve heard, she’s calling everyone Dave has ever met—or at least the ones she knows about. Someone told her I was the one here with him and that I was still in New York, and she was talking about having me arrested. My mother was asking if I needed a lawyer and is freaking out.”

“Well, let’s start by finding somewhere a little more private.” He led the way to his Dodge Charger and opened the passenger door. “Front seat, not the back. You’re not in custody, to be clear. And you don’t need to come with me, in fact. If you’d prefer to talk in a coffee shop, or not talk at all, this is all completely voluntary. You understand that?”

She looked at the open car door and then to him. “But is it actually voluntary? Or is this like on TV shows where the police tell the guy he’s notunder arrest and is free to go, but then arrest him anyway when he tries to leave?”

He smiled. He’d been right about the television thing. “It’s voluntary-voluntary. If you want to test it, you can wave that cabbie over right now. His name’s Al. I promise I won’t stop you.”

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