Page 43 of The Note

“But why?” Kelsey pressed.

“She’ll either know what happened to him, or is with him, or killed him. Or he could have killed her and is on the run. But we need to know who she is.”

“No, we actually don’t,” Kelsey said. “We’re like one step away from those true crime fanatics who obsessed over every detail of my life after Luke died. Let the police find that woman. This is none of our business.”

Lauren could feel Kelsey’s skepticism stoking her own doubts. “It’s true, May. The police will find her on their own before we do. You already talked to one cop. I think we need to focus onwhat Kelsey and I should say if they contact us. We can just say we didn’t notice whatever couple you were talking about. Right? Keep it simple?”

Nate was nodding in agreement. “May, that sounds—”

“Speaking of none of your business.” May put her hands on her hips. Yep, Nate’s presence was definitely getting on her nerves.

The awkward silence was cut short by the sound of May’s phone ringing. Her expression morphed into confusion as she glanced at the screen, then held up a finger to silence them.

Lauren could tell it was a man’s voice on the other end of the line but couldn’t make out any of his words.

“I’m actually in East Hampton … Yeah, I did a boomerang to the city, but I’m back here again … Um, sure. I can meet you somewhere. Oh … Um, yeah, in fact, they’re both here with me.” Lauren shook her head so hard her earrings clinked, signaling her opposition to whatever May was about to agree to. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

May was reciting the address of the rental house.

“That was the detective looking for David Smith,” she said. As she set her phone down on the table, her hands were shaking. “He wants to speak to all three of us.”

26

After May’s first year of law school, her constitutional law professor invited her to claim a guaranteed spot in what was usually a by-application-only seminar on jurisprudence. He was one of the school’s most esteemed scholars, and his mentorship reportedly was a golden ticket to a federal appellate clerkship and the professional success that typically followed. The wrinkle was that it met on Friday afternoons and May had promised Kelsey she’d get a four-day schedule once she could choose her own classes as a 2L, so they could visit each other more often. They were even talking about surprising Lauren witha Los Angeles visit. When she politely declined the professor’s invitation, she asked whether he ever taught the class at a different time. His disappointed and dismissive sigh still burned in her memory. She applied each remaining semester and was rejected every time.

May had always struggled to maintain boundaries when it came to her close friendships, but since last year, her connection to Lauren and Kelsey had become a defining aspect of her own identity. Not calling the tip line was already out of character for her, but lying to the police was another level entirely. Meanwhile, it was becoming clear that they were all keeping secrets. Would Kelsey have even told them that she’d confided in her brother if Nate hadn’t slipped and said something? And Lauren attributed the information about David Smith to some anonymous “camp donor,” but her source was obviously Thomas Welliver. Did she really think May of all people didn’t notice the name at the top of her screen while she’d been texting this weekend?

She was starting to regret her decision to return to East Hampton, and the detective wasn’t even at the house yet. And it didn’t help that Nate was here being his best kind of Nate. That look he gave her when she walked out onto the deck made her momentarily forget about David Smith and the police.

And the way he had tried to beckon her back to the deck when she’d gone inside to talk to Josh? Yes, she had walked away from the middle of their conversation, but the call, immediately on the heels of that interaction with Nate, had felt like a sign. She was an emotional cheat who owed it to her fiancé to pick up.

When Josh overheard Nate’s voice in the background and asked who it was, she answered truthfully. She didn’t want to add any more lies. Josh didn’t bother to hide how upset he was. More than upset, he was angry—and jealous. When she told him it wasn’t “a good look,” he said it didn’t exactly look good that she had returned to East Hampton without telling him that her ex-boyfriend would be there. “You told me there were only three bedrooms. Where’s everyone staying?” Then she said he couldn’t be serious.

She had come so close to telling him the truth about everything. If Kelsey could tell her brother, she should be able to tell her fiancé, right? But she knew Josh. She knew how desperately he wanted her to avoid any kind of public attention—for her sake, as he always emphasized. He would not be happy about the note.

Lauren was right. They just needed to get through this conversation with the detective and then they could move on. Nate had offered to stick around in case he could help, but May decided the fewerpeople the better. He was going for a walk until they texted him to come back.

Now Lauren was asking for the third time whether lying to the police was an actual crime. May had told her it was complicated, but Lauren wanted the complete explanation. “Lying itself isn’t necessarily a crime if you’re not under oath. But if you file a written statement, it is, and they can even prosecute you if you say something that winds up going into a written police report. Or for filing a false report.”

“Well, that sounds to me like they’d throw us in jail.”

“You could both just refuse to talk to him,” May said. “An interview’s entirely voluntary. He can’t force you.”

“I like the sound of that,” Kelsey said. “We can tell him to kick rocks and then go back to our vacation.”

“Nothing personal,” Lauren said, “but I think you’re a lot more likely to draw negative attention to yourself for refusing to talk to police in a criminal investigation than if they find out you left some juvenile note on a car. By the time the true crime crazies got done with you, they’d be calling you a serial killer—Luke, this David Smith guy and his girlfriend, probably Marnie too. Maybe we should just tell the cops the truth about the note at this point and get it over with.”

“You guys can do that if you want,” May said, “but then he’ll know I was lying. I don’t think I crossed the line into an actual crime, but he’ll tell the DA’s Office, and they’d probably feel obligated to notify the bar. I could lose my license and my job.”

“So we’re not doing that,” Lauren said, reaching over and squeezing May’s hand. “I’m really sorry, May. We should have let you call on Monday the way you wanted to.”

How many times today had May thought the same thing? It was too late now, but it still felt good to hear.

“As long as we don’t contradict each other, we’ll be fine,” May said. “I saw a couple bickering on the sidewalk in Sag Harbor and thought it might be the missing guy from the flyers. Neither of you noticed. End of story.”

They were nodding along in agreement. “And if they bring up the note?” Lauren asked.

“We don’t know anything about it,” May said.

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