Page 44 of The Note

“And what if they know about David’s connection to Wildwood?” Kelsey asked.

“We can tell the truth about that,” Lauren said. “We didn’t make the connection between a kid we met a few times fifteen years ago and the David Smith on the flyers until I got a phone call today from a camp donor.”

“And then you told the two of us,” Kelsey added.

“You know what?” May said. “We should actually tell him about the Wildwood connection on our own when he gets here. It’ll show we’re trying to be helpful and not hiding anything.”

Because they had nothing to hide, right?

27

Carter double-checked that the number on the modern-style farmhouse matched the one May Hanover had given him. He squinted against the late-afternoon sun as he stepped from the car, remembering the last time he’d been on this block, more than two years earlier.

His mother’s best friend, Sharon, had lived two doors down. She inherited the house from her parents in the ’90s, along with a small grocery store they owned in Springs with an adjacent deli. Sharon had promised her mother she’d never let go of the modest house because of its unencumbered view of Gardiners Bay.

For years, as ice cream shops and bakeries were steadily replaced by designer boutiques and galleries, Sharon had resisted the temptation to cash in on the potential for windfall profits. She sold good, simple food that real people needed at an affordable price.

Four years ago, Carter would have sworn that the town where he was born and bred could not become any less affordable for the average person. Even on a good law enforcement salary, he had adopted the increasingly common practice among locals of renting out his own home for July and August while he moved to the studio apartment above his garage.

But the shutdown had blown this place up in a way he had never imagined. Families desperate to escape the confinement of their city apartments—now full-time virtual Zoom offices combined with home schooling—fled to the exurbs, creating bidding wars for available houses, sight unseen, all cash, above asking price. Carter had twice turned away realtors knocking door-to-door in search of someone willing to name a price to relocate.

And Sharon decided she had a price. The combination store-deli was now a gourmet health-conscious “nutrition boutique” selling bullshit like kombucha, oxymoronic no-dairy cheese, and thirty-dollar quarts of bone broth. Sharon livedin Florida. And the porch swing where she and Carter’s mother would sit side by side to sneak an occasional cigarette after dinner had been replaced by an industrial-looking stone bench that probably cost what Carter made in a week.

He knew for a fact that Sharon had gotten two-point-seven million for her house, even though it was a small fixer-upper by a newcomer’s standards. If he had to guess, these women were paying at least ten grand a week for their vacation rental—all for the honor of having to explain exactly what they knew about David Smith.

*

When May Hanover opened the door, he recognized her from the headshot on both her LinkedIn and Fordham Law School faculty profiles. Her face had been fuller in the photograph and her hair longer. She looked thinner now and had cut her hair above her shoulders.

She greeted him with a surprisingly firm handshake. “Detective, I’m May Hanover. We spoke on the phone. And I believe you already got some information from me through my former colleague at the DA’s Office, Danny Brennan.”

“Seemed like good people, a straight shooter.”

“The best,” she said, opening the door wider to let him in.

She led the way into the kitchen, where twoother women stood near stools positioned around the center island.

“Detective Decker,” May said, “these are my friends, Lauren Berry and Kelsey Ellis.”

In photographs he had seen online, Kelsey Ellis had been a stunner, with shiny blond waves and a full face of makeup. She was still undoubtedly attractive, but had a more reserved, natural look, her ashy hair bundled in a loose bun. Lauren Berry, on the other hand, had come across online as intense and professional, almost aloof. But in person, she gave off a radiant energy, confident in a long, bright orange dress and hoop earrings the size of coffee coasters.

It was another reminder that an online persona could be a total fiction.

Kelsey greeted him with a smile that immediately struck him as forced. Smiling at a detective who has come to ask you questions was an unnatural response under any circumstance. He wondered if she was the type of beautiful woman who always assumed she could curry favor with a man.

“Can I get you anything?” May offered. “A bottle of water or a soda?”

“No, I’m good, thanks. Hey, when May originally gave that investigator in the city your names and numbers, I noticed your phone numbers are all from different states. How do y’all know each other, if you don’t mind me asking.”

It was a test to see if they’d try to hide their common connection to David Smith.

May Hanover jumped in first. “Kelsey and I were campers at a camp where Lauren was the director. We stayed in touch over the years.”

Carter widened his eyes as if in surprise. “Whoa. That’s a long time to stay in touch with people you only saw in the summer.”

“We went every year, and then Kelsey and I went to college in the same city. Then we became counselors for a summer after graduation.”

“It was a whole thing,” Kelsey added. “All still besties to this day.”

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