Page 58 of The Note

I hope you are well?

Best wishes. Warmest regards.She regretted it immediately after hitting send.I’m sorry. That was obnoxious. I truly am sorry. For everything.

She held her phone, waiting to see the dots indicating that Lauren was composing a reply. Nothing.

She jumped back to Josh’s messages.Good morning, sleepyhead. Glad you were finally able to fall back asleep. Hope today is better.

And oh, you told me at 3 am to remind you today to call the caterer about the oyster bar, whatever that means.

May never used to have insomnia. She used to go to sleep a little after eleven and wake up by six-thirty, usually beating her alarm. But in early 2017, she began doomscrolling in the middle of the night. When the alarm went off, she had to drag herself to the shower to go to work.

Then, during the shutdown, schedules no longer mattered. She began staying up and sleeping in a little later. Most nights came with the dreaded eyes-suddenly-open at four a.m. on the dot, like her brain knew it was time to freak out. The only structure she managed to force upon herself was to get out of bed by eleven-thirty in time for the governor’s daily briefings, the 2020 version of must-see television.

Poor Josh. She didn’t even remember talking to him at three o’clock, but she was glad she had or she probably would have forgotten her middle-of-the-night decision. They had been struggling to come up with a wedding plan that would fit their budget without sacrificing the things that were most important to them. They had already resigned themselves to having beer and wine only, even though May knew their fancier friends thought cash-bar weddings were tacky.

But May was the one who really wanted the oysters. She could eat four dozen Wellfleets ifsomeone else would pay for them. But even at wholesale prices, the cost of a raw bar with a designated shucker was exploding their budget. May would simply have to pick another day to have all the oysters she wanted. Problem solved.

Gomez was sniffing her again, this time on her neck. “You making sure I’m still Momma? No one switched me out while we were sleeping, baby. I love you too.”

He jumped down from the bed, landing with a thud like a dropped bowling ball. Gomez’s voluntary departure from a human bed was a sure sign he needed a walk.

She left her phone at home on their walk, a self-imposed rule she had adopted after she saw the video and realized her terrible mistake about who had spoken those disgusting words to her on the platform. She must have watched it a hundred times. The two men’s voices sounded nothing alike. Why did she just assume that it was Darren Foster? She knew why. Unconscious bias might be unconscious, but it was still bias. If she had seen the man who actually said that to her—the white man whose name she would never know—would she have feared for herself physically or just rolled her eyes in disgust? Would she have even contemplated calling the police? May had never felt as ashamed of herself—not even over that note about Lauren and Thomas—than when she watched that video. Having to walk around her very safeblock without her phone from now on was small punishment and ensured she’d never call the police on an innocent person again.

When they got back to the apartment, she gave Gomez his breakfast and then reopened the Spelling Bee on her laptop. She was missing three words and hoped that seeing the letters on a larger screen might help, but she was still completely stuck. Yesterday, she had missed Queen Bee by two words,colleenandleonine.When she looked at the solution this morning, she had searched the Canceled Crew thread and found a conversation from the previous year where Kelsey had given her one hint (“think Irish lass”) and Lauren had given her the other (“with thick, shaggy hair”). If nothing else, she’d keep the thread for the word hints.

She turned off the wifi on her laptop, setting a timer for two hours to force herself to work on the law review article she had been ignoring since she first left for East Hampton. By the time the alarm went off, Gomez was snoring at her feet, and she had managed to finish the entire introduction. She realized how much longer a day felt when she wasn’t constantly texting.

She turned her wifi back on and saw that a new message had arrived from Lauren, responding specifically to her snarkyBest wishesremark.FWIW that actually made me LOL. Look at me using the dumb acronyms.

The reply was better than silence, but it didn’t feel like a return to normalcy. Had May really expected Lauren to absolve her already, just from a text message? When she wrote that note, she had no way of knowing that Marnie would die or that Lauren would be forced to leave a job and a place that she loved. By the time Lauren announced her resignation, the three of them had developed a bond that May didn’t want to break. She rationalized her silence, convincing herself that Lauren would have gotten pushed out of Wildwood anyway over Marnie’s death, whether May had sent the letter or not. She even let herself believe that Lauren’s departure might have been for the best if it got Lauren away from an abusive employer.

Part of May wanted to beg for forgiveness, but she also wanted a chance to defend herself. May’s mistake was a long time ago. And, yes, she had been hiding the truth for all these years, but Kelsey had been lying to them left and right for months. And Lauren wasn’t completely innocent either, telling her so many times she wasn’t seeing anyone when it was obvious Thomas had been in the picture the entire time. But pointing all of that out to Lauren would only get her angrier. For now, May would have to settle for an LOL.

She opened her browser window and searched forDavid Smith murder. The East Hampton police department had announced the homicide the previous day, releasing the victim’s name but notidentifying any suspects or including any details other than to say that the victim had been shot, that there was no reason to believe the general public was in danger, and that the investigation was ongoing.

She clicked on her bookmarks and pulled up the KillerInsights message board. A search for David Smith’s name had yielded no results every time she checked yesterday.

Now, however, there were new hits, the first of which was posted shortly after ten p.m. the previous night. The name of the thread to which the new messages had been added hit her with a wave of confusion.Boston Restaurant Owner Lucas Freedman Murder.

She clicked on the link. It was a message from a user named BostonGirl.I live in Boston and have followed this case for years. I can’t say how I’m related because I don’t want to be identified as a leak, but I promise I have a relative who’s Boston Police. There’s a new break in the case. A man named David Smith was shot last weekend in East Hampton, NY—also shot in his car like Luke. The police think there’s a connection. And guess what the connection is? Kelsey Ellis!! You guys, I’m telling you. This is it!!! Stay tuned.

A user named AmateurSloth replied two hours later.Wow, that is HUGE! Can you tell us more about the connection between Kelsey and the new victim?

BostonGirl answered almost immediately.Kelsey was dating him but he dumped her.

AmateurSloth:Wow. Sounds like someone doesn’t handle rejection well? LOL.

BostonGirl:Right? I mean, you’ve got to know you’re taking a risk getting involved with her. Sleep with one eye open. Oh, and guess what else I found out? Kelsey was ALSO IN THE HAMPTONS when he was shot. And she was with two friends as notoriously toxic as her. Well, not suspected-murder notorious (LOL) but google them. May Hanover (aka AsianDAKaren) and Lauren Berry (uppity slut who gets jobs by being a mistress). What a combo.

There were May’s first and last names, right there in black and white on her computer screen, once again, for anyone to see. How many people were already online, scrounging for more dirt on her? Would her fellow faculty members see this? Her students? It was happening again.

She was on Reddit, trying to see if anyone had reposted BostonGirl’s insider information for wider distribution, when a new email alert flashed at the top of her screen. It was from someone named Tlinton at Newsday.com. She assumed it was junk mail until she saw the subject line:Kelsey Ellis.

She clicked to open.Hi, Professor Hanover. My name is Tamara Linton and I’m a reporterworking on a story about the shooting of David Smith in East Hampton. I’ve been told that you were there with Kelsey Ellis, whose name has come up in my reporting. I’m hoping you can help provide some background information and context. Please call me.

She could not hit the delete key hard enough.

It was only the sight of a startled Gomez running away to the living room that made her realize she was screaming at the top of her lungs.