Page 70 of The Note

“Ooh-la-la,” Kelsey said. “You weren’t kidding aboutfawn-say. Off I go.”

“Oh, shoot.” May realized that she hadn’t fully thought through the logistics of Kelsey’s housingarrangement. “Nate took your luggage to his place yesterday, assuming you’d stay with him. I’ve got clothes for you though.”

In the bedroom, May swapped her suit out for jeans and a black tank top. Kelsey yelled “Thank you” from the shower when she left a pair of shorts and a T-shirt on the toilet. “Water has never felt so good. I may never leave.”

When May returned to the living room, Lauren waved her over to the sofa. “So we were just talking about the level of denial going on with Miss Kelsey. She needs to snap out of it.”

May took a seat next to Lauren. “I mean, it’s not that surprising, is it? We’re floating the idea of her father as a murderer after five years of people suspecting both of them. Of course she thinks he’s innocent.”

“Okay, but she did admit in the car that he knows the kind of people who would know where to find a hit man. Her assurances that those ties were all made by her grandfather doesn’t change the fact that her dad would know how to put out a hit. I mean, that’s not most people.”

Nate rubbed the beard stubble that had accumulated since he first arrived in East Hampton. “I was sure she’d freak out when I told her Mom always suspected him, but … nothing.”

May was having a hard time adjusting to the sight of her ex-boyfriend in her apartment. Nother apartment, but hers and Josh’s. Even though Nate was here because of Kelsey, his presence in what was Josh’s home—when she hadn’t even had a chance to tell him—felt like a betrayal. “I think she’s worn out from a night in jail, and it’s a lot to take in. We can try getting her to focus when she comes out.”

The room fell silent at the sound of the bathroom door opening. Wet-haired Kelsey managed to make May’s workout shorts and David Bowie T-shirt look like an outfit.

“Very quiet in here. You guys were talking about the jailbird, weren’t you?”

Nate spoke up first. “We’re a little worried that you’re not taking our thoughts about Dad seriously.”

“Because you can’t actually be serious. He didn’t even know about Dave, so why would he kill him? And even if he wanted to, how would he have known where to find him?”

“I’m no expert,” Lauren said, looking to May to back her up. “But I’m pretty sure hit men can follow people.”

Kelsey sat cross-legged on the floor next to Gomez, tapping her fingers on the rug to coax him toward her. “Well, it doesn’t change the fact that I never told Dad about Dave.”

“So where’d you tell him you were all those weekends you went to Providence?” Kelsey’s fathermade a habit of knowing where Kelsey was at all times.

“Girls’ trips, spa days, stuff he wouldn’t worry about.”

Nate rubbed a palm across his eyes. “Kelsey, get real. Worrying about you is Dad’s twenty-four/seven job. He must have known something was up if you weren’t giving him specifics. Even with the Hamptons, he knew you were with May and Lauren and was mad he didn’t know I was going.”

“You’ve told us before that he has a private investigator to dig up dirt on his business rivals,” May said, trying her best to sound as if she hadn’t yet made up her mind about Bill’s guilt. “Isn’t it possible he wanted to know for certain who you were spending your time with?”

“May, I normally love your wild imagination, but this is getting silly. My dad didn’t investigate me.” Kelsey’s tone was growing increasingly impatient.

“I know for a fact he spied on my mom,” Nate said.

“That email thing?” Kelsey was practically shouting now. “That’s not the same. You mean to tell me you wouldn’t read your ex’s emails if you could? Apparently during the divorce Jeanie kept finding emails that had already been read even though she hadn’t opened them. She was convinced it was my dad logging into her account.”

“It definitely was,” Nate said. “He knew her passwords. Once she changed them, it stopped.”

Kelsey shot her stepbrother a scathing look. “That’s not murder.”

“No,” May said, attempting to defuse the tension with the law professor voice she was still learning to master, “but it is controlling and prying, which he has always been with you. Which means he definitely could have found out about Dave. If he was having him followed, and then saw he was going to East Hampton at the same time you were, or thought he was cheating on you, or knew that he had hurt you? You have to admit your dad’s super protective.”

“Not like murdery-protective, though.”

“Two guys both connected to you,” Lauren said. “Both shot in their cars. You’ve got to at least acknowledge the possibility.”

Kelsey opened her mouth to speak, but when she did, her face crumpled. She saw it now. It was too big of a coincidence to deny. There had to be a connection, and she knew it wasn’t her.

Her eyes scanned the room before she realized she was looking for something that wasn’t there. “Jesus, I don’t even have a phone. Can one of you pull up the number for the James Cummins Agency in Boston?”

The website May landed on made clear that Cummins was a private investigator.

Kelsey reached out her hand for May’s phone. “Just give me a second,” she said, heading toward the bathroom.

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