“There you are.” Lauren was standing over the Solo Stove on the back deck, poking at a wayward log until it fell into place, sending the flames a foot high. “We were just wondering whether we should check on you.”
“What’s wrong?” Kelsey asked. Even after years in the courtroom, May had never mastered her poker face. She realized she had practically been glaring at Kelsey.
“I need to talk to you.” Talk to you about how everything you’ve told us since you confessed about the note—no, ever since you invited us on this trip—has been bullshit.
“Okay. You’re kind of freaking me out right now.”
Fuck it. Why should May have to confront her in private, adding yet another layer of secrecy to this entire trip? Lauren needed to know the truth, too.
“Who’s Callie Martin?”
Kelsey opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“What is actually happening right now?” Lauren asked.
“That letter on the fridge from the homeowner? Addressed to Callie? Kelsey rented the house under a fake name. And she rented it three months ago.”
“It’s just a name I use,” Kelsey said. “One Google search of Kelsey Ellis and up come all the articles about Luke’s murder. It’s just easier to use a fake name. Why does it matter?”
“It must or that detective wouldn’t have been asking me all about the house and how long we’d been planning the trip. You didn’t invite us until three weeks ago. And I reread the texts, Kelsey. After you floated the idea, I was saying we should stay at a hotel instead of a rental. You said you wanted the privacy of a house, then you said you had found one. You definitely didn’t make it sound like it was already a done deal months earlier.”
Nate held up a palm. “Whoa, you guys. I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”
“And you can stop acting like this involves you in any way,” May snapped.
“Okay,” Nate said, pressing his lips together. “I forgot how good you could be at telling me to shut up. Fair enough, but you guys are friends. Can we lower the temp a little?”
May’s inner thermometer was only beginning to heat up. “Friends don’t set you up to be grilled by the police two different times. Kelsey, first you didn’t tell us you left that note. Then it turns out the guy was someone we used to know. And the way you reacted when you found out he was dead?”
New pieces of the puzzle were sliding into place with every sentence May spoke. Even when the white car had stolen their parking spot, Kelsey had been uncharacteristically patient, begging Lauren and May not to call any attention to them and insisting her good parking karma would save the day. Then, when they went for drinks, she had wanted the chair on the sidewalk facing away from the street. At the time, May thought Kelsey didn’t want to be recognized, but she realized now that she hadn’t wanted to be recognized by David Smith.
“You knew him, didn’t you? Were you dating him? That’s why you left the note, right? Not because of the parking spot. But because he was cheating on you with that woman he was with.”
Kelsey’s bottom lip started to quiver. “Please don’t hate me. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh my god,” May said. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
“You,” Lauren said, holding up a finger to May, “back off and let Kelsey talk. Kelsey, stop it with the lies and tell us what’s going on. Everything.”
For a second, May thought Kelsey was about to cry again, which would stretch her patience past its breaking point. But instead, she took a deep breath, as if steeling herself to finally come clean. “So you remember when that guy posted a link to my Tinder account on Twitter after I told him my real name? I stopped using dating apps after that, but once the shutdown was over, I was lonely. I wanted to try again. So I decided I just wouldn’t use my real name, and I could tell them the truth if things ever got serious.”
“Why the fake number?” May asked.
“Let her speak,” Lauren admonished, “and then we can ask our questions.”
“One guy actually traced my number and it came back to the company. He figured out who I was before I was ready to tell him. And dudes can be super creepy and I don’t want some rando to have my real number forever because I texted him a few times. I could also use different area codes that way. I was contacting guys outside of Boston because I thought it was less likely they’d recognize me from news coverage of Luke’s case. I also started an Instagram profile so that if anyone googled Callie Martin, they’d find a real person. I just don’t post any shots of my face.”
So many lies. All those complaints on their group text thread and Zoom cocktail parties about not being able to date until Luke’s murder was solved, while Callie Martin was out there living her best life.
“Sometimes, late at night, all alone—usually with wine involved—I’d start thinking about people I used to know from high school and college, googling them and wondering what they’re doing now.”
“Nothing good ever comes from that,” Nate said playfully. May shot him a look.
“Anyway, I wound up seeing David’s comment on an Instagram post from a mutual friend from Choate. He was good-looking, so that caught my attention. Then I saw one of his own posts was a screenshot about the merger of two newspaper chains with various people congratulating him on the deal. So I googled him and liked what I found. Before I knew it, I was sending him a direct message.”
“Marnie’s ex-boyfriend?” May asked. “Seriously?”
“I swear, I had no idea. Not when I first reached out. Once we started texting and talking, I gave him a burner number with a Hartford area code and said I lived there, but we always met either in Rhode Island or on weekend trips. Once we started to get more serious, he told me about his college girlfriend who drowned on a weekend off from the arts camp where she was a counselor.”
“You’ve got to be—”
“May—” Lauren was shaking her head.
“I swear on my life,” Kelsey said. “I couldn’t believe it either, but then I realized I picked him for a reason. He went to the same kinds of schools, came from a good family in the Northeast. It makes sense we’d have come from overlapping social circles. Anyway, by the time he told me, I was already wanting to drop the fake name and all the lies. We both had made it pretty clear we could see the potential for a serious relationship, and he was asking if I might consider moving to Rhode Island. And yes, I rented this house because we were planning to come here together.”
Nate stood and poked at the fire nonchalantly. He already knew all of this. It was so obvious.
“After he told me about Marnie, I felt like if there was any possible way he would understand why I had been lying to him about my name, I had to tell him the truth right then and there. So I did. He listened. Like, really, really listened.” Her voice softened at the memory, and May could tell that she was thinking more now about the loss of this man she cared for than whether May and Lauren would understand. She wiped away a tear forming in the corner of one eye before speaking again. “He said it was almost like a sign that we had both known Marnie. It just felt like this enormous weight falling from my shoulders and I could actually imagine a new life with this person who might really love me. He was even talking about introducing me to his mother and seeing if he could work from Boston. I was so fucking happy.”
May pressed her lips together to keep herself from screaming. And yet you didn’t mention a single word about him to us.
When Lauren stood and moved to the sofa, Kelsey rested her head on Lauren’s shoulder.
“Oh sweetie,” Lauren said. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this?”
“I was embarrassed,” she said, sitting up again. “I knew what I was doing was wrong, but it was also sort of exhilarating. Like I was out there in the world pretending to be fun as fuck without all my baggage. And then I met Dave. I think I didn’t want to tell you about him too soon because you’d tell me it would never work out. I wanted to keep believing it might be real.”
“I’m so sorry you lost him,” Lauren said.
May suppressed an eye roll. She could not believe Lauren was buying any of this.
“When we were trying to figure out a time for me to come to Providence, he asked whether I wanted to have kids because that was important to him. I gave him all the details of my fertility situation, and that’s when he dumped me,” Kelsey continued, her voice cracking. “He said he should have broken it off the second I told him I’d been lying about the other things. I was devastated. The future I had pictured for us was suddenly gone, poof. I think I kept the rental in the hopes that maybe he’d somehow change his mind, but nope. He basically ghosted me. And I decided the silver lining was that I had a great place for us to finally see each other in person.”
She offered May a sad smile, but May couldn’t bring herself to return it.
“I had no idea he’d come here anyway with some other woman. I was so drunk by the time I went to bed that night. I called him to say I couldn’t believe he used our vacation on someone new already. He called me out about the note, realizing it must have been me who left it. He told me we never promised each other monogamy while we were still long distance, which was true. But he had been meaning to end things completely with her because he wanted to be exclusive with me. Until the kid thing came up—that was a deal-breaker. He was his parents’ only child and the ‘bloodline,’ as he called it, had to continue. His mother would never have it any other way, and she controlled all the family money. So I folded. I told him if that was really the only sticking point, I was willing to use an egg donor and a surrogate so he could be the biological parent.”
“You called him?” May asked. “When?” This time, Lauren did not try to silence her.
“Friday night, after you crashed on the deck.”
“I heard you when I came inside. You were crying. I asked you about it the next morning and you denied the whole thing.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, placing her hands on her heart.
“So how’d you leave things with him?” Lauren asked.
“He said it was a lot to process and we should take some time and talk when we were back at home. And then you found that missing-person flyer when you went to the farm stand on Monday. I let myself believe that he had broken up with that other woman and was taking some time to himself to think about us.”
“I’m sorry,” May said. “No, I’m actually not sorry. You really expect us to believe that? You’ve been lying to us this entire time. And if you think the police won’t find out about this, you’re an idiot.”
Nate held his hands in a T. “Maybe we can time-out here?”
“Shut up, Nate.” She stood directly in front of Kelsey on the sofa, towering over her, not caring that she was infringing on her space. “You called him on Friday? They obviously have his cell records already. The cops know, Kelsey.”
“I used a Providence burner number so he’d be more likely to pick up.”
Providence. The 959 number that Carter Decker had asked about. “You just carry around a bag full of burner phones?”
“No, it’s just an app, CellBurner.”
“You sound like a full-fledged criminal right now,” May said.
“That’s not true,” Lauren said. “A bunch of the women in the symphony use the same app when they book gigs or for online dating so people don’t have their permanent number.”
“I’m sorry,” May said. “Jesus, no, why do I keep saying that? I am not fucking sorry.”
“Please, May, will you just stop for one second?” Kelsey pleaded. “Calm down. I promise you, I’m telling you the truth.”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down after what I’ve done trying to help you. What I see here is a woman scorned, who left that note to try to stir up shit between the guy who dumped her and the woman he was on vacation with, a phone call where you tried to get him back, and now the guy’s dead. And if I see that? You can be damn sure that cop sees it.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that,” Kelsey said. “How could you possibly think—”
“Tell me: How does all that look to you? Of course the police suspect you.”
“Well, it sounds like you do, too. Wait, is that why you never reached out to me after Luke died? Did you actually doubt me? Or, let me guess, you didn’t actually doubt me, but didn’t want my stench to tar your perfect little reputation? Tell me, May, when exactly is it that you think I killed Dave? I’ve been with you the entire time.”
“That’s not true. That Friday night, I thought I heard a car engine. And you left for Montauk the next morning to get Josh’s car while we were still asleep, and neither of us even heard it. Until we find out when David was killed, there’s really no way of knowing.”
“You’re being so mean right now,” Kelsey said.
“Mean? Mean? We’re not sixteen years old anymore, Kelsey.”
“I screwed up, okay? I should have told you guys, but I was just so happy to have you back in my life again. And you can be so fucking judgmental, May. I thought maybe you changed after that video, but, nope, apparently you can make a mistake, but I can’t.”
“That’s not anything like what you—”
May jumped at the thwack of the fire poker against the edge of the fire pit. Nate closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them, he looked directly at May. “Okay, that was a little extra. Sorry. Very loud. But for what it’s worth, I know Kelsey’s telling the truth. When you heard her crying on the phone Friday night? That was when she was talking to me. She told me exactly what she just said to you about the phone call to David. She was happy about the possibility of getting back together with him but really upset about the idea of not having her own children. She needed someone to talk to but didn’t want to tell you guys about the note. She was worried you’d be mad at her and it would ruin your whole hive thing or whatever.”
“Pretty ironic, isn’t it?” Now Kelsey was the one glaring back at her.
“How so?” May asked.
“That you of all people would be mad at a friend for leaving an anonymous note.”
May stepped away, as if Kelsey’s words literally burned, nearly bumping into the fire stove. Kelsey raised her chin as her gaze shifted from May to Lauren.
Not now. Not after all these years.
“What exactly am I missing, you two?” Lauren asked. “What note?”
“Please, Kelsey, don’t—” May heard the desperation in her own voice.
Kelsey looked over at May, lowering her chin with a nod. “Forget about it. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
May felt some of the tension release in her jaw.
“No,” Lauren said, “I saw your reaction, May. What note?” Neither Kelsey nor May spoke. “What. Note.” They both kept their eyes on the blaze of the fire. “That can’t be it, right? All these years, I blamed Marnie. She walked in on us. I saw her. I went to her afterward and asked her—no, begged her—not to tell anyone. I thought maybe I could trust her after how much I had helped her. But then that letter showed up at the office, which I never would have expected from her. At worst, I expected her to show off her shiny new secret. And there you were, the girl trying to bury the hatchet, because I was the one who practically ordered you to. And you, May, you never fail at anything, do you? She told her new buddy what she knew about the grown-ups.”
The note was never supposed to get Lauren fired. It was supposed to get Thomas Welliver in trouble for being a married lech taking advantage of a much younger woman whose employment he controlled. May had been trying to protect Lauren. She was trying to make Welliver pay for being a scumbag.
When she found out Lauren would be leaving Wildwood along with them at the end of the summer, she thought she might die from the shame. Kelsey found her curled up under a piano bench. May had sworn her to secrecy and then confessed to the mess she had created.
Lauren was staring at her now through the smoke from the fire pit, waiting for May to deny it.
“Lauren, I didn’t know—”
“That’s the problem with you, May. You have never known what you don’t know. You don’t know how lucky you are. Or how easy you’ve had it. Or even which man is talking to you on a subway platform. But you’re always so damn certain. You go off on Kelsey for keeping secrets, and yet here you are, after all these years? After all the chances you’ve had to tell me it was you?”
“I’m sorry, Lauren. It was so long ago.”
When May looked to Kelsey for support, Lauren wagged a finger in the air. “Uh-uh, this is on me, not her. This is too much. You need to go home, May.”
“Please, let me explain—”
“Leave. Now.”
No one tried to stop her when she walked away.