As they emerged from the Midtown Tunnel, billboards and skyscrapers towered over the snarl of cars escaping the bottleneck to claim their chosen traffic lanes. May gripped the SUV’s steering wheel tightly, her gaze flickering between the lane she needed to force her way into and the screen of her phone, searching for a signal.
She had sent a text to Josh nearly two hours ago, asking him to call her as soon as possible. The tension in her chest expanded as she realized her fiancé might walk into the apartment to find a group of people he most certainly did not want to see in his home.
From the backseat, Kelsey leaned forward to rest her chin on May’s headrest. “Are you absolutely sure Josh is going to be okay with me staying at your place? I mean, a jailbird on your sofa is a special kind of cockblock.”
It was just like Kelsey to try to find the humor in her current situation. “Stop it,” May said. “One, you’re not on the sofa. I’ll put the Aerobed out, because we’re classy like that. And two, Josh is totally fine. You’ll finally get to know each other. It’ll be great.”
May hoped her lie would help ease Kelsey’s worries, but pretending that she had already spoken to Josh only deepened her own fears about his response.
“All I know is I am counting down the seconds to getting in the shower,” Kelsey said. “I stink like the sewer.”
Nate leaned toward his sister and pretended to sniff her. “Funk factor five.”
“Stop it,” Lauren said from the front passenger seat. “You don’t stink.”
“Well, try a jailhouse slumber party. It’s like my nostrils are filled with this stench and I’m sure it’ll never wash off. I never want to go back there again.”
The car fell into silence at the reminder of what was at stake. They had spent most of the ride from Long Island trying to convince Kelsey of the possibility that her father might have had Luke and David killed, but she wasn’t yet willing to look at the facts objectively. The furthest they had gotten with her was the chance that she might have to float the theory in her defense if she was eventually accused of murder. May could tell that Kelsey was mentally and physically exhausted, so that was as much progress as they were going to make for now.
Gomez was already wiggling with excitement when she unlocked the apartment door. At the sight of new visitors, he jumped up to give each one what she referred to as a “knee hug,” wrapping his front paws around any willing participant’s leg.
Kelsey plopped down on the floor cross-legged to give him a landing spot. “Hi, buddy. Do you recognize me from all our FaceTimes? Don’t get used to how I smell right now though. I’m usually clean. On that note, point me to the shower? I wasn’t kidding about wanting one ASAP.”
“Down that hall,” May said. “I’ll warn you in advance our bathroom’s super tiny. You can barely raise your arms to wash your hair. The only reason we don’t move is it’s the only thing we can afford with a terrace. Our landlord did finally break down and replace our leaky showerhead. We have one of those rainfall ones now.”
“Ooh-la-la,” Kelsey said. “You weren’t kidding about fawn-say. Off I go.”
“Oh, shoot.” May realized that she hadn’t fully thought through the logistics of Kelsey’s housing arrangement. “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. Not her 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 father made 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.
When she returned, her gaze appeared unfocused. Her voice was distant as she returned May’s phone. “You got a call while I was talking. From your mom.”
“Okay, but did you talk to the PI?” May asked.
“Yeah. It took some pushing, but you guys were right. My dad got worried that I was leaving town so much. Jimmy followed me all the way to Rhode Island.”
“Oh my god,” Lauren said. “Did he follow Dave to East Hampton?”
“No, he said this was two months ago. But there are PIs in Providence. And Jimmy’s legit. He’s not some mobbed-up hit man. But this changes everything. It proves my father knew about Dave.”