The silence of the house continued into the morning. Brynn woke naturally, at first with a relaxed ease, savoring the brief feeling of weightlessness that comes before the heaviness of the day. With her eyes still shut, it was as though the previous day had never happened. Everything was okay. Cecelia was alive, Ross was home, and the Nelsons had done nothing wrong. But then reality—and panic—set in. She opened her eyes. Why hadn’t Lucas woken her with his usual cry? She felt her heart jump out of her body—the same feeling she’d had when she’d fallen asleep outside that day Ross found her. Just as quickly, her heart plummeted back inside her chest as she saw that Lucas was right there, in his bassinet, sleeping soundly, just as she’d left him. She looked at her phone; it was nearly seven in the morning. For the first time, Lucas had slept through the entire night!
Brynn instinctively turned toward Ross’s side of the bed to share her excitement with him. But his side of the bed was empty, of course. For the first time, she felt his absence, and she missed him. Even though she’d been so mad at him lately, and so lonely when he was home, she longed to feel his body next to hers, to feel the calmness of his breath, the warmth of his skin on the sheets.
Brynn’s phone was illuminated with messages and missed calls. She’d been ignoring her phone pretty much entirely since yesterday afternoon, aside from answering Ross’s call. She knew that her friends were worried about her, but she wasn’t ready to talk to them yet. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. Except for Ginny.
She peeled off her clothes, which had left indentations on her skin from being slept in all night, and she crept into the bathroom before Lucas woke.
At this time yesterday, she had said goodbye to Ross as he set out for work. She’d felt sad but also angry as she had watched Ross pour himself coffee. She had felt a distance from him when he had kissed her forehead to say goodbye. As she brushed her teeth, she tried to remember if anything had seemed unusual yesterday. If he had been acting strange. If there had been clues. All she could remember, though, was her anger—toward Ross, toward Lucas, toward herself. Her anger had consumed her; she couldn’t see anything outside of it. Now, she didn’t feel angry, she felt lost and afraid. Lonely. Except it wasn’t quite loneliness, it was something more—a profound disconnection from everything she thought she knew to be true, including herself.
“Hello?” she heard from downstairs as she finished washing her face. At first, she thought she was hearing things. It was still so early. “Brynn? Can we come in? It’s us!” The voices were familiar: Annie, Marcus, and Ginny. “We know it’s early, but we have been so worried about you!”
“Shit,” Brynn said to herself. She peered down from the top of the stairs. “Be down in a minute.”
She had wanted to talk to Ginny alone, not with their friends. But she couldn’t wait; she’d have to confront her now. Whatever Ginny was hiding, she’d have to come clean about it to everyone, not just Brynn.
Lucas woke up and began to cry just as Brynn finished getting dressed.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she said to him as she picked him up. His cry was different today, less agitated. “You slept through the night, you know that? You did such a good job.” Lucas looked at her, and the corners of his lips just barely began to turn upward. But just as fast, they descended into an angry frown, and he began wailing. He was hungry.
She changed him and then brought him downstairs, where her friends had spread out an array of breakfast sandwiches, pastries, and iced coffee from the Scottish Bakehouse. They had let themselves in using the key under a flower pot, one that she’d told Ginny about long ago in case of emergencies. Ginny had already started to warm up a bottle of Brynn’s breast milk that she kept in the fridge.
Brynn snapped the bottle out of Ginny’s hands and gave her a scowl. Annie and Marcus didn’t catch it. Brynn couldn’t believe the nerve Ginny had to just show up here unannounced. She had to stop herself from slapping her across the face.
“Listen, Brynn,” Annie said. “I speak for all of us here when I say that we love you and we are going to get through this with you.”
“Yeah,” Marcus added, “we’re so sorry. We know you probably have to go to the station today and we thought we could help out, stay back with Lucas and watch him. Whatever you need.”
Brynn had almost forgotten that she had to go in to the station to get questioned, as Pete had told her she would. It was starting to feel impossible to juggle it all.
“And I want to say too that none of us think Ross is guilty,” Annie added.
“But … you do need to know what people are saying,” Marcus said. “I mean, I’d want to know.”
Ginny remained silent. Brynn could barely look at her.
“I want to know,” Brynn said. “Tell me.”
“Well,” Marcus said, “everyone thinks that Cecelia and Ross were having an affair.”
“But a lot of people are saying that Mauricio and the boyfriend aren’t being looked into enough, too,” Annie said.
“Some people are saying that maybe Cecelia was pregnant,” Marcus said, in more of a whisper.
“Wait, stop,” Brynn said, suddenly growing hot with rage. “Don’t you understand that this whole thing is messed up? We’re talking about my husband here. Ross. He didn’t murder anyone. How can you even think that? Shouldn’t we be talking about whatever went wrong in our police system that made them think he did it?” Brynn wondered if she was refusing to see the truth right in front of her, like so many of the women on the true crime podcasts she listened to while folding laundry or walking with Lucas. The ones who refused to see what was right in front of them, because if they did, it would mean that their entire lives would crumble. Could it be that she was one of those women, too? No, she decided. She was smarter than that. This was different. She was different.
No one said anything. Finally, Brynn turned to Ginny.
“Okay,” she said. “You need to be straight with me. Explain yourself, Ginny. Right now.”
Marcus and Annie shared a perplexed look.
“Are you guys okay?” Marcus asked.
“Not really,” Brynn said. “I found texts between Ginny and Ross. Weird texts about meeting up.”
Annie and Marcus were wide-eyed.
“I can explain. Sit down,” said Ginny. “Please. It’s complicated.” Brynn didn’t want to sit down. She wanted to run outside and scream. She wanted to turn back time. She wanted to get in the car and drive away from her entire life. But there was nowhere for her to go. She sat down, and she waited.
“Okay,” Ginny began. “You know the big story I’ve been researching for a while now? The one on motherhood?”
Brynn nodded.
“Well, it’s not on motherhood.” Ginny looked down.
“Oh boy,” Annie whispered to Marcus.
“I mean, I am writing that, too. But the story I’ve been spending time on is about something else. It’s … it’s about the Nelsons.” Ginny looked up at Brynn now. Her eyes conveyed remorse. “I was always going to tell you, Brynn. Always.”
“But what do you mean, it’s about the Nelsons?” Brynn asked, her voice becoming shrill. “Like, a profile of them? What is going on, Ginny? I can’t take any more secrets.”
“No, not a profile,” Ginny said. “More like … an exposé.”
“An exposé? Are you kidding me? On what? What have they done?” If Ginny had ever considered Brynn a friend, she had to tell her everything. Now.
“Do you remember that little article I wrote earlier this year about post-pandemic development on the island and how construction companies are still struggling to get materials on time?” Ginny asked.
Brynn did remember, though only vaguely. The piece came out right before Lucas was born. Her mind had been on her baby registry and whether she was going to hire a doula. She’d barely read the article.
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“Well, I did a little research into all the major builders on the island. Including Nelson & Sons. I truly wasn’t looking for any dirt, I just wanted to get a handle on the types of projects these businesses were building and what kind of numbers they were working with.” Ginny paused and nervously fiddled with her hands. “And I found … well, I found some things that just didn’t add up.”
“Like what?” Brynn snapped. She knew when Ginny was dragging out the truth. She couldn’t wait anymore.
“At first, just some administrative stuff that didn’t seem particularly egregious. There were a lot of permits missing that should have been filed. The timing of some projects didn’t seem right either. Pools being built before property owners had been there for five years, things like that. No records of waste material being taken away by Keene’s, no record of it being taken away by anyone.”
Marcus spoke up. “I mean, not to be condescending here, but we’re talking about a small island construction company, not, like Meta. How bad could things have been?”
“Yeah,” Annie agreed, “I’m with Marcus on this. None of this sounds great but it also doesn’t sound … that bad. I mean, it’s not good, obviously. But it’s not like Henry hurt anyone. It’s not like he was stealing millions of dollars from like, the poor.”
“Yeah, this is Martha’s Vineyard we’re talking about,” Marcus said. “There’s a lot of shady stuff going on that people get away with all the time. I mean, you’re on stolen Native land for crying out loud.”
None of them could disagree with that.
“That’s what I thought at first, too,” Ginny said. “I didn’t think any of it sounded that bad. But I kept digging around. And I found a police report against Henry from almost twenty years ago.”
“Well, what did it say?” Brynn was losing her patience.
“That’s the thing,” said Ginny. “It didn’t say. It had all been crossed out. Like someone literally was covering up whatever happened.”
“And so, what? You were going to confront Ross about it? If the police report was against Henry, why would you be going after Ross?”
“I wasn’t going after him, Brynn. Even though this was a big story, my priority was always you, Brynn. You and your family. Lucas. Ross. But I still needed to find the truth. So, I thought I’d start with Ross. Give him the chance to share what he knew. I didn’t want to drag you into this unless I had to. I know Ross. I know he’s a good person. I wanted to tell him what I’d found. I figured it was possible that he didn’t even know about any of it. But he needed to. Especially if he was going to be taking over the company. I thought about what could happen if he took the fall for everything.…”
Brynn softened. She felt guilty for imagining that anything might have been going on between Ross and Ginny.
“You still should have told me,” Brynn said.
“I know,” Ginny said. She looked sorry. “But Ross told me that he was already aware of all this, and that he was in the process of fixing it. Making it right. So, the morning we all found out about Cecelia, coincidentally, I messaged Ross and told him that I was dropping it for good. And that I would never tell a soul. I knew that there were bigger issues we had to focus on—like taking care of you, and Lucas. And I trusted that he was handling it. But I think he was still worried that the story was somehow going to get out there before he could protect you.”
Brynn looked down. So Ginny didn’t run a career-making story to protect her. Brynn. And everything with his family was what Ross had meant when he had texted I can explain everything. None of it had anything to do with an affair between Ginny and Ross. And none of it had to do with Cecelia. Ross had thought that the police had shown up for his father, not for him. None of this had made sense even to Ross. His shock had been genuine. It was all just truly terrible timing.
So then did that mean that Ross’s arrest was something entirely separate? It was too much of a coincidence.
Now that Brynn had some of the answers she had been looking for, she was more confused than before.
“And,” Ginny continued, “I didn’t want to worry you. Neither did Ross. You’ve been so…”
“I’ve been so what, Ginny?” Brynn asked.
“You’ve been struggling,” Ginny said. “Understandably. We didn’t want to add to your plate. Not with your postpartum depression.”
Brynn hadn’t referred to her depression—or whatever it was she had been feeling since having Lucas—as postpartum depression. She hadn’t referred to it as anything, really, except the acute sense that she was deeply unhappy, and that something was wrong. A bad case of the baby blues. To formalize it as anything more, to diagnose it, to give herself the time and attention that treating it might require would be too selfish, she thought. It would mean time and energy away from Lucas. And to label this feeling as something so clinical, so specific and severe, felt too serious, with consequences too grave for her to contemplate right now. It also felt like a defeat to acknowledge how much help she needed, how much she was struggling. She’d made the decision a long time ago to say nothing, and to just forge on.
“You still should have told me,” Brynn said. “That’s not an excuse.”
“You’re right,” Ginny said. “And I’m sorry.”
“Maybe none of this would have happened if you’d told me,” Brynn added, twisting the knife. She wanted to make Ginny feel bad. She was still sore with the sting of betrayal.
“Maybe,” Ginny said. “I obviously don’t feel good about how I handled it.”
“And, anyway,” Brynn said, “I don’t have postpartum depression. I just have the baby blues. It’s … it’s normal. It’s fine. I’m fine.” Brynn started crying as she spoke, which suddenly turned into a roaring laugh. Nothing about her current situation was funny. And yet here she was, more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life, with a newborn baby and a husband in jail for murder, and she was insisting that she was fine. It was the funniest thing she’d ever said, because it was so deeply untrue.
She wiped her eyes. “Seriously,” she said, “I’m okay.”
“Honey,” Marcus said, “sorry to state the obvious, but, uh, you’re obviously not okay.” He gave her leg a loving squeeze.
“Yeah,” Annie said, “and that’s okay.”
“You know,” Ginny said, “I had postpartum depression with Sam, too. I’ve been on happy pills ever since.”
“What?” asked Brynn. “You seemed so happy when Sam was born. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ginny was a sympathetic friend, but when it came to her own life and problems, she never complained. It wasn’t that she pretended everything was fine, like Annie often did, it was that Ginny was exceedingly proactive. If she had a problem, she simply did something about it and made a change. She made it look easy. Brynn found it annoying, sometimes, especially when she herself wanted to vent and complain, to lament her choices and life decisions, but Ginny’s response was always something sunshiny and simplistic, like, Hey, you have a beautiful, healthy baby boy and a husband who loves you. It could be worse, right? Once in a while, Brynn found some comfort in Ginny’s positivity, but most of the time, it frustrated her and made her feel isolated, like her sadness was unwarranted, and within her control.
Brynn had once asked her how she stayed so positive all the time. What other choice do we have? Ginny had said. This had deflated Brynn; she couldn’t relate to it at all. Her default, since having Lucas, was to assume the worst and expect it, too.
“I didn’t tell you,” Ginny said, “because I didn’t want to plant the idea in your head that you needed the same treatment as me. Don’t you remember when you were pregnant you told me that you hated all the negativity out there in the media about motherhood? The Instagrammers who warned you how hard it was going to be and how your life would be over when the baby came? You said you felt like all that stuff wasn’t allowing you to be excited about becoming a mom.”
Brynn did remember that. When she was pregnant and in full-on nesting mode, she’d noticed that so many articles and social media posts about motherhood only spoke of the bad parts of motherhood. It had started to make her feel unnecessarily anxious. She wanted to celebrate being a mom. She wanted more friends who would say You’re going to love being a mom! Instead of saying You’ll never sleep again or Prepare to cry every day … but that’s okay! She wanted to read happy articles and encouraging essays. Brynn had made it a rule to ignore all the negativity. And she’d been very clear with her friends about this, too. Including Ginny.
“I took that to heart, Brynn,” Ginny said. “I totally understood where you were coming from. I didn’t want to prevent you from being excited about becoming a mom. So, I felt like if I told you about my own depression, you might resent me for it.” She paused. “And as for everything else with the Nelsons … Yes, I should have told you right away, but I really did want to protect you. You had just had Lucas. I couldn’t add more stress onto you, not until I at least knew what I was even talking about.”
Brynn regretted how rigid she’d been about staying positive during her pregnancy, how she’d shut down any conversations that warned her of the terrors of the fourth trimester. Her own struggles and depression had hit her like a bus, head-on, with no warning, and she wondered if she might have been better prepared for it if she’d talked about it with Ginny beforehand.
“Well,” Brynn said, her emotions still reeling, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more after you had Sam. Obviously, I didn’t know. I had no idea.” Brynn thought back to that time now. Her own future as a mother had felt light-years away back then. Babies were not on her mind. She was in the throes of finishing her second book and was on a big fitness kick, running six miles a day. Her life, at the time, was fabulous—and void of any real burdens.
She had gifted Ginny with ridiculous, impractical outfits for Sam and an expensive cashmere baby blanket. She had offered to babysit or take Sam out for ice cream once Olivia was born, but Ginny never accepted the help. Brynn’s offers were always open-ended: I’m here for you, anytime! If a friend offered that to her now, Brynn thought, it wouldn’t really occur to her to take them up on it.
Brynn realized that she’d never given a gift to Ginny herself after she’d given birth. She’d never offered to clean her house, cook her dinner, or simply let her nap while she watched the baby. Brynn hadn’t known that those were things Ginny might have needed—far more than a silly baby headband with a big pink bow. But there was no way for her to have known it back then, not until she became a mother herself. She cringed now, thinking about all the friends who’d had kids, and how Brynn had basically only ever asked them, How’s the baby? She’d rarely thought to ask, How are you?
Now, she thought, she would do it all differently, had she known what Ginny was going through. Had she known what any mother goes through.
“It’s okay,” Ginny said.
“Well,” said Annie, “I’ve been on happy pills since long before I had my kids!” Brynn was grateful to laugh, even just a little bit.
Once the laughter faded out, Brynn sighed. “Guys, you don’t have to be here. I don’t want you to feel like you need to be involved in all this.”
“Stop,” Annie said. “We’re your friends.”
“Yeah,” said Marcus. “We’re here for you.”
“There are just so many questions,” Brynn said. “I feel like my brain is going to explode.” She turned to Ginny. “And now with everything you’ve told me about the Nelsons … I need to figure out what it all means.”
“I know,” said Ginny. “I have so many questions too. Like, this police report. I couldn’t quite tell if Ross knew what it was about and wasn’t telling me, or if he didn’t know. But then I never got to find out more. The next thing I knew, Cecelia had died, and Ross was taken away.” She faced Brynn. “But there’s no way that all of this happening at once was a coincidence. I just don’t know what the connection is.”
Brynn tried imagine what life was like twenty years ago, when that police report was filed. Ross and Sawyer were teenagers; she didn’t really know the Nelsons then. But she remembered from her days at the Galley with Sawyer that he’d described his dad back then as working all the time. Hustling. At that time, Nelson & Sons was just taking off. Henry was still working on smaller jobs, not the big summer mansions just yet, and he was doing a lot of the hands-on construction himself. He had his contractor’s license. Margaux was busy driving the boys to sports practices and running PTA meetings. If Henry had committed a crime twenty years ago, the rest of the family might not know anything about it. It still didn’t explain what Cecelia would have to do with any of it. She’d only been a toddler then, and she wouldn’t even set foot on the island for another twenty years. Besides, Henry might not be trustworthy, as Ross had warned, but it didn’t make him a murderer.
But then Brynn had an idea.
“I know someone who can help us with the police report,” Brynn said. “Jacob Hammers.” Brynn had no reason to believe that Jacob would help her. But she remembered the way he looked outside the station when she saw him yesterday. She recognized that look. It was one of sincere grief. It was one of pain. He missed Cecelia. If Brynn could offer him a chance to possibly find some answers about what happened to Cecelia, he might be inclined to help.
“Oh,” Annie chimed in. “That reminds me. I heard that Jacob was at his softball game the night Cecelia died. They all went to the Ritz afterward and then to Tony’s house for late night. Basically, every dude on this island between the ages of twenty and thirty are his alibi.”
Part of Brynn didn’t believe it. The alibi was too convenient. Too solid. All the guys vouching for him were probably drunk, and never would have noticed if someone slipped away for a few hours over the course of the night. It wasn’t his alibi that made Brynn believe he didn’t kill Cecelia, it was the fact that she really did think he loved her.
“Apparently, there are pictures of him doing pickleback shots all night,” Annie continued. “Poor kid. He must feel so guilty for not being with her.”
“Can I just…” Marcus started to say. “Never mind.” He looked away, avoiding eye contact with Brynn.
“What is it, Marcus? Just say it,” Brynn said. She was burping Lucas, gently slapping him on his back.
“I just … Brynn, you know I love you; we all do. And we’re here for you. So, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to say. But … I feel like we’re getting distracted from what’s really going on here. People don’t just get arrested for no good reason. I mean, I’m really sorry to be the one to say this out loud, but how do we know that Ross didn’t do this?” Marcus shrugged his shoulders. “I just don’t see what all this backstory has to do with Cecelia being dead and Ross being the prime suspect.”
Brynn’s initial instinct was to tell Marcus to leave. But nobody said anything. Because he wasn’t wrong. Brynn didn’t have any proof that Ross was innocent or any reason to believe he was. Not yet, anyway. She didn’t blame Marcus for questioning Ross’s innocence.
“I hear you,” she said, even though Marcus hadn’t explicitly said that. “And I totally understand why you’d ask that. None of this looks good. And I know I probably sound delusional. But … I know he’s not guilty. I just know it. Plus, Ross told me…” She stopped herself. Brynn wasn’t sure she could tell her friends what Ross had whispered to her before his arrest. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Wouldn’t it be unfair to entangle them in all of this even more than they already were?
But she needed her friends. She couldn’t do this alone.
“Ross told me to find a clue,” Brynn said. “He said it would explain things.”
“A clue?” Ginny asked.
“Yes,” Brynn said. “He told me to find the orange sun. I have no idea what that means. I’ve been trying to figure it out … and I just don’t know if I’ll ever find it. But he said it would all make sense when I do.”
The group was silent; no one knew what the orange sun was. Brynn worried that she might not ever know.
“Huh,” said Marcus, finally. “The orange sun.”
“That’s why I’m not giving up on Ross. Not yet,” said Brynn. “I need to find whatever he’s talking about. I need to see it for myself. What if it really does explain this entire mess? What if it leads us to Cecelia’s killer?”
Just then, Lucas released a guttural burp and spat up all over the back of Brynn’s shirt. She felt the warm liquid seep into her skin.
“I’m going to go change,” Brynn said. “And then I have to go to the station. I should get it over with.”
After she saw Pete yesterday, Brynn had called her friend Izzy Melville, a local real estate lawyer that Brynn knew from hot yoga classes. She was whip-smart but had no experience whatsoever in this kind of case. Still, she was certainly better than not having a lawyer at all, in a pinch.
“This is really not my area of expertise,” she had told Brynn yesterday. “You definitely should have a lawyer with you when you go in for questioning, though. The police will tell you they’re just asking you standard questions, nothing to worry about. But you’re the wife. They’re going to be looking into you for keys to the puzzle. And there’s always something to worry about. So, I’ll help you. But you’re going to need someone who’s better equipped for this long-term.”
“Let us help with Lucas,” Marcus said. “That’s why we’re here. Just give us instructions and we’ll make sure everything’s okay. We have all day cleared.”
Annie nodded in agreement. “Put us to work,” she said.
“Thank you,” Brynn said. “I’m going to change, and then we’ll go. I guess we just need to find Jacob’s number. If we can talk to him before I go in…”
“Already have it,” Ginny said. “Let’s call him from the car. ’Cause I’m coming with you.”