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B abe, you really need to stop looking at all that stuff.”

May sat cross-legged in her living room, parked in front of her laptop at the coffee table while Josh washed dishes on the other side of the kitchen island.

All that stuff meant the entire internet, which she had been searching compulsively all day for any other mentions of Kelsey and her connections to Dave Smith, Lauren, or May.

In addition to the initial post on KillerInsights from someone claiming to be a Boston cop’s family member, she had found a Hamptons- focused TikTok account where the user had named all three of them, suggesting that Andy Cohen should build a Bravo reality television show around them—if Kelsey didn’t end up in jail first. That video was reposted almost immediately by an Instagram page called HamptonsTea. It had been shared two hundred and twenty-two times since.

She had stopped looking long enough to eat the sushi takeout Josh had ordered, but then immediately plopped down in front of her laptop once he began clearing dishes. She hit the refresh page on her search again.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Josh sounded more irritated than concerned. “You told that Long Island cop everything you know. You can wash your hands of the whole situation now.”

“I mean, I know you’re right, but I need to know what people are saying.”

“How does it help to know if total strangers are shit-talking you online?” The clink of their plates into the dishwasher seemed louder than necessary. “You can’t do anything about it. And you’ve been working so hard at managing your anxiety. This really doesn’t seem good.”

“Okay, Dr. Freud.”

“Really, you want to go there? Fine, why don’t you call Marissa?” Whenever he referred to May’s therapist, it sounded like he resented the fact that May was still seeing her after all this time. By now, it was obvious the focus had moved beyond the subway incident and onto other issues. She talked about everything, including Josh. “Does she have emergency hours or something? Because I think this qualifies. You didn’t even take a shower today. It’s like you regressed to three years ago.”

She lifted her tank top away from her chest and took a quick sniff. She was fine. A new call came into her cell—a Long Island area code. “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Arianna Hensley. I own the house you’re renting. Are you the woman who called me Wednesday night? I think you said your name was Kelsey?”

So much had happened since that phone call. May had to remind herself that she’d claimed to be Kelsey when she called the homeowner to confirm the timing of the rental. “Yes, is everything all right?”

“You tell me. My neighbor said there are cops all over the house and someone was carried off in handcuffs. I tried your friend Callie—it was disconnected, so I found your number in my call log. What exactly is going on there?”

“I’m not at the house right now, so let me find out—”

“Not necessary. The neighbor sent video. I’m terminating the agreement and will call the police directly to make sure they know I have nothing to do with whatever you guys are doing.”

“Let me call my friends and—”

“Yes, do call them. Make sure they know I’m notifying the police right now that under no circumstances can they reoccupy that house.”

The other end of the line went dead.

“Can we please talk about this before you call them?” Josh asked when he saw May opening FaceTime on her laptop and carrying it toward her office.

“I need to tell them—”

Lauren answered almost immediately. “Hey,” Lauren said. “I was literally about to call.”

May could barely make out Lauren’s face on the screen. She was sitting outside in the dark.

Lauren’s screen shifted for a brief shot of Nate, who looked exhausted. “Hey, I know things got weird the other night, but Kelsey really needs your help.”

As far as May was concerned, Kelsey was on her own, but she didn’t want Lauren to be stranded without a place in East Hampton. “The owner of the rental just called me,” May said, making her way to the office. “Are the police at the house? Did they arrest Kelsey?”

Once Lauren spelled out the charges listed in the arrest and search warrants, May could see the logic of the prosecution. “My guess is they’re looking at her for murder but don’t have their case together yet,” she said. “Going after her for lying to the police gave them leverage for the warrants. Technically, they’re searching for evidence she lied about her ties to David, but if they find anything related to his death, they can use it against her. And even a misdemeanor charge could be enough to hold her if they’re worried about her fleeing the country before they get the evidence they need.”

“They’re allowed to do that?” Nate asked. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

It’s exactly what May would have done as a prosecutor. “I was calling because the homeowner terminated the rental agreement. She’s notifying the police that you can’t stay there anymore, effective immediately.”

“We were already eighty-sixed for the night because of the search warrant,” Lauren said. “We’ll figure something out, but we were about to call to ask you—beg you if necessary—to represent Kelsey tomorrow at her court hearing.”

The office door slid open. Josh looked incredulous. She didn’t need to be a good lip-reader to make out his mouthed words: What the fuck?

She shook her head and made a slashing gesture across her throat.

As the door slid closed again, she told them that she couldn’t possibly do that. She had hung up her practitioner hat when she joined the academy.

“But you still have a bar license,” Lauren said. “You even told me that Fordham gave you permission to work on pro bono cases if you wanted.”

“Kelsey’s not exactly pro bono.”

“My point is you could represent her if you wanted. ”

She couldn’t bring herself to lie to Lauren—not after being caught in the big lie she’d been holding on to for fifteen years. “Yes, I could. But I won’t.”

Nate leaned into the screen. She felt like she was looking directly into his eyes, even though she knew it wouldn’t look that way to him on camera. “Please, May. You’re the perfect person for this. You made it clear you know these laws cold the other night, and, most importantly, you wouldn’t be beholden to Kelsey’s dad.”

“Why would that matter?”

“Hey, let me call you right back on a regular line,” Lauren said, ending the FaceTime stream abruptly.

As May walked through the living room to get her phone, Josh blocked her path. “Do not answer that call, May. They’re trying to pull you into something really stupid, just like they did before. Do I have to remind you that you lied to a police officer because of them?”

“They were saying something about Kelsey’s father,” she said. “Let me just hear them out.” Her cell phone was already ringing on the kitchen counter.

“I’m telling you—”

She picked up anyway. “Hey.” As she made her way back to the office, Josh began walking toward the bedroom.

“Sorry about that,” Lauren said. She could tell that Lauren’s phone was no longer on speaker. “The police told us the landlord called them. Nate’s going to go pack up our stuff, but here’s the deal. If there really is a connection between Luke’s murder and David’s, it could be Kelsey’s father—not Kelsey. Think about it. He’s super protective of her and is used to getting his way. You should have heard the way he talked to Nate tonight when he was only trying to help. Nate thinks Bill has this weird hang-up where he wants Kelsey to depend solely on him. There’s always been rumors that he was mobbed up.”

“Kelsey’s pretty damn used to getting her own way, too,” May said. She explained what she had figured out about Kelsey’s motive to retain control over the embryos, plus the possibility that David and Luke were both killed after someone initiated a fake traffic stop.

“There’s no way Kelsey could be involved,” Lauren said. “The police think David was killed Saturday night. We were all together that whole time.”

“And Kelsey and her father were both at that Golden Plate Award banquet when Luke was killed. Whoever pulled the trigger was hired.”

“But by her father, not Kelsey,” Lauren said. “Nate told me that when Luke was first killed, his mother even said she thought Bill did it. She said he’s mobbed up and knows the kind of people who can have someone killed.”

“Which means Kelsey probably knows them too. She’s the heir apparent. ”

“No way. You saw the way she responded when you told her David had died. She completely broke down.”

“Because she realized the police had connected the two of them. She knew she was busted.” May couldn’t believe how callous she sounded. They were talking about Kelsey.

“No, you’re wrong about that, May. I’d bet my actual life on it. You weren’t close to Kelsey when Luke died. I was. She was a complete mess. She had truly been hoping that Luke would change his mind about the divorce. And she definitely assumed at the time she wouldn’t be able to use the embryos after he died, so that added to her depression. She only found out later from the clinic she’d be able to use them as she wanted.”

“How do you know that?” May asked.

“Because when the divorce was happening, she knew she’d need his permission to implant the embryos in the future. After he died, she wouldn’t be able to get his permission, so to her it was the door slamming shut. I told her she shouldn’t just assume that, so she called the clinic, and they told her the law gave her control over the disposition. It at least gave her some consolation, but she was still devastated.”

If it were true Kelsey didn’t realize how Luke’s death would affect the situation with the fertility clinic, it was a devastating blow to the case May had built in her mind against Kelsey—the case she had shared with Detective Carter Decker. She felt her face begin to grow hot.

“She really did seem upset about David’s death,” May said, replaying the image of Kelsey opening her mouth wide and letting loose that full-throated, primal scream. Like May on the subway platform. Like May, alone in her apartment this morning, sending poor Gomez scattering for cover. When May had those outbursts, she knew they were uncontrollable. She couldn’t stop them.

She also wouldn’t be able to fake them.

“I’m telling you, May. She was even worse about Luke. I’m convinced she was in love with both of them. She had nothing to do with this. But Bill? He could have done it. And there’s no way he would tell Kelsey about it. That would be the way he protected her—to keep her completely in the dark. And here’s the thing: The night Luke was killed, Bill was the one who insisted that Kelsey go with him to that award ceremony. She canceled a date to appease him. She even tried to turn it into a joke. I never got a third date, but I did get filet mignon and an alibi. ”

These were things that May would have known if she had never lost touch with Kelsey. If she had called her all those times she was in Boston for depositions when she was still at the law firm. If she had gone to the wedding. If she had gotten to see her in love with Luke, the man who knew the special spot to tickle as they stood for wedding portraits. If she had helped her after her husband was murdered.

She would have known Kelsey better. She wouldn’t have fallen prey to the uninformed speculation of strangers who posted at whim on anonymous message boards. She wouldn’t have teed her friend up to Carter Decker, a cop hungry for a suspect.

She had messed everything up. “Send me pictures of everything you got from the police.”

“So you’ll represent her tomorrow?” Lauren asked. “If not, I need to find someone else.”

Maybe it wouldn’t even come to that. “Let me make a call and get back to you.”

As May pulled up Decker’s number, Josh opened the office door again. “That didn’t sound like a ‘no’ to me. You really need to explain right now.” She noticed him clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Just give me a second. I messed up. This is an emergency.”

As he walked away, she reached over to slide the doors shut behind him. Two rings followed by an answer. “Decker.”

She was in lawyer mode, so she didn’t give him everything—just enough to negate the motive she had previously offered. “I know everything I said earlier, but I have new information. Kelsey didn’t even know she’d be able to use the embryos until after Luke died, so I was wrong. She didn’t have any motive to kill him. ”

“People kill soon-to-be-exes without having baby problems all the time,” he said dryly.

“She didn’t do it—”

“Well, that’s not what you thought forty-eight hours ago. More importantly: I don’t care what you think, and she’s not charged with murder. Not yet. She lied to me, point-blank. And she’s not the only one—but, unlike her, someone else corrected the record before I took the case to the DA. You wouldn’t have stormed in to tell Kelsey to lawyer up if you didn’t know more than you let on.”

His point was not lost on her. He could have charged May, too. The call Josh encouraged her to make had saved her. “Does your DA know?” Even if he didn’t charge her, he could report her to the bar association.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. His voice was gentle when he finally spoke. “No. And I didn’t call your investigator friend in the city either.”

She was worried he could literally hear her breathing. She was the one to break the silence. “Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, thank you for that.”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

Her mind raced. She wanted to say so much, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to stop Kelsey from being charged. She wasn’t sure how much information to share with him at this early stage of the case. “Kelsey needs a lawyer for her arraignment attorney—one that isn’t paid for by her father.”

“Is that lawyer going to be you?”

“Probably. Will that change your mind about the other thing?”

He answered immediately. “No.”

“Can I ask why not?”

“Well, you just did, but does it really matter? Because I think you might be a good person who tries to do the right thing.”

She realized they were both whispering now. “I am.”

“And is that why you let it slip just now that Kelsey doesn’t want a lawyer who’s paid by her father?”

She said nothing.

“Did you find out something else new since you called me the other night?” he asked.

“You’re a good cop, Decker.”

“I certainly think so. See you tomorrow at the courthouse?”

“You’re going to the arraignment?” A detective’s police report was more than sufficient for an initial probable cause hearing.

“The DA wants me there.”

It was further confirmation that this wasn’t any old misdemeanor case. Tomorrow’s hearing was one small step in a homicide investigation .

“Thanks for letting Lauren and Nate get their belongings out. They’re free to leave now, right?”

“Yep, standard protocol for non-suspects. And trust me, from what I heard about her phone call to the station, that landlady does not want any of you stepping foot near this house again.”

She felt herself smile involuntarily.

When she stepped out of her office, Josh was staring at her from the sofa, a glass of what appeared to be whiskey in his hand. “Is this the way you plan on treating me now? I thought we got past your little secrets with your friends when you came back from the Hamptons. Now you’re holed up in your office whispering? That’s not okay.”

“Josh, there’s a whole situation out there that I’m trying to handle. They arrested Kelsey for providing false information. Lauren and Nate think her father might be behind all of this, so she needs a lawyer who’s truly independent from him.”

“Meaning you? No, May. That is a terrible idea.”

“It’s just a first appearance. It’s no big deal. She enters a not guilty plea and I get her released from custody. We can deal with the rest of it afterward.”

“And I don’t get a say-so in this?” He took a sip of his drink, holding her gaze.

“In what I do for a friend in my capacity as a lawyer? No, you actually don’t. This doesn’t affect you.”

“No, but your whole relationship with your crew or whatever does affect you, ” he said, his voice rising. “It’s too much. And you and I are supposed to be getting married, so of course it affects me.”

“ Supposed to be?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m sorry, Josh.” Was she really sorry, though? “I don’t have time for this. I just need to get through the hearing tomorrow, okay? You and I will be fine.”

“And a couple of days ago, you just needed to call that police officer, and now here we are again. You’re never going to extract yourself from this, are you?”

“Just when I thought I was out,” she said, slipping into her best Michael Corleone imitation.

“It’s not funny, May.”

“Little bit, little bit.” Now she was De Niro. “I swear it’s just an arraignment. A well-trained monkey could probably handle it. Then Kelsey can find another lawyer for the hard stuff. I promise.”

“Fine,” he said grudgingly. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

“I love you.” She leaned in for a quick kiss and he kissed her back.

“Love you too, even if you are being infuriating right now.”

He walked away toward the bedroom as she redialed Lauren. “So I tried to see if Decker could do anything to drop the charges, but no luck. I’ll handle the first appearance tomorrow and then help her find a lawyer for the long run. ”

“Or that can be you,” Lauren said. “You’re Sasha Fierce in a courtroom.”

“I’m a dusty old law prof now. If this turns into a murder trial, she’s going to need a whole team. Just take the bird in hand, okay? You guys must be exhausted. Carter said you’re free to go now, so call an Uber and come to the city.”

“Carter? Is that the detective? He’s Carter now?”

May hadn’t even realized she’d used his first name. “Nate has his place, and you can stay with us.”

“Oof. Forty-six years old on a pool raft, and then we’ll have to turn around and come back tomorrow. No bueno.”

“It’s one of the good ones with the platform on the bottom. And trust me, you’re going to have to drive mid-island to a fleabag motel and you’ll spend an hour making calls to lock even that down. Just head here and we can use the car time tomorrow to strategize.”

Having convinced Lauren of her plan, she hopped onto Westlaw and searched for reported cases interpreting the two statutes under which Kelsey was charged. The search warrant covered Kelsey’s phone, and her calls with Smith would prove that she had lied to Carter— Decker, she thought, correcting her internal monologue. But it wasn’t obvious that the lie fell within the scope of the statutes charged.

Gomez rose from his spot on her feet and walked to the office door, nudging at it with his flat face. “Josh, I think Gomez needs to go out,” she called, sliding open the door. “Josh?”

When she didn’t see him in the living room either, she checked the bedroom, bathroom, and terrace.

That’s when she saw the note on the kitchen island. “I didn’t realize we’d have a houseguest too. I’m going to my brother’s to get out of your way. Good luck with your hearing tomorrow.” His car key was next to the note.

Four rings to his phone. No answer.

“Josh, I’m sorry. I should have asked you about Lauren. It’s just one night. I want to make sure I know everything that happened at the house before court. Just come home, okay?”

Two minutes later, he sent her a text. Busy day at work tomorrow, and you guys will be up late talking. It’s fine. Good night. I love you.

OK, thanks. Love you too.

It all made perfect, logical sense. He gets his sleep. She and Lauren get the apartment to themselves. But she knew there was so much more he wasn’t saying. She was losing him.