That night, as Kacy is trying to sleep, her phone dings with a text from Isla.
I miss you, Bun.
Kacy runs her fingers over the words. Bun is short for honeybun—honey refers to the color of Kacy’s hair. She wonders how things are going in the NICU, who the new babies are, how people like the nurse they hired to replace Kacy, if Isla has been acting sad and distant and, if yes, has Rondo noticed?
Another text comes in: I don’t understand why you had to LEAVE. I was going to tell him, I just wanted to do it on my own timeline, not because you were pressuring me.
Kacy considers this. Did she pressure Isla to break the engagement? Maybe, but they were in love. Isla’s relationship with Rondo, as Isla herself said, was a sham. Isla came from a fancy Mexico City family—five-story town house in Condesa, beach home in Tecolutla—and Isla’s mother wanted all the California things for her daughter: UC Berkeley, Stanford School of Medicine, a Napa wedding to a man who was also a doctor, a home in Presidio Heights, three or four children, season tickets to the 49ers, a standing reservation at Gary Danko. Kacy and Isla had countless conversations about how Isla should be living an authentic life—she needed to break things off with Rondo, come out to her parents. “You don’t understand how hard that conversation is going to be,” Isla said. “My parents are traditional Catholics. My mother will faint; my father will schedule an exorcism.”
“They’ll get over it,” Kacy told her.
“You’re right, I know you’re right. I just need more time.”
“You don’t have to tell them about me right away,” Kacy said. “But please, for the love of god, break up with Rondo.”
“I definitely will,” Isla said—but what Kacy has learned is that she definitely won’t.
Another text comes in: Leaving was manipulative. You did it to force my hand.
Isla and Rondo must have had a glass of wine or three in front of their gas-log fire, Kacy thinks.
Then, in a move so cruel Kacy can’t quite fathom it, Isla sends a picture of Kacy holding Little G. The next text says: The unit needs you, Kace. It was selfish of you to leave.
Don’t take the bait, Kacy thinks.
Another text: So that’s it? You’re not going to talk to me? Aren’t you more mature than that?
What could be more mature, Kacy wonders, than choosing not to engage? Besides, it’s ten forty-five, and Kacy wants to go for a run in the morning, then drive Coco out to Great Point.
Another text: I love you, Bun.
I love you too, Kacy thinks. She clicks out of her texts and hops on Instagram, where she sees Rondo’s newest photo, posted that morning. Rondo and Isla are seated at a leather banquette with Dr. Dunne and his wife, Tami, who has enormous breast implants and microbladed brows. Behind them is pink-and-green tropical wallpaper that’s so recognizable, Kacy doesn’t even need to read the caption to know where they are, but she does anyway. Champagne and seafood tower @leosoysterbar with my best man and the always-chic @totally_tami_.
Unfollow Rondo, she thinks. Then go to sleep.
But Rondo’s account is Coco’s only window into Isla’s world. Isla and Rondo went to Leo’s with the Dunnes the night before; afterward, they probably hit the bar at Wayfare for a cocktail. Isla’s texts sound lonely but she’s been double-dating with Dr. and “Totally Tami” Dunne. Kacy wants to hurl her phone across the room. She types, Sorry, I’ve been busy. Then she attaches two pictures: Coco trying on the white sundress and Coco and Kacy at the pharmacy lunch counter, their faces squished together, cheesing. She presses Send.
There’s no immediate response and Kacy chides herself for sending the photos. She’s using the pictures of Coco as a weapon without Coco knowing it, and she’s using them out of context. Her friendship with Coco is brand-new and already she’s compromised it.
A minute or two later, a text comes in: Wow, you work fast.
Just friends, Kacy says, but her spirit is buoyed. Isla is jealous.
As if reading Kacy’s mind, Isla texts, I’m sick with jealousy. Now I won’t sleep. Thanks.
Mission accomplished, Kacy thinks. She turns off her phone and closes her eyes.
8. Thursday, August 22, 8:45 P.M.
On the way from Ventuno to the ashes of the house on 888 Pocomo Road, Ed throws on the lights and sirens; his heart is beating twice as fast as it should, and his thoughts spin out. He needs to calm down—what did Dr. Head Honcho say about stress? He doesn’t want to alarm Kacy with the news that Coco is missing, but Kacy, in the passenger seat, keeps calling Coco over and over again.
“It just goes straight to voice mail,” she says. “What do you think that means?”
Ed thinks, but does not say: If Coco went overboard, her phone probably did too.
Andrea wanted to come to the scene, but Ed asked her to go home with Eric and Avalon. Andrea had been drinking, and unlike him, she’d had a lot more than half a glass of red wine. He needs to breathe—what are his meditation cues? He can’t recall a single one. Why did he succumb to temptation and order the Fiorentina, then eat a cannoli? He has only one hundred hours left on the job… and now this.
His phone rings. It’s Lucy Shields, the Nantucket harbormaster. Thank god. He puts on his headset; he would prefer that Kacy not overhear any of this.
“Lucy.”
“Ed,” she says. “What a mess. A doubleheader like this in your final week.”
“Who have you talked to?”
“Only the captain, Lamont Oakley. He called it in about twenty minutes ago: Guest on Hedonism no longer on the boat. Twenty-seven-year-old female named Colleen Coyle; five foot four inches tall; approximately one hundred and five pounds; dark, chin-length hair; worked for the owners of the boat.”
The Chief clears his throat. “Yes, we know her. She’s friends with our daughter, Kacy.”
“Oh god, Ed, I’m sorry,” Lucy says. “Was Kacy on the boat as well?”
“No, no, she’s here in the car with me.”
“Can she hear us?” Lucy asks.
“Negative,” Ed says, and he hopes this is true.
“That’s probably best,” Lucy says. Lucy Shields has been the harbormaster for a long time. She was Kacy’s boss back when Kacy worked as a town lifeguard in high school. It’s a small island, the Chief thinks.
