Coco gets a text from Kacy. Have you asked if you can come to dinner on Thursday night? My dad chose Ventuno and my mom wants to make a reservation so she needs to know how many people.
They’re driving down the Polpis Road toward home. Leslee taps the steering wheel as Taylor Swift sings, I’m drunk in the back of the car, and I cried like a baby coming home from the bar. It’s been a cruel summer for Leslee, but right now she seems relaxed. Should Coco broach the topic? It’s just dinner, and Coco so rarely ventures out at night, this won’t be a big deal.
“Kacy invited me to dinner on Thursday with her parents,” Coco says. “It’s her dad’s retirement celebration at Ventuno. Is it all right if I go?”
The car veers ever so slightly toward the center line, but Leslee straightens it out. “The Chief’s retirement celebration?”
“It’s just dinner,” Coco says. Why the hell did she use the word celebration? “He’s retiring. It’s only family, I think.”
“And yet you were invited.”
“Family and close friends, I guess.”
“Like Delilah and Phoebe, of course. And insufferable Addison and that overcooked potato Delilah is married to, I can never remember his name.”
“Jeffrey,” Coco whispers. She wants to stick up for Jeffrey—he’s a steady, thoughtful, measured person—but she senses that now is not the time.
“I’ll tell you who wasn’t invited,” Leslee says. “The Richardsons. Which is insulting. The Chief and his wife owe us, we’ve invited them to everything, all summer long.”
Oh, dear, Coco thinks. She should never have said where she was going. Out, she should have said. I’d like to go out.
“But we’re pariahs now,” Leslee says. “Nobody wants us around.”
She hits the gas, and the G-Wagon goes flying down the road so fast that the split-rail fence, the ponds, the cottages with their green lawns and snapping flags, become a blur out the window. Coco watches the speedometer needle: sixty, seventy, eighty-five. She grips the armrest, reminding herself that Mercedes builds cars for the autobahn, that going eighty-five, even on a winding road, is nothing, Coco is wearing her seat belt, the car certainly has excellent airbags. But Leslee shows no sign of slowing down. Coco thinks of how Leslee casually threatened to switch Bull’s pills. Then she thinks of Leslee as a teenager, an AR-15 strapped across her chest, raining bullets into a target. They’re going ninety. Coco hears a high-pitched whining in her ears—it’s the sound of her own fear. This is the end of the toboggan ride, the part where they’re going too fast to stop at the bottom of the hill so they’ll either crash into a tree or go sailing off an unexpected ledge.
At the last minute, Leslee hits the brakes, puts on her signal, and turns left onto the Wauwinet Road as the tires squeal. They’ve slowed down but Coco’s heart is still hammering in anticipation of her untimely death.
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to make the Chief’s dinner,” Leslee says. “Because we’re having a sunset sail that same night and I need you to work it.”
“A sunset sail?” Coco says. She takes a moment to reset now that they’re cruising along at a more leisurely pace. She texts Kacy: I can’t make the dinner. When I asked, Leslee tried to kill me. Literally nearly crashed us both in the car.
Kacy texts back: WTF?!!? Are you okay?
Coco isn’t sure how to respond. There isn’t an emoji that will express how lucky she is to be alive.
“Yes,” Leslee says. “It’s a special occasion. Bull and I are renewing our vows.”
Did Coco hear that right? “Renewing your vows?” she says.
“I’m going to invite all my new friends,” Leslee says. “It’s going to be so much fun.”
36. Friday, August 23, 1:00 A.M.
When the Chief and Kacy get back to the house, Andrea is waiting up in the kitchen.
“I called Phoebe and Delilah,” she says. “Everyone knows, everyone’s praying.” She opens her arms to Kacy.
Kacy lets Andrea hug her for only a second. “I can’t talk about it,” she says. “I’m so tired I feel like my head is going to topple off my body.”
“Get some sleep,” Andrea says.
“Will you—”
“The second we hear anything,” the Chief says.
Andrea waits until she and Ed are in their bedroom before she says, “What the hell happened, Ed? Do you think Coco set the Richardsons’ house on fire and then ran?”
“I’m not sure what happened,” he says. “Is that a possibility? Yes. Is it possible Leslee heard about the fire and pushed Coco off the boat? Yes. Is it possible Coco fell? Yes. Who set the fire is a secondary concern. Nobody was hurt, although the house is a total loss. The garage is fine.”
“Is that where the Richardsons are staying tonight?”
“They’re sleeping on the boat.” The Chief sighs. “Stu Vick will have an inspector there in the morning. My concern is finding Coco.”
“Obviously,” Andrea says.
Ed tries to pry one of his loafers off with the toe of the other while standing up and nearly falls over. Andrea takes his arm, leads him to the bed. “I can’t believe this happened when you were so close to finished.”
“Zara wants me to give her the case and just advise from afar.”
Andrea laughs unhappily. “You’ll never do that.”
“I overheard Dixon saying that I’m looking at this as some kind of swan song.” Ed finally kicks his loafer off. “That’s not what this is. We know the girl. She stayed with us.”
“You don’t have to explain. I know you’d never walk away, nor would I want you to.”
Ed is grateful he doesn’t have to quarrel with Andrea on this point. He drops his head in his hands. He feels dizzy; his gut is churning up a cement of fritto misto and steak and cannoli. Does his arm tingle or is that his imagination? Did he set himself back six months with all the stress of the night? He takes a deep breath. Andrea helps him out of his sports coat, then kneels in front of him and unbuttons his shirt like he’s a child. If this night had ended like it was supposed to, she would be unbuttoning his shirt for another reason.
Once Ed gets into bed, he makes sure his phone is plugged in and the ringer is on. The helicopter has returned to Woods Hole; the track-line searches will resume at first light. At Ed’s behest, Lucy has agreed to keep one boat out searching for the rest of the night.
