A vacation in the Hamptons goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history. “I absolutley loved The Note. Trust no one in this irresistible page-turner.” --Ashley Elston, #1 Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing. But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she''s had her fair share of both. Their bond--forged when May was just twelve years old--has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry.; When she finds herself at the center of an urgent police investigation, May begins to wonder whether Lauren and Kelsey are keeping secrets from her, testing the limits of her loyalty to lifelong friends. <The Note< is a page-turner of the highest order;from one of our greatest contemporary suspense writers.

Autorentext
ALAFAIR BURKE is the Edgar-nominated, New York Times best-selling author of fourteen novels of suspense, including The Ex, The Wife, The Better Sister, and Find Me, and coauthor of the best-selling Under Suspicion series. A former prosecutor, she is now a professor of criminal law. She recently served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and was the first woman of color to be elected to that position. She lives in New York.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Six Days Earlier

1

May stood before her open closet, finding a reason to hate everything in it. Her clothes consisted of either suits and sheath dresses or jeans, tees, and hoodies. She was utterly unequipped for a girls’ weekend at the beach.

A few years ago, everyone seemed to be purging their belongings—dumping anything that didn’t “bring them joy.” May had quietly judged them all. To her, the act of finding happiness through decluttering was an indulgence for people who had too much time on their hands and enough money to spend on custom organizers at the Container Store. Now that she was staring down all her sad clothes, she was pining for a little Kondo energy.

She decided her good old reliable black shirtdress would work if she paired it with a colorful bangle and some cute strappy sandals. She rolled it neatly before slipping it into the carry-on bag she had flopped open on her side of the bed. Resting next to the bag was Josh, his back against the headboard, the reading glasses he only recently admitted needing perched low on his nose. Gomez was curled in a tight ball next to him.

For the first four years of that dog’s life, she had trained him to stay off the furniture. All that changed during the lockdown, when he’d been glued next to at least one of them 24/7 for more than a year straight. No going back now.

She noticed that Josh was grimacing as he read.

“That gross?” she asked. Josh was a product manager for one of the world’s largest makers of personal care products. Tonight’s homework was a report on emerging trends in the personal hygiene market.

“Reviewing a complete list of places to use full-body deodorant. Want to hear?”

“Nope. People are disgusting.”

Josh set the report aside on the nightstand and replaced it with the memoir he was reading by the lead singer of one of their favorite bands. They’d splurged on good tickets to see them live, the very first performance at Madison Square Garden after the world began to reopen. The date landed within those heavenly few weeks after vaccination appointments were plentiful, but before the arrival of the new vocabulary of variants, breakthrough cases, and boosters—when they believed that life was finally back to normal.

A few protesters showed up at the Garden, mocking them as sheep for complying with the venue’s vax requirement. The guy in front of them had heckled back. “Baaah, motherfuckers. We sheep are going to dance our asses off while you idiots sweat outside.”

May cried when the band broke into the first chorus. It’s times like these you learn to live again.

Two years later, everyone else seemed fine. They were living again. But May?

May felt like she was still learning.

“You and your suitcase burritos.” Josh smiled at the growing pile of compressed clothing bundles in her bag.

“Oh shoot,” she said, immediately rethinking her black-dress choice. “I’m pretty sure I wore this the last time Lauren was in town. Does that sound right? When she had that gig at Lincoln Center?”

“Let me check my annal chronicling your historic wardrobe decisions across time.” He pretended to reach for his iPad. “She won’t remember a dress from 2019, and if she did, it’s not like she’ll judge you for wearing it again. Plus you just bought a new outfit for the trip. You’ll be fine.”

The new outfit was a purple sundress that did, in fact, bring May joy. It had that effortless just-threw-this-on boho chic look, which meant it cost as much as catering for two people on the wedding guest list they were trying to find ways to cull. She reminded herself this was only a weekend trip, and they’d probably spend most of it at the beach or sitting around the house, just the three of them. Swimsuit, shorts, T-shirts, all rolled neatly and set in place. Done.

As she finished zipping her bag, Josh stood and lifted it from the bed for her. He was old-fashioned that way. He opened car doors, took out garbage, did the stereotypically male things. When they traveled together, he insisted on pulling both of their suitcases behind him through the airport. He was a caretaker.

As he tucked the bag out of the way in the bedroom corner, she crawled into bed, nestling Gomez into her side like a football. “I’m going to miss you so much, you little pumpkin head.”

“And here I was, thinking you were talking to me,” Josh said.

“I’ll miss you too, but Gomez can’t text and call me, can you, sweetie? No, you don’t have any thumbs or we’d text all the time.”

Even though the trip was only for a long weekend, this would be the longest she’d been away from her dog for years. It was also her first time out to the Hamptons since she’d worked at the law firm, where some of the other associates had parents with summer houses and would occasionally invite a coworker or two to share in their largesse.

Kelsey had rented the beach house for ten days, but May was heeding the warnings she had received about using her academic summers wisely. She needed to write if she was going to get her contract renewed and eventually get tenure. She knew herself. She worked best when she kept to a routine schedule. Plan your work and work your plan. Plus, Lauren and Kelsey were both single, while May was engaged and organizing a wedding. She couldn’t just take a whole week off and play with her friends in the Hamptons.

Her phone pinged from the nightstand. A text from Kelsey in the group thread. Lauren, how’d it go today?

He loved my initial ideas. He’s paying me to watch the rough cut and come up with some initial samples. Fingers crossed!

Kelsey’s ability to keep track of her friends’ important plans was uncanny. It had been at least two weeks since Lauren mentioned that an award-winning documentarian had contacted her …