Lindsay’s thoughts drifted to an image of Jocelyn Hodge, well past drunk, behind the wheel of her Bronco. The police said they found a woman’s necklace on his boat. I want to think it was for me, but—

Lindsay pulled up Jocelyn’s number on her phone, hit call, and then typed a new search into her laptop: “Richard Mullaney stolen necklace description.”

“Hello?” Jocelyn sounded like she had been sleeping.

Lindsay identified herself. “We spoke earlier at the beach,” she said as a reminder.

“That wasn’t cool, what you did. You knew the police were after your friend, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t talk with you about that. But I just have one question—”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Please, it’s one small thing.” She clicked on the top search result on-screen. “You said the police found a necklace on Alex’s boat. Did they show it to you? What did it look like?”

“Why does that even matter?”

The blue bar at the top of her browser slowed and then froze. She knew Jocelyn was seconds away from hanging up. The search results finally loaded, and she gave the screen a quick scan: silver chain with a pendant of two hearts. “Was it a heart necklace?” she blurted.

Jocelyn’s voice cracked when she spoke again. “Two. Two little hearts. The two of us. He never had a chance to give it to me.”

30
Tuesday, June 22, 8:05 p.m.

Like most visitors to the southern fork of Long Island, Lindsay had a tendency to clump the entire East End into “the Hamptons.” But to the extent that the Hamptons had become synonymous with glossy magazine images of high-end boutiques, glitzy lawn parties, and celebrity-soaked restaurants, it was defined by pockets of South and East Hampton. With Scott behind the wheel of her car, they were now long past Amagansett, past Napeague Bay, past Hither Hills State Park and the preserves. Though not immune from the onslaught of summer visitors, Montauk had managed to preserve the low-key vibe of an old fishing and surf town.

It had taken Lindsay most of the drive to summarize everything she had learned so far about Alex Lopez and Richard Mullaney. She was impressed at how quickly Scott absorbed the information.

“But isn’t the necklace on Lopez’s boat actually a good thing?” he asked, slowing as he eyed a spot at the curb on the main strip. As usual, he nailed the parallel parking job on the first try. “It makes it look like he killed Mullaney. Not exactly a sympathetic character. Who knows what else he could have been wrapped up in.”