Once she married Bobby Sherri bought the most expensive shampoo money could buy, the kind you could only buy at a salon. She bought nail polish in every color, and gorgeous blouses made of silk, and designer bags, and shoes, and shoes, and shoes. When they bought the house with the pool, they also got the guy who came twice a week to balance it. She never had to touch any of the pool chemicals or the skimmer baskets. When they threw a party, which they did all the time, she never had to take a step into that top-of-the-line kitchen, because two hours before the party started an army of caterers showed up with their beautiful food and their beautiful cocktails for all of the beautiful guests to enjoy. All Sherri had to do was choose from her beautiful dresses and match the dress with a fabulous pair of heels and attach herself to Bobby’s arm.

Eye candy, she believed that was called.

Nobody would call her eye candy now. They’d call her practical looking, a mom with a reliable part-time job, struggling, like a lot of other people in the world, to pay the rent.

She knew the money wasn’t clean. But honestly she never imagined people getting really hurt over it. She never imagined anyone dying.

23.

Alexa

“Hampton Beach?” said Alexa when Cam called her later to solidify the plans. She thought she might have heard wrong. Hampton Beach was not a place she typically hung out. North of Salisbury, south of Rye, there was a certain . . . well, for lack of a better word, a certain element there. The beaches themselves were beautiful, and there was supposed to be phenomenal surfing by the Wall, but. It was a little biker-y, a little weed-and-Miller-Lite-ish, and when the sun went down the freaks came out. When Alexa thought of Hampton Beach, she thought of tattoos. And not tasteful little hip tattoos (Alexa herself sported one of a starfish that she got when she turned sixteen) but dark, heavy, sleeve tattoos.

Alexa could practically hear Cam grinning over the phone. “Yup,” he said. “I scored two tickets to see a Dave Matthews cover band at the casino. And tonight is your lucky night, because one of those tickets has your name on it.”

“Dave Matthews?” said Alexa. “The Hampton Beach Casino?” The casino, though storied, was where the has-beens played, and where the old people went to get drunk and reminisce. What she was supposed to be doing tonight was saying good-bye to Tyler before he left for Silver Lake, but she had conveniently left his texts unanswered. When she thought of what Caitlin told her, she didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about this.