Big Summer(57)

I did some fast math, considering my own rates, and what I’d heard about what real celebrities could pull in. “It depends. For someone like me, it’s a hundred dollars for every ten thousand followers. So if I’ve got thirty thousand followers, some company will pay me three hundred dollars to feature a photo of its yoga mat, or pet treats, or whatever. But it’s different for celebrities. The big ones get millions of dollars for a post. Sometimes more.”

The bushy eyebrows went up. “For just one picture?”

I nodded. Drue and Stuart combined had somewhere around a million followers. If they got all of the sponsorships they’d been seeking—from the airline that would take them to their honeymoon and the hotel where they would stay, from the caterer and the bakery providing the wedding cake and the company that had made the tablecloths and napkins for the wedding dinner, for all three of Drue’s wedding dress designers… I worked my mental calculator, and finally said, “If this worked the way they hoped, it could have paid for the whole wedding. Going forward…” I imagined the possibilities, the maternity and baby-specific brands Drue could work with if she got pregnant, the barre and boxing and spinning brands when it was time to lose the baby weight. “I couldn’t even guess.”

“But a lot.”

When I nodded, McMichaels pointed one thick finger at the word near my name on the pitch deck. “You’re an influencer.” He said it as a statement, but I heard it as a question. Which made sense. How could I be operating in the same world as gorgeous, glamorous Drue?

“Well, not a very influential one.”

Ignoring my poor attempt at humor, he asked, “Were you advising Drue on how to make money from her social media?”

I shook my head. “There are companies you can hire to do stuff like this for you. Professionals.” I pointed at the pitch deck. “This was made by a professional.”

“So you had no idea that this was going on?”

I thought about the party the night before, all of the photographers, the video crew. She was probably streaming it on her stories, I thought, and kicked myself for not noticing. I thought about Drue in her bedroom, telling me that she’d promised her father that she could pay him back for whatever the wedding cost. “No,” I said in a small voice. “I had no idea.”

The detective stood up. In the bright summer light, he didn’t look even slightly grandfatherly. He looked stern, and angry, and determined. “There has not been a suspicious death on the Outer Cape since 1994,” he said. “And that went unsolved for years. It was an embarrassment.” He pronounced the word precisely, giving each syllable equal weight, and he gave me another hard look. “We don’t know how your friend died. But I promise you this: we aren’t going to end up with egg on our face again.”

“Good,” I whispered. My mouth felt very dry. “That’s good.”

“One more thing,” he said. His voice didn’t rise and his expression stayed mild as he looked down at his notebook. “The wedding planner gave me a list of all the guests for last night’s event.” He looked up. “There’s no Nick Andros on there.”

I blinked. “What?”

“That man you said you met last night. His name isn’t on the guest list.”

“But…” I closed my eyes and clasped my trembling hands together. “He told me that he was an old friend of Drue’s. They both spent summers on Cape Cod. They went to sailing school together. Maybe he forgot to RSVP?” Even while I was stumbling for an answer, I was remembering that Drue hadn’t recognized Nick. Not when I’d asked him to take our picture; not in her bedroom when I’d said his name.

McMichaels was staring at me with absolutely no sympathy on his face. He tap, tap, tapped at his pad, and turned it around so that I could see what he’d just googled: Nick Andros is one of the heroes in Stephen King’s apocalyptic thriller The Stand.

I tried to keep calm, or to at least look calm, even as I felt my heart and belly wobble and lurch like they’d come unmoored inside me. The insides of my thighs still felt sore and bruised from what Nick and I had done the night before.

“He told me that he worked for the school district in Boston, and that he grew up spending summers on the Cape. He said he’s working on a charter fishing boat.” The detective continued to stare at me blandly. “Maybe Nick is his middle name!” I knew how desperate that sounded, but it was all I could think of, and maybe it was true.

“Would anyone at the party remember seeing you with this gentleman?” There was a hairbreadth pause before McMichaels said “gentleman,” but I heard it.

I shook my head. My mouth was dry. Snatches of the previous night were replaying themselves in my memory; things he’d done that had seemed romantic at the time and now seemed sinister in retrospect: Nick asking if I was a friend of the bride’s, asking if I was staying in the big house. Nick with his hand at the small of my back, saying Let’s go sit over here, where it’s quiet. Nick steering me away from the rest of the guests, toward far-off tables, or into secluded nooks, and me, stupidly flattered, thinking he wanted me all to himself. Nick pushing me against the glass, saying Don’t make a sound. No one can know we’re here.

McMichael was looking at me hard. “Is there anything else you can remember?”