Big Summer(64)



So the idea that she’d needed extra help and extra time wasn’t completely surprising. Nor was the idea that she’d gone out west to get it. Many of the top prep schools were in New England, but if Drue had gone to one of them she’d undoubtedly have run into people who knew her, or her family, and her secret would be out.

I decided to put aside the mystery of Drue’s post-Lathrop, pre-Harvard year and return to the topic of her love life. “So Drue and Stuart dated at Croft, and then again when they were in college?”

Arden stood up and bounced a few times on the soles of her feet, like she was getting ready to run a fast five miles. “Yup. And the same thing happened there. Drue was happy with Stuart until some guy who’d dropped out after freshman year and invented some app that made a fortune came back to campus to give a talk.” Arden stroked her ponytail, sifting the fine brown strands through her fingers. “First Drue told Stuart that she wanted to take the guy out for coffee so she could network with him, get his business advice. Then they’re having dinner together to further their conversation. Then it’s ‘Oh sorry, Stuart, but Devon is my soulmate.’?”

“Oof.”

“Yeah. So when she and Stuart hooked up again…” Arden’s voice took on a nasty edge. “None of us wanted to hear it. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice… Well, you know. My mom and dad and I didn’t want to see him go through it again with her, but he wouldn’t listen. She could always get him back. Whistle, and he’d come running.” Her voice tightened on the last few words. Looking down, I could see her hands curling into fists. “We never understood it. And he didn’t even try to explain it to us. Drue is special, he’d tell us. We have fun.”

I nodded, feeling complete and total empathy for Stuart Lowe. I couldn’t have explained it, either, but I knew what it was like to be the center of Drue Cavanaugh’s universe, how her regard could make you feel like the brightest, shiniest, sharpest, most perfect version of yourself, and how she could turn an ordinary day into an adventure. I thought of a line from a Joe Henry song: And I don’t miss you half as much / As who you made me think I was. That had been Drue’s magic, the part I’d never been able to quite explain to Darshi: the way Dru would treat you like you were amazing, and how you’d actually start to think that she was right.

“And what about Corina?”

“Corina was great.” Arden sounded wistful. “Maybe not the sharpest crayon in the box, but sweet. Easy to be with. She loved him, and we all loved her. We would’ve been happy if they’d stayed together.”

I have to tell McMichaels, I thought as Arden turned to go. But although the revelation had rocked my world, informing the detective that Drue had secretly attended an extra year of prep school and that she’d dated Stuart twice before was hardly a game-changer. And if I told him what I’d learned about the will, I’d also have to disclose that I’d been eavesdropping on the mourners for my intel.

I’d keep quiet, I decided. At least until I learned more.

“Hey,” I said. Arden had her hand on the gate that enclosed the pool. I heard her sigh as she turned. “Do you know anything about Stuart and Drue doing any social media brand outreach around the wedding?”

Her forehead furrowed. “Huh?”

“Like, putting together a pitch deck?” Her blank expression told me she had no idea what that was. “Were they asking businesses if they wanted to partner with them and sponsor the wedding or the honeymoon?”

Arden stared at me. “You mean like selling ads?”

“No, not ads… well, sort of. More like a trade. Going to American Airlines and saying Give us tickets for our honeymoon and we’ll do an Instagram post that mentions you. Or promising to post a shot of yourself on the plane, with the logo visible.”

Arden seemed genuinely puzzled. “Why would they need to do that? Didn’t Drue have more money than God?”

“As far as I knew.”

“That was the only part of Drue and Stuart that made sense to me,” Arden said. “My guess is that she promised to use some of the family fortune to help my brother with his start-up.”

“Do you think they loved each other?” I asked.

The question seemed to catch her off guard. “He was going to marry her,” she said.

Which wasn’t exactly an answer. I waited, watching her face, wondering if she’d fidget, or start playing with her ponytail again. Arden said, “Look. Stuart’s older than I am, and he’d left for boarding school by the time I was eight. We weren’t close. If you want my opinion, I think it was Drue’s whole world that he found attractive. That, and the way she made him feel.” She shrugged. “And from what I saw, they wanted a lot of the same things. Money and power. People build lives together on a whole lot less than that.”

I was trying to think about what else I could ask her when I heard the sound of a car’s tires crunching over the shells. A nondescript Toyota stopped in front of the garage. The front door opened, and Darshini Shah emerged. In black dress pants and a matching blazer, with her laptop bag slung across her chest, she was the most beautiful sight I could imagine.





Chapter Thirteen


“Tell me everything you’ve learned so far.” Darshi took a seat on the bench at the bottom of my bed, and I was collapsed against the headboard. I’d opened the glass doors to catch the breeze, and we could hear the waves as they advanced and retreated on the beach below us. Occasionally, some kind of seabird would squawk, and we’d see it, aloft and almost motionless outside the windows, hovering on an air current. Darshi had walked into the room, looked through the windows at the deck (now festooned with crime scene tape) and the ocean beyond it, and given a single “Nice.” Not much for aesthetics was my roommate, even under the best of circumstances, but her presence, the sound of her voice, her scent of coconut conditioner and sandalwood perfume, all of it calmed me.

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