The Hotel Nantucket (37)

Richie laughs. “My references will all vouch that I’m a perfectly average good-enough guy.”

“Have you ever done any marketing?” Lizbet asks.

“I sat in on all the meetings at Kick City.”

Lizbet frowns. “Occupancy at the hotel is below fifty percent, and I just don’t understand why. The hotel was, admittedly, mediocre for a long time. I’m not sure if it’s the lackluster reputation we’re grappling with or…”

“Or?”

“Well, some people say there’s a ghost.”

Richie hoots. “The hotel is haunted? That’s fantastic! I would think that would draw people to the hotel rather than keep them away. You should be promoting the ghost story.”

“We should?” Lizbet says.

“Absolutely yes,” Richie says. “Advertise the ghost! Market the ghost!”

Hmm, Grace thinks. There’s still a stench coming off Richie Decameron—something’s wrong; she can’t say what—but she’s willing to plug her nose and ignore it because it sounds like Richie is interested in her story. Hello, Richie! she calls out nasally, though of course he can’t hear her. I’m here! I was murdered!



Everything Alessandra Powell owns fits into two (knockoff) Louis Vuitton duffels that she bought at the Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio in Florence.

Michael told Alessandra that his wife and children were due on island on June 18—but Alessandra had wormed her way so deeply into Michael’s psyche that she thought, just maybe, he would decide to leave his wife. It would be quite a coup, though not her biggest (that would be Giacomo, who gave up both his runway-model mistress and his heiress wife for Alessandra). From what Alessandra can tell, Heidi Bick is the kind of wife and mother who meets her besties for yoga every morning after dropping the children off at their progressive and obscenely expensive private schools, then swings by the organic grocery on her way home so she can whip up whatever eclectic dish Sam Sifton has recommended that day in his New York Times cooking column. (On Wednesday, maybe a tahdig…) Heidi not only takes care of the four Bick children, she’s also the point person for Michael’s father, who has Parkinson’s.

Alessandra met Michael Bick on the fast ferry back in early April. Alessandra had feared it would be slim pickings as far as male prospects were concerned—nearly all the men were sporting Carhartt’s and work boots and dropping their r’s—but then Alessandra spied Michael with the Vacheron watch and his master-of-the-universe posture. At the ferry snack bar, he ordered a Sam Adams and a clam chowder, and Alessandra popped behind him in line and ordered the same. She took a seat one row over facing him and pulled out her well-worn copy of The Sun Also Rises. She drank her beer, let her chowder cool, and—surprise, surprise!—caught Michael staring at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not every day I see a beautiful woman drinking a beer and reading Hemingway.”

By the end of the ride, Michael had moved into the seat across from Alessandra and bought them another round of beers; their respective chowders had gone untouched, and Alessandra’s book lay facedown, forgotten. They had both stretched the truth about their situations. Michael said he was “taking some time apart from his wife,” who was “back in Greenwich with the kids.” Alessandra said she had been living in Europe for the past eight years and was “treating herself” to an American summer.

“The Riviera gets old after a while,” she said, making them both laugh.

He invited her over to his place for a drink. She told him she had to check into her Airbnb (she didn’t have one booked). He insisted, spinning her Cartier love bracelet and saying, “Unless your heart belongs to the person who gave you this?”

“Uh, no,” she said, regarding the bracelet as she might a handcuff. (Giacomo had given it to her a few weeks before he was sent to prison.)

“Great!” Michael said. “Then come for a drink.”

“I really can’t.”

“Just one. Please?”

The house was more than Alessandra could have hoped for. It was one of the huge old family “cottages” right on the harbor that they’d passed on the ferry. It had a long, elegant pool that fronted their tiny private beach and a tennis court in the side yard. (“Do you play?” Michael asked. “A little,” Alessandra said.) The inside of the house was tasteful and fresh, magazine-worthy—lots of white wainscoting and exposed blond beams and a massive stone fireplace and a table laden with silver-framed photographs (the wife he was supposedly taking some time apart from and the four children) behind the wide, deep sofa.

Michael kissed her outside on the deck, right away biting her lower lip. He wrapped his hand in a length of her hair, tugging a little to let her know who was in charge. (He, erroneously, thought this was him.) He slid his mouth down to her neck, lingering in the kill spot just below her ear; good boy, he’d been well trained by wifey, though Alessandra would bet a schmillion dollars he no longer kissed Heidi Bick this way. He unbuttoned Alessandra’s blouse slowly, his pinkie just barely grazing her nipple, and Alessandra felt a pulsing between her legs that was replicated by the ruby beacon of Brant Point Light in the distance.

He had her panting—shirt open, breasts exposed, jeans unzipped—when he turned and walked back into the house.