The Hotel Nantucket (43)

“Oh,” Blond Sharon says. “Have you been checking?”



Officer Dixon gets a call at four o’clock in the afternoon about a man asleep in his car at Dionis Beach.

“So what?” Dixon says to Sheila in dispatch.

“I guess he’s been sleeping in his car in the parking lot the past three days,” Sheila says. “Some mommy noticed him and thinks he’s a potential predator.”

Dixon takes a breath. A man sleeping in his car is what passes for crime on Nantucket; he supposes he should be glad. He climbs into his cruiser.

When he arrives at Dionis, he sees the man and the car in question—some guy in his early fifties in a 2010 Honda Pilot with Connecticut plates and a WHAT WOULD JIM CALHOUN DO? bumper sticker. The back window sports a decal that says PARENT OF AN AVON MIDDLE SCHOOL HONOR STUDENT.

Threatening stuff. Dixon wonders if he’ll need to call for backup.

He approaches the open car window and sees the guy in the driver’s seat, head slumped back, snoring away. He’s wearing a white polo shirt and swim trunks; his bifocals have slid down to the end of his nose, and there’s a copy of Lee Child’s Blue Moon splayed open in the console next to an open Red Bull. Dixon backs away because he feels like he’s intruding on the guy in his bedroom—and then he notices the open shaving kit on the passenger seat and a hand towel drying on the dashboard. A peek into the back seat reveals a gaping suitcase.

Is this guy…Dixon glances over at the public bathrooms. Dionis is the only beach on Nantucket that has showers. Is this guy living in his car?

“Excuse me, sir,” Dixon says, jostling the guy’s shoulder. “May I see your license and registration, please?”



Richard Decameron, age fifty-four, of Avon, Connecticut, here on the island to work for the summer at the Hotel Nantucket.

“So you’re not…living in this car?” Dixon asks. “Because that’s what it looks like.”

Decameron tries to laugh this off, but it isn’t quite convincing. “No, no, I live at the hotel.”

“Why are you sleeping here in the parking lot? We’ve had reports that you’ve been here the past three days.”

“I’m enjoying the beach,” Decameron says. “I take an early swim, get a shower, read my book, and sometimes I conk out.” He offers Dixon a friendly smile. “Is that against the law?”

He’s “enjoying the beach” by sleeping in the parking lot? Something doesn’t add up. “What’s your position at the hotel?” Dixon asks.

“I work the front desk,” Decameron says.

Dixon nods. Nothing about this guy screams predator or even vagrant. He seems like a regular guy—a Huskies basketball fan, the father of an honor student.

“So tell me something,” Dixon says. “Have you seen the ghost?”

“Not yet,” Decameron says. “She’s playing hard to get.”

Dixon chuckles and slaps the roof of the car. “All right, I’m not going to issue a ticket. Tomorrow, though, you’d better find a different beach.”

“Will do, Officer,” Decameron says. “Thank you.”



Lyric Layton is in her kitchen at seven a.m. making a beet-and-blueberry smoothie after doing yoga on her private beach when she hears a light rapping on her front door. Anne Boleyn, Lyric’s chocolate British shorthair, rises and places her paws on Lyric’s shin, which is something she does only when she’s anxious. Lyric scoops up the cat and goes to see who on earth is knocking at this hour.

It’s Heidi Bick from next door. The Laytons and the Bicks have plans to go to Galley Beach for dinner that night. Lyric wonders if Heidi has somehow heard her news; Lyric was planning on telling Heidi at dinner if Heidi didn’t guess when Lyric ordered sparkling water instead of champagne. But then she sees the stricken look on Heidi’s face.

“Are you the only one up?” Heidi whispers. “I need to talk.”

“Yes, of course,” Lyric says. Her husband, Ari, and the three boys would sleep until noon every day of the summer if she’d let them. “Come on in.”

Lyric leads Heidi into the kitchen, offers her a smoothie—no, thank you, she can’t manage any—and then Lyric opens the slider so they can sit out on the deck. The rising sun spangles the water of Nantucket Sound; the early-morning ferry is gliding past Brant Point Light and out of the harbor.

“I think Michael is having an affair,” Heidi says. She gives a strangled little laugh. “I can’t believe I just said those words. I sound like someone on Netflix. I mean, it’s Michael. We’re Michael and Heidi Bick. This isn’t supposed to happen.”

Well, well, well, Lyric thinks. “Whoa, honey, start at the beginning. What gives you this idea?”

“I’m so stupid!” Heidi says. “Michael has been living up here since April. He told me he and his coworker Rafe were making moves to splinter off and start their own company. He chose to work remotely so he had the necessary privacy. Did I ask any questions? No! I took him at his word—and I was happy for some time to myself. Meanwhile, he was up here with someone else!”

To anyone other than Lyric Layton, this news about Michael might have come as a jaw-dropping surprise. Michael and Heidi Bick were widely considered to be “the perfect couple”—everyone said it here on Nantucket and back in Greenwich as well. But Lyric has gotten certain…vibes from Michael. Last summer when Lyric and Ari and Michael and Heidi were at dinner at the Deck, Lyric caught Michael staring at her from across the table. She thought she was imagining it—a lot of rosé had been consumed—but then he touched her leg with his foot. Lyric had quickly tucked her legs under her chair. She said nothing to Ari or to Heidi because she was sure Michael was just being a naughty drunk. Lyric considers herself an excellent friend—she remembers birthdays, she takes extra carpool shifts, she polishes other queens’ crowns—so she would never, ever entertain the notion of an affair with Michael. But…if she’s painfully honest, she would admit that there have been times when she was practicing yoga on the beach and wondered if Michael Bick was in his master bathroom, fresh out of the shower, watching her from the window.