by Kit Frick
Fighting sleep, I open Google and search for Windermere. There’s more than I expected to find. Apparently it’s been landmarked by the Herron Mills Village Historical Society, so there are a couple articles on the estate over the generations, a blog run by a Hamptons history buff with a small entry on Windermere including some cool memorabilia like a photograph of an invitation to a ball on the grounds in 1906 and photos of the house in 1927 and again in 1968.
An image search pulls up a couple more recent photos, from the early 2000s. This is what the house would have looked like when Caden was growing up there. It looks fresh, vibrant, like it did in my dream.
My eyes shutter closed, and soon I’m drifting off again, back to the Windermere balcony, back to the dream. This time, Caden is with me. He’s sitting behind me on the balcony, sliding his arms around my waist. His lanky legs are bent on either side of my body. With fingers that feel like cotton candy or clouds, he brushes my tangle of hair to one side and rests his chin on my shoulder.
His lips brush my neck, feathery at first, then more insistent. I let my spine relax into his chest, tilt my head until my lips find his. Soft and warm with the night air. We fit together, new and familiar all at once. His fingers move from my hair to my shoulder, then play lightly across my throat, down to my collarbone. They stop. He pulls away, eyes fixed on the bare gleam of my chest, above the neckline of my camisole. Instinctively, my fingers rise to meet my skin, travel like soft brush bristles across it.
“Your necklace,” he says. “It’s gone.”
And then Caden is gone too, and I’m alone on the balcony again. Behind me, vines start creeping up the shingles. A crack appears along one windowpane. I grasp for the railing in front of me, but the wood is pulpy and rotten. It disintegrates beneath my touch, and I pitch forward, gasping. I think I’m going to fall, but just then, a flock of ravens descends, the force of their wing beats driving me backward, away from the edge. I roll over, curl into myself. The first sharp jab of a beak meets my flesh.
13 NOW
September
Herron Mills, NY
You need to stop.
Martina is in class. Her phone should be in her locker, not in her backpack, and her backpack certainly shouldn’t be open beneath her desk, barely concealing the glowing screen. But she can’t be disconnected right now. It’s physically impossible. Her entire body is buzzing; the world online suddenly more real and vividly alive than anything happening within the Jefferson walls. She almost skipped school today, but Mami would have killed her—metaphorically, obviously metaphorically—and then what use would she be to anyone? Realistically, Mami would have grounded her, taken her phone. A fate much worse than sitting through Mr. Cohu’s 9:00 a.m. lecture on the Crimean War.
Her eyes stay fixed on the text, its four words a caution or threat. The fifth episode of Missing Zoe posted yesterday afternoon—the first in nearly six months, the first since Zoe is no longer missing. But her death remains a mystery, now even more than when her body was found in August. Because Anna’s role in it no longer seems to fit quite so neatly, just as Martina has been suspecting since Anna confessed. And now everyone knows the truth about how little Anna really remembers from that night—in Anna’s own words.
The episode covered a lot of ground, everything from the discovery of Zoe’s body in Parrish Lake on up to the autopsy bombshell last week. Martina included audio from interviews with multiple sources, as she always does, but it’s the interview with Anna that’s been getting all the buzz. Suddenly, Missing Zoe has skyrocketed from a modest 300 average downloads per episode to 7,700 downloads of Episode Five alone.
It’s been less than twenty-four hours. Martina can’t stop checking her stats. People are still downloading, talking, reblogging. Her audience is no longer limited to her Jefferson classmates, her neighbors in Herron Mills, the people who have grown reticently accustomed to her podcasting efforts over the seven months since the police stopped looking and she started digging. Suddenly, strangers are listening. Nationwide. And they’re going back and listening to the series from the beginning.
Martina’s mentions are exploding with tags in strangers’ opinion pieces and hot takes and theories. Anna Cicconi has been incarcerated for six weeks, and the interview with Martina is the first she’s given. She’s had a few days to process it, but now it’s really hitting: Martina got an exclusive with Zoe’s confessed killer. And that interview is changing the way people are thinking about Anna, thinking about the case. She’s innocent at best, a calculating liar at worst. Perhaps much worse than the accidental killer she confessed to being.
The interview is inviting acclaim and vitriol in equal measure, which people feel the need to express to Martina directly. In addition to her Twitter feed, people are finding their way into her inbox, her DMs, her texts. Mostly, she’s been ignoring them. Well, reading, but not responding. It’s not like she could write back even if she wanted to; until three fifteen, she’s trapped inside Jefferson. But this latest text is harder to ignore. Because it’s from Anna’s friend Kaylee. Before she can think of an appropriate response, the texts start up again.
What the hell were you thinking? Her lawyers are flipping the fuck out. Her mom too.
Anna’s still not telling the truth about NYE. WE WERE NEVER IN HERRON MILLS. WE’VE NEVER MET ZOE.
Get that through your head. This interview isn’t helping.
Martina takes a deep breath and zips her backpack all the way closed before she gets caught. What was she thinking? She was thinking that Anna hasn’t gotten a voice, not since the police took that half-assed confession filled with “I must haves” and “maybes” and “I don’t remembers.” She was thinking that if Anna is convicted for a lesser crime—or for crimes she didn’t commit at all—Zoe’s family won’t get justice, not really. Either she’ll get off too easy, or the Spanoses will get to see someone locked away, but not the right someone. And that’s not justice at all.
But she was also thinking about herself, her resolve to find the truth, her piss-poor PSAT scores, and the half-complete application to NYU saved on her laptop. For the first time since she spoke to Anna, she allows herself to consider the teensy, tiny possibility that the interview could hurt Anna’s case. Maybe she should have advised Anna to listen to her lawyers, keep her head down. Maybe she was only being selfish. The prosecution might twist Anna’s words, use them against her. Airing the interview felt right, but maybe it was also just a bit irresponsible. Maybe Martina was thinking more about herself than she was about Anna.
* * *
The day inches forward, the dismissal bell still hours away. By lunch, Episode Five has hit fifteen thousand downloads, almost doubling in the three hours since Martina slid into her seat in AP Euro. Her classmates are talking about her, but that’s nothing new. The whole country is talking about her. Martina lets the rapidly escalating download count ease her doubts: The interview is bringing new, much-needed attention to the case. Airing it was the right thing to do.
Her high is brought to a crashing low when Aster slams her cafeteria tray down on the table in front of her. Her swim-toned muscles spark like live wires beneath her skin. “I can’t believe you.”
Martina inhales the bite of turkey sandwich she’d been chewing, eyes glazing with tears. “What?” she sputters, half voice and half cough.
“Don’t ‘what’ me. You know what.” Her best friend sounds convincingly like Mami.
“I thought …” Martina’s face is twisted with hurt and confusion. “Things are finally moving forward. We’re actually getting somewhere, for the first time.”
“Fuck that,” Aster says. “Suddenly everyone’s sympathetic toward Anna? She confessed, and now she’s just taking it all back. Because of you.”
People are staring. Martina feels their eyes on the back of her neck. She lowers her voice.
“I didn’t tell her what to say. You saw the autopsy report. That story Anna told police wasn’t real, Aster. It couldn’t have hap
pened that way.”
Aster stiffens in her seat on the cafeteria bench. Her cheeks are flushed red. Martina notices with a start that the gold hoop earrings she gave Aster sophomore year—the earrings she never takes off except to swim and sleep—are gone, her best friend’s ears naked in the fluorescent cafeteria light. The message is clear: Fuck you.
“It doesn’t mean she didn’t do it,” Aster says. “Some other way.”
“I agree!” Martina almost shouts. She kept her role in the interview unbiased, she knows she did. If people came out of the episode thinking Anna is innocent, that’s the conclusion they’re drawing. She didn’t lead them one way or the other.
“Doesn’t seem that way,” Aster spits.
Martina doesn’t know what to say. She thought Aster would get it. The release of the autopsy report, Anna’s admission that she doesn’t remember what happened that night, they’re both steps in the right direction. The direction that leads toward uncovering the truth, whatever that truth might be.
“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “I just want justice for your family.”
“And how’s that going to happen now?” Aster spits. “Anna’s going to get off.”
“What if she didn’t do it, Aster?” Martina’s voice is one notch above a whisper and one notch below a hiss. “Don’t you want to know who did?”
Aster gives Martina an exasperated glare. “Because the police are following so many other leads. There are so many killers lurking in the shadows of Herron Mills.” Her fingers grip the edge of the table between them. “If Anna gets off, that’s it. Don’t you get it? She’s using the autopsy to generate doubt. She probably lied about how Zoe died from the beginning, on purpose. Because she knew the results would come back and disprove what she said. She’s playing you, Martina. She’s manipulating all of us.”
Martina is shocked into silence. She doesn’t believe what her best friend is saying, that Anna is running some kind of long con. That this is all part of a master plan. But what is abundantly clear is that Aster believes it. Her whole family must believe it. Because Aster is right about one thing—there are no other suspects, no other leads. Not yet anyway. If Anna is released, it doesn’t guarantee justice will be served. But now, maybe the police will broaden the investigation. Maybe they’ll look closer at Anna—and beyond her too. The prospect of a wrongful conviction seems like the worst possible outcome, and it’s more likely now that won’t happen.
For the first time, she realizes her friend doesn’t see it that way. Anna has become the Spanos family’s only hope. For answers, truth, justice. It doesn’t make sense; they’re not thinking clearly. But that’s what’s happening. She’s read Aster’s behavior all wrong in the week since the autopsy results came back. The withdrawn looks at school, the texts she hasn’t responded to, the claims she’s too busy to hang out. Aster hasn’t been mulling over what the report might mean in the same way that Martina has. She’s been fuming. Because she’s sure Anna’s lying. And now she thinks Martina has turned the public’s sympathy toward Anna, snatched justice away from them.
Martina is silent for a long time. Her appetite is gone. She chews absently on the tip of her long ponytail, a nervous childhood habit she hasn’t indulged in years. Before she can come up with something, anything to say, she looks across the table and realizes that Aster is gone.
14 THEN
July
Herron Mills, NY
THE SUN WAKES ME early Friday morning. I’m still out by the pool, where I must have fallen asleep, and my thigh is red and sore where a long splinter from the lounge chair jabbed through my skin in the night. I’m barely out of the shower and dressed when Emilia knocks on the door of the pool house to remind me that Paisley’s leaving in an hour and we need to finish getting her ready for her trip.
My mind spins. Paisley’s trip?
I play along until I get to the main house. When Emilia ducks into her office, I casually ask Paisley where she’s going. It turns out she’s spending the Fourth in the Catskills with the Paulson-Gosses, and I’m going to have a few days off over the holiday weekend. I try to act unsurprised, but Paisley is clearly onto me.
“We talked about it at MoMA,” she whispers. “And Mom went through the summer schedule last week, remember?”
“Sure.” I grin, a flimsy disguise. “I just forgot which weekend, that’s all.”
Forty minutes later, I’m standing out front with Emilia, getting Paisley settled in the van with Raychel, Kyle, and their moms and wondering what I’m going to do with myself for almost four whole days. Paisley doesn’t return until Monday night. It’s more time than I know what to do with. When Emilia has checked Paisley’s luggage for sunscreen and vitamins for the third time, Elizabeth clears her throat and assures her that Paisley will be fine, that they’ll call when they get there. Emilia relents and presses the button on the van door. We both wave as Hilary navigates around the fountain and down the Clovelly Cottage drive.
Back inside, I lean against the soapstone counter in the kitchen, helping myself to a yogurt from Emilia’s breakfast spread and accidentally eavesdropping on her phone conversation with Tom. They’re spending Saturday and Sunday in Amagansett with friends, something I was also supposed to know. She wants him to leave the office early, try to beat the holiday weekend rush. My mind trips back to last Friday, to Tom’s car parked in front of the Coopers’ house two hours before he joined us for dinner. I’d forgotten all about that, but now I wonder what time he usually gets home for the weekend.
I rinse out my bowl in the sink and wander out to the pool deck. My fingers twitch against my phone in my back pocket, but it’s too early to text Caden. It hasn’t even been a full twelve hours since I left the film room. Since we kissed, I catch myself thinking. But Caden didn’t kiss me. It felt so real, but that was definitely my imagination running wild. I press my fingers into my temples. Much as I want to see him again, I could probably use a little break from Windermere. A day to clear my head. Maybe I’ll take a swim. Read my book. Walk into town with my sketchbook and post up on a bench for a while.
Before I can decide, two things happen at once: my phone vibrates, and Emilia calls out to me from inside the house. “Anna, package!”
My new clothes. I hurry through the main house, to the front door, to collect the box from the UPS driver.
Back in the pool house, I try on everything I ordered. Three sundresses and a long blue skirt, all featuring pockets. Two new tops. Two floppy sun hats. I’m so wrapped up in my own private fashion show, I forget about my unread text until my phone buzzes again.
Forgot to tell you we’re away this weekend. Mom’s friends in the city.
Movie night was fun, let’s do it again when we’re back.
Huh. I stare down at the screen, disappointment unfurling slowly inside my chest.
Absolutely. Have fun!
Who leaves the Hamptons to go to the city for the Fourth? Suddenly these four days of freedom seem unbearably long. My phone pings again.
Unlikely.
I hang my new dresses in the closet and decide a trip into town is what I need. I’ll do some sketching, maybe grab lunch at that sushi place Martina and Aster mentioned last week. Make a day of it.
* * *
I’m on the last chapter of my book and three bites into my tuna avocado roll when my phone lights up. I lift it from the table, hoping for an update from Caden, maybe even news that they’re not leaving until tomorrow, but no such luck.
Guess where I am.
I take the bait.
Brighton Beach boardwalk, the cafe with the black and white checkered tablecloths.
Kaylee’s reply is a selfie. I squint to make sense of the background. Train seat, flash of green outside the window. Definitely not the subway. She’s on the LIRR.
I get into Bridgehampton at 2:15. Pick me up.
It’s not a question. Christ, I didn’t even remember I had the Fourth off. But suddenly our conversation comes flooding back: Emi
lia must have told me during the interview, just like Paisley said, because when Kaylee was reaming me out for taking this job, I mentioned this weekend, dangled it like an olive branch. The memory was there, and then gone. And now it’s back again. My stomach does a little flip.
My mind has been a jumble these past few weeks, but Kaylee’s is a steel trap when it comes to promises. She could have texted me to confirm, but why ruin the surprise? I grimace into my miso soup and wonder how long she’s planning to stay.
* * *
Two hours later, I’m parked in the station lot in Emilia’s car, waiting for Kaylee’s train. I apologized profusely to Emilia for the last-minute houseguest, but she was thankfully distracted by her own weekend plans and didn’t seem to care as much as I thought she might. Then again, she hasn’t met Kaylee.
When the train pulls in at 2:24, I find myself white-knuckling the steering wheel, even though the car is turned off. Maybe it’s better I didn’t know she was coming. I would have spent all week being anxious; instead, all that anxiety has been compressed into the last two hours. Without Kaylee, responsibility hasn’t exactly come easy, but I’ve been managing. Doing my best. Who will I be with her here to remind me? I grit my teeth and throw open the car door.
I hear Kaylee almost before I see her. “Excuse me, coming through, on a mission here.” She’s jostling through a crowd of people at the mouth of the ramp, amber-gold strands of waist-length hair flying out behind her, purple duffle as big as she is slung over one shoulder. It came with my suitcase. Kaylee borrowed it for a school trip in ninth or tenth grade, and it became part of her permanent collection.