As Max compared the postcards to the date books, she realized that something was off. There were several dates that didn’t match up with postmarks. The postcard from New York City—that was sent nine years ago. William was supposed to fly to New York to stay with Max for a month after he’d graduated from college, but he canceled it because Max was still in Miami looking for clues in Karen’s disappearance.
Then, a year later, Brooks Revere had just divorced his wife and taken his girlfriend to France. William refused to go. Brooks went with the Talbots. There weren’t details on who in the Talbot family had gone. Andy? Andy and William often traveled together, especially when they were younger, before William married. Max didn’t know why, but she’d much rather have her ex-boyfriend be the villain in this picture than her cousin. Somehow, it made the situation more tolerable. How bad did that make her?
The last postcard was sent six years ago from Ireland. William was definitely in Ireland at the time—he and Caitlin were both there, on their honeymoon.
It was the only time period where Carrie allegedly sent three postcards closer than several months apart. France. Italy. Ireland.
There were seventeen postcards total. William had been to half the locations where the cards were sent from. But Caitlin had also been to many of them … and could easily have sent them. Caitlin had been in Australia the same week as William and Andy and Max. The only one that didn’t make any sense was the first postcard, from England.
Did Andy use Caitlin? Or could Caitlin have planned all this? Was she so twisted and methodical that she forged postcards from Carrie and sent them to her family? So her mother and sister would think she was alive and living it up in Europe? How could she be so calculating?
Except … Max had known Caitlin as long as she’d known anyone in Atherton. Caitlin had been the competitive girl. She’d been the angry one, always finding a way to embarrass Max or Lindy or any of the other girls they hung out with. And she’d always been infatuated with William.
The more Max thought about Caitlin Talbot Revere, the more she knew she was guilty. All the years Max studied crime and criminals, all the books she’d devoured and psychologists she’d interviewed trying to understand the psychopathic mind—and her cousin was married to one. Why hadn’t she seen it before?
Maybe she had—in the small ways. She hadn’t completely been joking when she commented to William that Caitlin would put hemlock in her salad. Caitlin had that manner, that aura that she wanted to hurt Max, and would if she could get away with it. Max had always dismissed it as jealousy—Caitlin was jealous of Max’s independence, of her relationship with William, of everything others had that Caitlin didn’t. Money couldn’t buy real friends, and it couldn’t buy class.
Proving Caitlin was a killer was going to be difficult. Not everyone kept records as meticulous as Max’s grandmother. There might not be travel records going back more than a decade. And then there was the question of the first postcard, when Max knew that William and her grandmother had gone to England together.
Did Caitlin simply fly to Europe herself? Or maybe she’d given the card to William to mail. Why wouldn’t he have questioned it?
Because, as Eleanor noted in her date books, William was intellectually smart, but had little to no common sense. He believed what people told him.
There was no proof that William killed Carrie Voss. Nick didn’t have access to these date books, and even if he did—even if Max did her responsibility and told him about them—there were holes. The stigma of being a murderer would be held over William’s head for the rest of his life.
There was no proof that Andy had killed Carrie Voss. But that made more sense—he’d admitted to being at Lindy’s house, to moving her body to the pool. How could he have been there and not seen the murderer?
Maybe he’d moved Lindy’s body and Carrie had seen him. He killed her to cover it up. Based on the notes in Carrie’s house, she and Lindy had been in contact during the weeks prior to their deaths.
But Andy was smart—very smart. He would have thought to check the blueprints of the sports complex before deciding whether he needed to move the remains. Wouldn’t he? That had been over Thanksgiving—where was he that weekend?
The door opened and Eleanor walked in wearing a shimmery silver-blue cocktail dress with a matching wrap. She stopped and stared at Max. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to prove that William didn’t kill Lindy.”
“You’re a little late.”
That’s when she saw how pale her grandmother was. How red her eyes were.
Max went to her side. “Grandmother—”
Eleanor walked around to her desk slowly. “He was just arrested. The police searched his car—with his permission because he said he had nothing to hide—and found evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Dirt. I don’t know what that means. I thought we had the best defense attorney—Maxine, William will not survive in prison.”
Max put the date book she was reading back on the shelf and took out the book for last year. She opened it up to the day Jason Hoffman died. William was in town. Dammit. She put it back.
“Does William own a gun?”
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t like guns.”
That didn’t mean anything. People who didn’t like guns used them all the time.
“I need to know something, Grandmother, because I’m going to take a huge leap and hope it works.”
Eleanor looked very old in that moment.
“What, Maxine?” she said quietly.
“Do you believe William killed Lindy? Do you think he’s capable of killing a woman in a rage, then methodically burying her body and keeping the secret for the last thirteen years? Do you think that he’s capable of shooting an innocent man in cold blood because he was caught removing the bones of the woman he killed thirteen years ago?”
“I don’t think anyone is capable of all that.”
“People are. Of that, and worse. So you’re saying, you don’t know.”