Page 51 of The Getaway

“Oh, here we go again,” Juliet said.

“What? Juliet, he’s not here. The last time any of us saw him, he threatened to kill Lincoln. And Lincoln has your necklace in his hand!” Marshall said.

“Maybe they both did it. Maybe they held him under the water together, and then Josh fled the scene and left Juliet to take the blame,” Hazel said sharply.

“You guys, stop,” Marley warned.

“I wouldn’t put it past Josh to take care of himself at the expense of Juliet,” Marshall said. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Remember Bermuda?”

Juliet groaned. Suzy had totally forgotten about Bermuda.

“This is a little different than Bermuda,” Sean admonished.

“Yeah, but that was totally messed up,” Suzy said.

A couple of years ago, Josh and Juliet had been invited to the wedding of one of Blue Dragon’s biggest R & B stars, on Bermuda. If the socials were to be believed, it had been a lovely weekend full of teary-eyed speeches, bubbly drinks, and dancing in pink sand, but it had ended with a flight that was diverted to Georgia when the radar had gone out in Newark. Once the flight was on the ground in Georgia, at 2:00 a.m., the airline had informed everyone that they wouldn’t be able to fly them to New York. But they did have . . . shuttle buses. It would take at least twelve hours to get back to New York.

According to the story Juliet had told Suzy, Marley, and Lily later, Josh had been freaking out from the get-go because he had an early-morning meeting with the CEO of Blue Dragon to pitch some new music festival he and his team had cooked up. Texting everyone he knew, he’d found an Atlanta-based rapper with his own plane, but the man was a paranoid control freak and had said that the only person he’d allow in his space was Josh. Juliet was not welcome.

So what had Josh done? He’d gotten on the plane, no questions asked, not a backward glance to be gleaned, and left his wife on the tarmac in Georgia with a bunch of strangers at now three o’clock in the morning. Juliet had arrived back at their Upper East Side apartment the next day, packed a bag, and gone to Milan by herself for two weeks to punish him. Suffice it to say a lot of money had been spent on boho-chic couture.

“Oh my God, do you even hear yourselves?” Juliet cried. “It wasn’t that big of a deal! I got home fine. And you’re talking about your friend. My husband!”

“Yeah, for all that’s worth to you,” Hazel sniped. “You’re a lying, slutty little cheater.”

“Hey!” Marley interjected.

“What? It’s all true!”

“Shut up!” Juliet shouted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Wintour started barking, jumping up on all fours on the chair. Suzy picked her up again and quieted her.

“Well, I do know you slept with my husband. And I know he has something that belongs to you on his dead body,” Hazel responded, pointing behind her toward the hallway. “What do you have to say about that?”

Juliet’s bottom lip trembled. “I—”

“No! You know what? I don’t even want to hear it!” Hazel cried. “I want you out of my house, you whore!”

“Hazel!” Marley said.

“Don’t!” Hazel snapped. “She’s evil. And she ruined my life!”

“Okay, even if that’s true,” Suzy said, throwing a placating I don’t think it’s true look at Juliet. Even though maybe it was at least a little bit true. “You can’t throw her out. There’s a deadly storm happening outside, remember? She has nowhere to go.”

“As if that’s my problem,” Hazel said, turning her back on Juliet. “I can’t even look at her. And her bastard kid is sharing a room with mine! I can’t do any of this!” Suddenly, Hazel burst into tears. Not just tears—loud, racking sobs. Marshall went and put his arms around her, trying to help hold her together, but it was clear to everyone that she was completely falling apart.

And then, Suzy felt a shoe drop. It had taken her a minute, but—

“Hazel, how do you even know about Juliet and Lincoln?” she asked.

Hazel paused and hiccuped. She wiped her face on the short sleeve of her sundress. “He told me,” she said, looking down at the floor and sniffling. “After everyone was gone. He told me about him and her and . . . the baby.” Another sniffle. “He did a paternity test with some hair he swiped after the baby-naming. Beckham really is his kid.”

He really was going to cut me off.

“Well, then doesn’t that give you a motive to kill him?” Juliet demanded shrilly.

Hazel’s face snapped up. “I swear to God, if I have to look at you for one more minute, I’ll—”