Book excerpt: "The Note" by Alafair Burke

We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.In Alafair Burke's "The Note" (Knopf), a new thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of "The Wife," a prank played by three women on vacation in the Hamptons causes them to get caught up in a police investigation over a missing person.Read an excerpt below. "The Note" by Alafair Burke $26 at Amazon Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.

Try Audible for free It was meant to be a harmless prank.Not even a prank, not initially.An inside joke, only for the three of them.

But now she was locking her apartment door behind two departing police officers.She had managed to sound appropriately earnest but unworried when they began asking questions.After all, why should May Hanover, of all people, be nervous around police? May was the good girl, always.

The one who only needed to be told once by a teacher to open a book to a specific page.The teenager who drove strictly within the limits of her learner's permit.

Even her pug, Gomez, seemed to understand at an instinctive level why he needed to break away from his neighbor buddies to ride the building's service elevator while they strutted brazenly with their humans through the lobby.May, simply put, was a rule follower.A rule enforcer, in fact.

It was a trait that had helped her succeed in life, but, as she had learned, could also lead to trouble.Josh emerged from the bedroom where he'd gone to give her privacy when the police arrived.

Gomez waddled slightly behind him."Was that about Roland Shaw?"Shaw was the man she'd convicted in her final in-person trial as an assistant district attorney after he was found breaking into his next victim's apartment.

"How'd you know?" Could a question be a lie? That one probably counted.So many lies since she'd gotten home yesterday from her long weekend in the Hamptons."Tha...