Friends Like These: A Novel

Dedication

For the friends who saved me long ago.

For the ones who still do.

Epigraph

No friendship is an accident.

O. Henry, Heart of the West

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Contents

Prologue

Alice

Ten Years Later: Detective Julia Scutt

Maeve

Detective Julia Scutt

Stephanie

Two Weeks Earlier

Keith

Alice

Detective Julia Scutt

Jonathan

Detective Julia Scutt

Derrick

Two Weeks (and Two Days) Earlier

Detective Julia Scutt

Alice

Maeve

Detective Julia Scutt

Stephanie

Detective Julia Scutt

Alice

Keith

Detective Julia Scutt

Two Weeks (and Four Days) Earlier

Jonathan

Detective Julia Scutt

Alice

Derrick

Detective Julia Scutt

Maeve

Two Weeks (and Five Days) Earlier

Detective Julia Scutt

Stephanie

Detective Julia Scutt

Keith

Jonathan

Detective Julia Scutt

Alice

Derrick

Three Weeks Earlier

Detective Julia Scutt

Six Months Later

One Year Later: Detective Julia Scutt

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Kimberly McCreight

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

You were the one who started it. So, in a way, you’re responsible for how it ended. That’s ridiculous, you’d say. And maybe it is unfair to blame you, under the circumstances. But at this point, all I can do is tell the truth. Anyway, no one could have predicted the exact way things would unfold. Certainly not me. All the heartbreak, all those lives with so much potential, gone in a flash.

Too much loyalty—that’s the real problem. Best friends are supposed to stand by you, no matter what. They disregard your occasionally disagreeable nature and off-putting eccentricities and accept the whole of you. That’s the beauty of real friendship. But close friends can also let you get away with too much. And what feels like total acceptance, what masquerades as unconditional love, can turn toxic. Especially if what your friend really wants is a partner in crime, someone to excuse their own bad behavior. Because letting you be your worst self just so you can be terrible together is cruelty, not kindness. And it’s got nothing to do with love.

Not that I ever thought you were cruel. I thought you were funny and smart and so gorgeous that it made my chest ache. God, how I loved you. Not in a sexual way, I just worshipped you. And, let’s face it, you never did love me back in quite the same way. Maybe I decided I couldn’t accept that. Maybe I realized that it wasn’t actually love you were showing me, no matter how many times you called it that. Pity perhaps, but not love. And so I chose me over us. Because while the us felt good in the moment, I knew it would destroy me eventually.

But I am only one person. I won’t take the fall for everything that’s happened. And when you have a group of friends like these—beautiful and dynamic and smart and opinionated—things can get very complicated. Especially with the endless overlapping connections and all that history, there are so many ways that desire can go sideways.

It’s like gripping a tinderbox. Sooner or later, it’s bound to explode in your hands.

Alice

It was that girl in my art history class who told me. The one with the stringy brown hair and the ironic princess T-shirts who’s really sweet. But also really annoying. Arielle. Or Erin. Or something. She started talking at me on our way out of class. She does that a lot. Always looking for an angle into my group of friends. We’re that way at Vassar: sought after. Of course, people only see our impeccable exterior—our beautiful faces and just-so clothes, the way we flow like floodwater into a room, claiming every inch as our own.

Did you hear? Her breath was hot and damp against my ear and smelled of spearmint gum and onions. They found a body. She sounded scared but a little excited, too. The corners of her mouth were twitching.

What are you talking about? I asked. Where?

Right in front of Main Building.

Who is it? I asked.

Her face brightened. She liked being the one who knew something. The person with the inside scoop. She probably thought it would be a foot in the door with the cool kids.

He doesn’t go to school here. They think maybe somebody killed him. A beat later she admitted she’d made that part up. Actually, they think he fell from the roof of Main Building. That he’s the burglar.

Dead. Dead. Dead. Of course he was by the time they found him. I tried to suck in a mouthful of air, but it was no use. This would be a thing we could never take back. Something that could not be fixed. Somebody was dead, and it was all our fault.

I already knew: it would haunt us forever.

Ten Years Later

Detective Julia Scutt

Sunday, 4:27 a.m.

I pull my car to a stop behind the second cruiser parked at the top of the long, curved driveway. One still has its lights on, flickering against the trees. More cars are at the scene a couple miles down the road. All the cars we’ve got will be out on this one. That’s not a whole lot in Kaaterskill, a small Catskills town that’s a thirty-minute drive from its namesake waterfall.

Thus far the details of the accident, or whatever it is, are scarce. There’s a passenger dead and the driver is missing, injured presumably, given the blood on the open driver’s door. But the vehicle is deep in the woods, too far away from the point of impact. Suggests something other than an accident.

So while the patrolmen and the search teams comb the woods, looking for the missing driver, I’ve come here in the wee hours of Sunday morning. To this house where their friends are. Old friends from college, I’ve been told. Weekenders. That they’re weekenders would be obvious from the house, a high-end remodel—spires and turrets and a wraparound porch, all gleaming. Even the driveway’s smooth, round gravel looks pricey. They’re up from the city—Brooklyn, Manhattan, doesn’t matter. The weekend hipsters are all the same—millennials with an excess of money, liberal politics, and particular tastes. Locals hate them, but, man, do they love the money they spend.

Weekenders being involved complicates the investigation, especially if whatever happened turns out to be more than your average car wreck. We do have our share of crime these days, most of it starting or ending in opioids; they’re everywhere in the Catskills. And if somebody up for the weekend from Manhattan is dead, the New York Times will be all over it. Boss sure as hell doesn’t want that.

As I open the car door, it starts to rain. Drops, heavy and big as marbles, pelt the windshield. Shit. Rain’s not good if we need to resort to dogs.

I square my shoulders as I make my way up the driveway. It’s hard to establish authority on a scene when you’re a woman, harder still when you look like a cheerleader with a gun—some DWI actually said that to me once. But I’ve got excellent instincts, and I’m not afraid to sink my teeth in until I knock against bone. That’s what the lieutenant used to say. That was before he blew his head off in his driveway while his wife slept inside—opioids don’t discriminate.

Next month, Chief Seldon decides who takes over the detective bureau. As far as I’m concerned, that person should be me. I’ve got the highest clearance rate. But Seldon’s got his doubts. When you’re a woman, anything questionable in your past—even things that weren’t your fault—and unstable gets written onto you like a tattoo.

I take one last breath before I open the front door. I’ve got this, whatever it is. I know I do. Just so long as I keep myself in the here and now.

Maeve

Friday, 7:05 p.m.

Through the car window the trees were finally coming into focus, first the branches and then the individual leaves, already burnt orange at their edges. For nearly two hours, the woods had been nothing more than brown and green streaks as the three of us hurtled past, headed upstate on the twisty Taconic.

I’d been thinking of the first time I drove that way to Vassar. How nervous I’d felt—nervous and alive. College was a new beginning, a chance finally to be anybody I wanted to be. And I’d seized it, hadn’t I? I’d learned so much about myself, not to mention getting a world-class education. But most important, I’d made this incredible group of friends. Where would any of us be now without one another? A complicated question always, hindsight and history being what they are. But complicated for us especially. What was never complicated, though, was our love. We were fiercely devoted to each other from the very start.

That was probably because none of us had great relationships with our real families. I was the only actual orphan, though. Orphan by choice—I was honest about that. I’d cut my parents out of my life because they were emotionally and physically abusive—I’d shared a few of the more shocking details. But my friends never judged. They accepted me completely, even though the estrangement had left me desperate for financial aid and constantly short on cash.

But right now we weren’t headed back to Vassar’s campus, despite the familiar switchbacks of the Taconic. We were going an unfortunate additional fifty miles north, deep into the Catskill Mountains. Jonathan had bought a weekend house in Kaaterskill, of all places. Not somewhere I would have ever chosen to go. But there was absolutely no opting out of this weekend. It was all hands on deck for Keith.

So here I was, ready to do what I was best at: looking on the bright side. And the bright side of this weekend was that we were going to get Keith help. That I might also have the chance to pump Jonathan for a little information about Bates would just be a side benefit.

Jonathan had introduced us. He’d met Bates back at Horace Mann, which meant that I had Jonathan to thank for both my boyfriend and my very, very good job in public relations at the Cheung Charitable Foundation, an offshoot of his father’s hedge fund.

I think my friends were convinced that I was with Bates because of his money. That I was trying to claw back the life of luxury I’d lost when I severed ties with my parents. But Bates had given up Goldman Sachs to work at the Robin Hood foundation. He volunteered at the Boys & Girls Club. I’d even signed up myself, thanks to him. Being with Bates had already made me a better person, and he hadn’t judged me for the stories I told him about the brutality of my childhood. Because he was a kind, nonjudgmental person. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe I could really be myself with someone. I wasn’t all the way there yet, but I was working on it.

I pressed the button in the center console to slide the passenger window down and breathed in the Hudson Valley air, which smelled of distant fireplaces and dried leaves.

I can’t believe you’re getting married, I said, looking over at Jonathan. His intense brown eyes were fixed on the road, lips pressed together. Oh, that had come out wrong. Negative almost. I reached over and put a hand on his. I mean, I’m happy for you.

That was true—I was happy for Jonathan. He deserved to finally be with someone worthy of his generosity. Because Jonathan could be too generous, even with us. I’d warned him countless times: giving people too much all but guarantees they’ll never really love you.

Jonathan smiled, but it seemed a little forced. I’m happy for me, too.

When is the actual wedding, anyway, and where? I asked, digging for my phone in my oversize Hammitt bag—nice but not too flashy.

Flashy was tactless when you worked at a foundation. Bates was right about that. I typed out a quick text—Miss you already—and hit send. Bates had been working so hard this past week. It made complete sense that he hadn’t invited me back to his place after dinner last night. Still, it was hard to shake the queasy feeling I’d woken up with. Especially now that I hadn’t heard from him all day. It didn’t help that I was already on edge. I still couldn’t shake that anonymous email. I just needed to stop fixating—it was the only solution.

We haven’t set an exact date. In May or June, I think. Jonathan waved a hand. And in the city probably. You know my parents: God forbid they leave Manhattan.

"You think May or June? Stephanie asked from the back seat, finally off the conference call that had kept us largely silenced up front for nearly an hour. You’d better get the details nailed down, Jonathan, or the New York City wedding machine will eat you alive."

I was a tiny bit jealous at the thought of Jonathan planning a wedding. Bates and I had only been together four months—way too early to be thinking about a proposal, obviously. But maybe I was hoping for a little forward momentum. That was the problem with getting so much of what you wanted—you just ended up wanting more.

Peter and I like to be spontaneous, Jonathan said.

That makes sense, I said, though I wasn’t sure it exactly did.

How much farther is your house anyway? Stephanie asked. Because no offense, but it’s like a submarine back here. Did you know you were paying more to get your passengers extra carsick?

Stephanie had been razzing Jonathan ever since he pulled up in the brand-new Tesla. The expensive car was somewhat out of character. Jonathan didn’t usually advertise his wealth, which even by Vassar’s privileged standards was eye-popping. Jonathan’s father believed that earning money was far more important than letting people know you had it. Which I think was his real issue with Jonathan: he wasn’t ambitious enough, especially compared to his completely lovely, but thoroughly hard-charging older sisters.

We’re less than fifteen minutes away. Jonathan adjusted his hands slightly on the wheel. He was definitely worried—about the weekend, about Keith. We all were.

Okay, but I’m warning you, I haven’t eaten all day. Stephanie’s low blood sugar had a way of turning her prickly but always funny observations into barbs that actually drew blood.

I looked down at my hundred-dollar acrylics, resting on my perfect weekend slacks—Theory, on sale from Saks. In college, Stephanie had sometimes scolded me about being too focused on appearances—expensive things, beautiful people—and maybe I had been a little superficial. But back then I didn’t quite look the way I did now, and all I could ever think was: What a privilege to be above caring about such things. Sometimes I still felt that way. I mean, look at Jonathan—he didn’t care about making money because he didn’t have to.

I focused again on the view out the window. In every direction, trees and more trees, their gnarled trunks and branches full of spectacular leaves crowding out the sun. Lovely, but a little ominous. I put my phone back in my bag.

We should use the time we have left to, you know, strategize, Jonathan said. Derrick and Keith can’t be far behind us.

Strategize? Stephanie scoffed.

When I glanced back, she was sunk low in the back seat, the sleeves of her fashionable suit jacket pushed up, heels kicked off. Her arms were crossed tight in a pretty good impersonation of a sullen child. Stephanie had always been as tall and striking as a supermodel, though, and going natural these days only enhanced her large amber eyes, high cheekbones, and light brown skin. But Stephanie’s beauty had always been of the absurdly unattainable variety: pointless to covet. Though sometimes, I still did.

Jonathan eyed Stephanie in the rearview. If this is going to work, we really need to be a united front.

We’re united, we’re united, she said. Keith obviously has to go to rehab. There’s no doubt about that.

And we’ll get him to go, I said, sounding way more confident than I felt. After all, I’d been the one who’d talked Keith into it the last time. I saw the look in his eye when he said it was a one-time-only deal. He’d meant it.

Wait, what the hell is that? Stephanie pointed a long finger between us at the left-hand side of the windshield.

Set up on a hill back from the road was an ancient-looking farmhouse that had completely collapsed in on itself. What remained was a hull of splintered boards, broken windows, peeling picket fencing—all of it left there to decompose. Almost as menacing was the run-down building in front, low and rectangular and tilting to the left, like a short stretch of makeshift motel rooms jerry-rigged from plywood and other scrap. People were living there, too, from the looks of it: some kind of light inside, a door slightly ajar. There were clothes strewn about outside and a big pile of garbage at one end—bottles, cans, food containers.

As we passed, I caught sight of a large bonfire around back. Two thin, hunched figures stood nearby in the glow.

I can’t believe people are living there, I said. I mean—that’s so sad.

Jonathan shrugged. "There are a lot of opioids up here, and not everyone has friends like us to swoop in. Or the means to pay for rehab. Keith doesn’t have the means to pay for rehab."

I’ve got to be honest, Jonathan, this is less charming than I pictured, Stephanie said. Kind of like a horror movie, and you know the Black friend always dies first in those.

No one’s dying, I said. Don’t even joke about that.

Um, not really joking, she went on. "Remind me again, Jonathan, why you bought a place here, when you could have used your piles of money to buy one, I don’t know, literally anywhere else?"

Funny, Maeve asked the same thing—more than once. He shot a look in my direction.

Hey, I was only trying to help, I said, lifting my hands. I wanted to make sure you’d thought it through, that’s all. It is kind of off the beaten path up here. And that was absolutely true.

Peter and I talked about Montauk, but that’s always such a scene.

So you opted for meth alley instead? Stephanie muttered.

Our friends, Justin and Bill, just bought a house a few towns over. You know, they own that restaurant on Perry Street? When Jonathan glanced over, I nodded. But I’d never heard Jonathan mention a Justin or a Bill before. Anyway, they’ve been married forever.

They were probably more Peter’s friends. It wasn’t that Jonathan was antisocial, but compared to life-of-the-party Peter, with his washboard abs and irresistible surfer charm, everyone was an introvert.

The trees were giving way to houses now that we were approaching town, set close together and on the small side, but at least not falling down. There was a Cumberland Farms gas station up on the right. As we slowed to a stop at a red light in front, a wiry old white guy standing at the pumps wearing a baseball hat and a long-sleeved Gatorade T-shirt glared menacingly at our car. When we met eyes, I looked away.

You know, their coffee isn’t actually half bad, Jonathan said brightly. When Peter told me that, I laughed. And we got into a fight about me being a snob. I don’t know, maybe I am. Anyway, Peter was right about the coffee. The people who work there are nice, too. Unfortunately, not everyone in Kaaterskill is so friendly to weekenders.

What does that mean? I asked, unable to resist reaching in to check my phone for a reply from Bates. Nothing yet.

The locals aren’t the most progressive bunch, that’s all, and weekenders, myself included, can be demanding and tone-deaf. Like this car. A flicker of emotion passed over Jonathan’s face. He shook his head. Driving it up here is kind of like waving an asshole flag.

At least you’re up here spending money, Stephanie said diplomatically. They’ve got to want that.

They’d like the upside without the downside. Like everybody, Jonathan said. "Anyway, we’re not far from the house now, and it is charming, Stephanie. Wait until you see the fireplaces."

Okay, but you better have snacks, she said. And if I spot one MAGA hat, I’m hightailing it out of Dodge.

We turned left down the main street, lined with charming shops—Perch Pilates, Patisserie Lenox, De Marchin Antiques, TEA: A Salon. The wood-frame storefronts were brightly painted and had cute, funky signage. But in between there were darkened doorways and boarded-up storefronts, cropping up more frequently as we drove on, like an infection beginning to spread.

"This downtown is adorable, Jonathan, I said. We should come back later and walk around."

Will the scenic tour be before or after we stuff Keith in the trunk and drive him to Bright Horizons? Stephanie asked, her tone more sad now than sarcastic.

Come on, we did it before without resorting to force, I offered. And if we can’t get Keith all the way convinced, there’s always next weekend, right? At least we’ll have opened up a dialogue.

"Oh, no, no. Keith has to go, this weekend, Jonathan said nervously. By Monday. Otherwise, my dad’s calling back the loan. If he does that, Keith will lose the gallery—you get that, right? He thought the loan was ‘criminally indulgent’ before he found out Keith was an addict. Now he’s beside himself. As far as he’s concerned, it’s shameful for me to even have a friend like Keith. It’s even more shameful for me to let my dad be taken advantage of in this way. The only way he might hold off is if Keith’s in rehab."

I wasn’t surprised that Jonathan’s father was angry. I’d be angry, too. Keith was definitely using some of Jonathan’s money to purchase drugs, either directly or indirectly.

Maybe your dad is right, Stephanie said. Keith is a bigger mess now than I’ve ever seen him. It’s like he’s trying to kill himself.

Are you really surprised? Jonathan asked.

It’s been ten years—how long is Alice going to be Keith’s excuse for everything? Stephanie asked.

I don’t know, Jonathan said. Forever?

We all loved her, Stephanie went on. And we all feel awful about what happened, but there has to be a line somewhere.

"Yeah, but Keith was in love with her, I offered. Kind of makes sense that he’s in the worst place."

And is Alice our excuse for enabling him? Stephanie asked. We feel so guilty that we’re killing Keith with kindness?

We all stayed quiet for a long time.

Rehab, I said decisively. We just need to get him in, and then we can let the professionals take over. This time it’ll take.

And I truly believed it might. The last time we talked Keith into it—or I talked Keith into it—was probably too soon. It was only about a year after graduation, eighteen months after the car Alice was driving had been spotted abandoned near the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. Sixteen months after her death was officially declared a suicide, though her body had not been found. I pictured it now, a skeleton, bright white and worn smooth, wedged forever between boulders at the bottom of the Hudson River. I shuddered.

Maeve is right, Jonathan said. We just need to get Keith into Bright Horizons. That’s all. And we can do that. I know we can.

The sunset was streaking the sky orange as Jonathan slowed the car at a tall, perfectly manicured hedge. Beyond it were the tops of dozens of towering trees. It wasn’t until we turned down the gravel driveway that the house itself finally came into view: a stunning Queen Anne, complete with spindle-topped turrets, second-floor balconies, and a massive wraparound porch. Four perfect wooden rocking chairs sat on either side of the hunter-green front door. My breath caught.

As we drove closer, I could see that the windows looked especially grand for that kind of older home, as though the remodel had involved enlarging them. The house’s sharp, clean edges—the perfectly squared-off roof, the precisely rectangular front steps—gave it an unexpectedly modern feel. Some lights were already on inside, warm and inviting in the quickly vanishing light. Peter had arranged to have the place ready for our arrival, Jonathan had told us on the drive. Peter might not have been perfect, but he was good at taking care of Jonathan.

I’m so glad you and Peter found each other, I said. "What you have together—it’s