7
Ford sat at the kitchen table with his laptop, studying Reggie Burton’s Instagram account. It was a long shot that he’d find
something that would indicate whether Reggie had lied during the trial of Lucy’s father. It’d been far too long since then.
But getting to know him again in a general sense could help Ford gain some sense of what the man was like these days. Having
Lucy back in town could even prompt Reggie to post something he normally wouldn’t—or shouldn’t. The fact that he’d called
Patti Clark about his encounter with Lucy was interesting. It gave Ford the impression that he was trying to make sure the
Clarks remained united—with him—against her. Most people didn’t have much respect for Reggie, but it was different for Nelson
and Patti. They had money, which gave them a certain degree of clout, and, unlike Reggie, they actually contributed to the
community. So if Reggie was guilty of lying, it would be wise of him to shelter in the shade they provided...
Was that what he was doing?
Ford scrolled back through the man’s posts. They were mostly about Confederate statues and symbols, trucks and women. He didn’t have many followers, so there wasn’t a lot of interaction. His sister, Anna, seemed to be the most supportive person he knew. She commented on anything that wasn’t too politically charged or divisive. For instance, she hearted every picture he put up of his little boy, and she’d wished him a Happy Birthday a few weeks ago.
Would a man who’d just killed three people give a cellmate he barely knew details of his crimes?
Ford figured that sort of thing had happened before, especially with personalities who craved attention or were prone to brag.
But he remembered Lucy’s father as a quiet loner, a man too antisocial to take to a stranger that quickly. When Ford looked
at the situation from that perspective—from how gruff and unfriendly Mick had seemed, not to mention how self-serving Reggie
still was—he could see why Lucy might have her doubts about Reggie’s testimony.
But what did it mean? Was there something that required what happened that summer to be reexamined? Aurora’s parents certainly
wouldn’t be happy to have such a question raised; he’d heard their reaction at the restaurant. No one else would be excited
about it, either. The fact that there was strong evidence to connect Lucy’s father to the Matteo murders made it easy to believe
he’d also killed Aurora. Maybe too easy.
At least Ford now knew why Lucy had returned. She was looking for answers—and maybe vindication. She’d also been maligned
because of Aurora.
But if Mick hadn’t murdered Aurora, who had?
The idea of a second killer seemed ludicrous. No one had been harmed since.
Pushing away from the table, he got up and began to pace as he scoured his memory of the night Aurora went missing. At about nine o’clock, she’d texted him, asking to meet on the beach. He’d told her he was tired and heading to bed—because he was already hanging out with Lucy and wasn’t interested in seeing her but didn’t want her to get jealous and cause a problem. When Aurora didn’t respond, he’d been relieved to have gotten away so cleanly. But he woke up the next morning to his parents pounding on his bedroom door, asking if he knew where Aurora was. They said she’d told her parents she was going to a party with him and several other friends and had never come home.
At the time, he’d been more annoyed at being disturbed than worried. The Clarks had let their children run wild. Patti had
been the kind of mom who was so eager for her daughter to be popular that she made almost nothing off-limits to her. He’d
simply assumed that when he’d told Aurora he was going to bed, she’d gone over to Stephanie’s or Jackie’s or Josephina’s.
Those were the girls she’d hung out with most often.
But he’d soon learned that she’d gone to a party down by the river with Stephanie, who’d had to get home before Aurora was
willing to leave. After Stephanie said goodbye to her at the party, no one seemed to know what happened to her—when she’d
left, where she’d gone or who she was with. Everyone just grew more and more concerned.
Then, a week later, her body was discovered floating in the Potomac. The coroner’s report named strangulation as the most
likely cause of death—there’d been no water in her lungs to suggest drowning—but the body was too bloated and decomposed to
determine if she’d also been sexually assaulted.
Stepping onto the porch, Ford stared out over the beach as he replayed what he could remember of the conversations he’d had
with Lucy after Aurora went missing. At first, she hadn’t acted too worried about Aurora, either. But as the days passed and
the search intensified, Lucy had expressed mild concern, and she’d seemed as shocked as he was when they found Aurora’s body.
Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through his contacts to locate Lucy’s number. He wished he could communicate with her, let her know he’d do what he could to help her this sum mer. If there were still some unanswered questions about what happened fifteen years ago, she had the right to put her doubts to rest.
But he knew that after the way he’d behaved before, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him, so he eventually put his phone
away.
Lucy hadn’t felt so conspicuous in ages. She’d gone to the grocery store to pick up some fresh basil for the pasta dish she
planned to make for supper, and while she was there got the distinct impression that the gazes of the people she encountered
were following her as she passed.
She told herself she was imagining it. She had to be. She didn’t recognize many of those at the store. And if there were people she did recognize, she quickly skirted around them—widely, so they wouldn’t have the chance to speak to her. But she was no longer
the anonymous person she’d turned into after she left North Hampton Beach and changed her name. That was clear. Not only had
she come out into the open, she’d painted a big target on her back. But she needed to ask the tough questions no one wanted
to hear, let alone answer.
As soon as she found the basil, she hurried to the checkout register, but while she was waiting to pay, one of the police
officers who’d come to the trailer to arrest her father got in line behind her. Only five years older than she was, he’d been
young in those days, too, and new on the force. She remembered how shocked and horrified he’d been by her father’s crime—not
that he could’ve been any more shocked than she was. Still, he’d studied her that day as if she might be so contaminated she’d
become radioactive, so she’d hoped he didn’t recognize her. But as she stepped up to the register, he said, “Dahlia mentioned
you were coming back.”
She pretended not to hear him. The cashier gave her the total and she stuck her credit card in the processing machine. But that didn’t deter him.
“What brings you to North Hampton Beach after so long?” he asked, speaking more loudly.
The register spat out her receipt. Although the cashier hesitated because she, too, could hear him talking, she ultimately
handed it over, probably because there was nothing else to do and she was required to continue through the line.
Before Lucy could get more than a step away, however, he said her name emphatically enough that everyone in the immediate
vicinity turned to look at them. She was afraid he’d just follow her out into the parking lot if she didn’t respond, so she
drew a deep breath and turned, and that was when she saw his nametag. He’d become chief of police in her absence. “Just minding
my own business,” she mumbled.
“Not from what I hear,” he replied.
She raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t want you digging up the past. That’s what it means.”
She stepped back in surprise. As long as she didn’t break any laws, could he dictate what she did in North Hampton Beach?
“If you’re so convinced we already have the truth, there’s nothing to be afraid of, right?”
“No, that’s not right. It’s taken a long time for this community to heal. Having you come back and destroy what peace of mind
the Clark family’s been able to cobble together won’t serve any good purpose.”
The Clark family... Was he truly worried about them? Or was he more worried about the reputation of the force he now headed?
A bead of sweat rolled between her breasts, partially from the heat and humidity and partially from the anxiety that held her in a viselike grip. Over the years, she’d had so many nightmares in which she was suddenly and inexplicably back in North Hampton Beach and everyone was pointing and screaming at her: Murderer! You’re just as bad as he is! “Even if my father didn’t kill Aurora?” she challenged.
“You’re the only one who’s willing to believe that.”
“What if I can prove it?” She was a long way from being able to do that. She wished she could suck the words back into her
mouth as soon as they passed her lips. But she shouldn’t have worried. He didn’t call her bluff. His mind was already made
up, despite any new “proof” she purported to have.
“You can’t, so don’t even try,” he said. “Do you understand?”
The narrowing of his eyes added enough heft to his words to indicate the conversation was over. He’d spoken, and she’d better
listen. So what would he do if she didn’t?
She had no way to answer that question. She certainly hadn’t expected the police to help her once she got here. She’d assumed
they’d turn a deaf ear to her insistence that they got it wrong, at least in one regard, fifteen years ago.
But she also hadn’t expected them to actively work against her.
Apparently, she’d underestimated the friendships and loyalties that were so often formed in a small town like this. “Or...
what?” she asked, hearing the threat even though he didn’t actually voice one.
He blinked several times. He obviously didn’t like that she’d dared to question him. But he seemed conscious of the fact that
they had an audience. His gaze slid to those who were gawking at them before he focused, once again, on her. “I’m telling
you this for your own good,” he replied. “After all, I wouldn’t want your stay this summer to be too... unpleasant.”
Although that, too, wasn’t an overt threat, the subtext took his words much further. What she heard was, “Then I won’t be responsible for what happens to you.”
“Thanks for the warning,” she said drily, but before she could escape the store, she heard someone else call out, “Go back
to wherever you came from. You’re not welcome here!”
Lucy lay awake, staring at the ceiling and going over—word for word—her exchange with the chief of police. The spectacle he’d caused in the grocery store made her cringe. How unlucky that Kevin Claxton was still in town and played such a big role in the power paradigm around here. He was obviously prejudiced against her and her father—understandably in her father’s case. But didn’t he see how blinding that prejudice could be?
She wasn’t convinced he cared one way or the other. Self-righteous, closed-minded people generally didn’t consider the possibility
of being wrong. But he also had a good reason to prefer to leave things as they were, and she was well aware of it. The police
had been widely praised for solving the murders that occurred that summer so quickly. If the narrative suddenly switched,
and it came out that Reggie had indeed lied, it would shame and embarrass the department to have relied on him, a jailhouse
snitch, to get a conviction in Aurora’s murder—make them look like the bumbling stereotype of a small-town Mayberry R.F.D. type of force. That was probably closer to the truth, at least in some ways. They certainly weren’t experienced or sophisticated,
and they had limited resources and funding.
But how far would Claxton go to stop her from picking through the rubble of what transpired fifteen years ago?
Was she sure she wanted to find out? Should she pack up and go home?
The echo of the woman who’d yelled after her reverberated in her ears— Go back to wherever you came from. You’re not welcome here . But she couldn’t allow herself to consider bailing out at every turn, or she would give up and go home. She’d put herself to a lot of trouble—even reconnected with her father, which she’d sworn she’d never
do—to right this wrong.
With a huff, she flopped over onto her other side and checked the time on the alarm clock. One in the morning. Dawn was hours and hours away. This was turning into another long night...
Giving up on sleep, she climbed out of bed and went around, once again, to peer through the windows. She’d begun to believe
she’d imagined what she thought she’d seen last night. Nothing had happened.
When she got up this morning, she’d gone out and checked for cigarette butts, gum wrappers or footprints in the yard and found
no evidence of a visitor. That didn’t necessarily mean there hadn’t been one. Someone could’ve been lurking around without
leaving any telltale signs. But she’d drive herself mad if she allowed fear to imprison her. Yes, she was going to keep the
doors and windows locked when she could, just in case. But that might not always be possible; it turned the house into an
oven.
Desperate to cool off, she unlocked the door and slipped out onto the porch, dropping her head back in relief as the cool
air rushed over her matted hair and sweat-dampened skin. I’m fine. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m completely alone. There was just the full moon, the swaying grasses and the sound of the surf not too far away.
She didn’t turn on any lights and made as little noise as possible when she opened the screen door, crept down the two stairs
and darted through the trees to the narrow path that would take her to the ocean.
By the time she got to the beach, she felt much better. No one was out and about. She waited a few seconds to be sure, but
then she ran down the soft, shifting sand into the cool embrace of the sea.
The water cascading over and around her brought even more relief. Diving beneath the churning waves, she swam out to where she could ride the swells before they rolled over and crashed onto the shore. Then she turned on her back so she could gaze up at the stars twinkling against the black velvet sky. Despite how dark and inky the water was, she felt safe here. Untouchable. Unreachable. In her mind, all the real threats were on land.
It wasn’t until fifteen or twenty minutes later when she got out of the ocean and was wringing the water from her hair that
she realized she wasn’t alone, after all. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood on the beach, wearing a short-sleeved shirt that
wasn’t buttoned all the way up with a pair of loose-fitting shorts that hung low on his narrow hips. She couldn’t see his
face—only his outline—and didn’t know how long he’d been there, but she could tell he was watching her.
Once he realized he’d been spotted, he came toward her, but she wasn’t about to allow him to get too close. Forgetting about
her wet hair and dripping tank top and cutoffs, she started to run away from him toward the cottage. She told herself she
had no idea who he was or what he wanted. But that wasn’t entirely true. Although she could easily be mistaken, she was fairly
certain she recognized his build and the way he moved. His voice sounded familiar, too, as he called out to her.
“Lucy! Lucy! I just want to talk to you!” he yelled.
But she only ran faster—and didn’t look back again.
Ford shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts as Lucy disappeared. When he’d spotted her from his deck, rushing headlong
into the sea, he’d come down to the beach, eager to speak to her. He’d also felt he should be on hand in case she wasn’t taking
the proper precautions. He had no idea if she’d been drinking or was feeling suicidal or whatever. She’d been through a lot,
and not many people were comfortable enough with the ocean to go swimming this late at night, especially alone.
But she’d always been a strong swimmer, seemed to feel right at home in the sea. She didn’t have a problem until she came
out of the water and spotted him.
With a sigh, he trudged back up to Coastal Comfort. He was the one who’d been drinking, and he was feeling enough of a buzz that he was tempted to follow her home. If only he could get her to listen to him for a minute. He’d reassure her that he meant her no harm, which might help her feel she had at least one person who supported her presence in North Hampton Beach.
Getting her to believe he’d actually be there when she needed him wouldn’t be easy, however. She’d thought he was her friend
fifteen years ago—and look how he’d behaved when she needed him most.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he reached the steps.
Swaying slightly, he put a hand on the banister to steady himself. But instead of going up and into the house, he veered away,
heading for the path she’d just taken to the Smoot cottage. Maybe Lucy wouldn’t answer the door. If she didn’t, she didn’t.
But at least he would’ve made the effort.