11
When Ford returned home, he was sticky and eager to peel off his dirty clothes and get cleaned up. But working with plants
and the land had once again helped him find his center. He had to stop being so reactionary, he realized. He needed to figure
out how he wanted to resolve the various problems in his life and take the necessary steps to get there—while having faith
that it would happen over time if only he stayed the course. And he needed to do that without letting Paris and Christina,
or even his mother and brother, ruin his quality of life.
After he showered and dressed, he called Jack Minter, an attorney in DC who’d done so much work for Wagner Business Solutions over the past decade that he’d become a friend. Jack acted as general counsel, handled everything from patent and trademark protection to mergers and acquisitions to labor and employment law. So far, he hadn’t been involved in helping Ford with his divorce or haggling over the estate. Those were personal issues handled by other attorneys. But when Ford needed to find the right person to help with something and he didn’t know where to turn, Jack was often a good place to start.
“Ford, man, what’s up? I haven’t heard from you in months.”
Ford wanted to go down to the beach. After spending most of the past decade cooped up in an office, he couldn’t be outside
enough. Coming back to the sea made him feel as if he was finally escaping—both the confines of the office and a marriage
he’d found suffocating.
But it was between five and six, the hottest part of the day. Since he didn’t plan to get in the water, he’d just get sticky
again. He walked over to the windows instead, where he could view the ocean in air-conditioned comfort. “That’s unusual, I
know. But I’ve been swamped.”
“You’re always busy.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been dealing with more personal stuff than usual.”
“More trouble with your father’s widow?”
“That—and Christina and I are getting a divorce.”
A sigh came through the line. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
He and Christina had been out with Jack and his wife on numerous occasions—whenever they were visiting DC or occasionally
when Jack came for a meeting or something at Wagner Business Solutions. “Was it that obvious?”
“At times.”
“We struggled from the beginning. I should’ve bailed out sooner.” Before a child was involved...
“You have a good divorce attorney?”
“I do.” Another work associate—who headed up one of the company’s biggest accounts—had given him a recommendation for that.
“I’m sorry for what you’re going through.”
“Thanks. I’m hoping to put it behind me soon.” The marriage, anyway. The baby was another matter. Because of what it would mean for a child coming into a relationship like the one he had with Christina, that was a painful subject, one he could barely bring himself to think about.
He had the summer. He’d get back on his feet by then, he told himself.
“I hope the same,” Jack said. “So... what can I do for you?”
“Fifteen years ago, there were some murders here in North Hampton Beach.”
“Did you say murders ?”
McBride, Lucy, Aurora, the Clarks and everything that’d happened that long-ago summer had been on Ford’s mind so much since
he got back, he hadn’t realized how jarring such an intro would be to someone hearing about it for the first time. Jack dealt
with a lot of problems, but murder wasn’t typically among them. “Sorry,” he said with a chuckle. “I should’ve warned you that
this wouldn’t be the usual kind of call.”
“You’ve got my attention. But now I’m scared the police over there don’t know you like I do so you’re looking for a defense
attorney.”
Ford laughed again. “No. They caught the guy responsible—Mick McBride. Ever heard of him?”
“I don’t recognize the name, no.”
“The murders were a big deal at the time, made the national news.”
“I was in law school fifteen years ago, Ford. I wasn’t paying attention to anything but getting laid and getting through—in
that order.”
“At least you had your priorities straight.”
He laughed. “Exactly. Why don’t you give me a quick recap?”
Ford caught him up to speed, telling him about Mick’s tragic childhood, that he’d been shiftless as an adult and struggled to keep a job, that he’d eventually found work in North Hampton Beach managing the trailer park where he and his daugh ter were living, that he’d broken into a neighboring trailer and killed an old couple while attempting to rob them and ending with Aurora’s murder.
“That’s a tragic story,” Jack said. “But what does all that have to do with you?”
“I’m getting there,” Ford replied. “I was dating his daughter at the time.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. How old were you?”
“Seventeen. So was she. We were only together for like... four weeks, but yeah.” What Ford didn’t add was that the length
of the relationship didn’t adequately represent it. Being with Lucy had been easy, comfortable, fulfilling—arguably the best
weeks of his life. As a matter of fact, they’d fit together so well it’d been impossible for him to forget her even though
he’d broken things off, as recommended by his parents, for the sake of his “future.”
“Don’t tell me this woman is stalking you or something like that...”
“No.” Lucy had actually told him to stay away from her —advice Jack would probably echo if he knew what Ford was getting involved in. “She is back in North Hampton Beach, though, and she’s insisting that her father didn’t kill Aurora, which would mean the real culprit
has gone unpunished.”
“Where’s McBride these days?”
“In prison. DNA tied him to the murders of the old couple—the Matteos. But in Aurora’s case, they convicted him on very shaky
evidence.”
“How can I help?”
“I was wondering if you could find me a good investigator.”
“Seriously? Why? ”
“To figure out if Lucy’s right.”
“But it’s been fifteen years, Ford. You’re now running the family business—meaning you have much better things to do. Do you really want to spend your resources trying to prove something that’s unlikely to begin with? Or were you close to the girl who was murdered?”
No, this was about the other girl, the one who lost everything when her father went to prison. “It’s not that. I’d just like
to see if there’s any truth to what Lucy’s saying.”
“Don’t tell me you’re interested in her again...”
There was a certain part of him that couldn’t help wondering, “What if?” Had he ignored his parents and stuck with her, would
they have lasted very long? Been happy together in spite of everything? They’d been so young; it was probably a ridiculous
thought. “No, of course not,” he said.
“Then let me be the voice of reason. What you’re trying to do could get expensive and ultimately go nowhere.”
Ford was aware of what that might look like over the next few months—and simply didn’t care. He was done listening to other
people when it came to Lucy. “I’ve considered it from all angles.”
“And you’re set on proceeding?”
“Completely.”
“Okay. I’ll get you the best damn investigator money can buy.”
“Thank you.” After he hung up, he stood at the window a little longer—and smiled. Maybe he was about to waste a whole lot
of time, effort and money. But somehow the call he’d just placed made him feel better than he had in a long while.
It was getting dark when Lucy heard a knock at the door. She hadn’t yet locked up for the night, so she felt a little vulnerable
when she went to the window and peered out to see who it was.
A man, the muscles of his shoulders and arms thick and ropy like a powerlifter’s, stood on the porch with blond dreads pulled
into a ponytail at the back of his head and tattoo sleeves extending below his white T-shirt.
It wasn’t until she turned on the porch light that she recognized Darren Clark. Then she grew even more apprehensive. She had no idea what he was like these days, but he’d been sullen and standoffish fifteen years ago, and she couldn’t imagine that losing his sister had softened him in any way—especially when it came to her , since his family believed it was her father who’d murdered Aurora and she was partly to blame.
Because she had no idea what he might do, she wished she had something she could use to defend herself, just in case. There
were knives in the kitchen, of course, but she wasn’t about to grab one of those. He could take it away from her far too easily.
The best she could come up with at a moment’s notice was the bat she’d seen in the coat closet—something Sharon Smoot had
probably put there when the murders occurred fifteen years ago.
Lucy retrieved it and set it just inside the door before throwing back her shoulders and poking her head out to see what her
unlikely visitor wanted.
For probably fifteen seconds, she didn’t say anything. Neither did he. They just studied each other warily.
“What can I do for you?” she asked at length.
He stared at his worn tennis shoes before looking at her again. “My parents told me why you’re back.”
She stiffened as she continued to eye him, one hand on the door so she could slam it quickly, if that became necessary, and
the other free to grab the bat if she didn’t make it in time. “I’m sorry if my being here upsets you. But I can only act on
what I believe to be true, even if you’re convinced I’m wrong.”
He shoved his massive hands—calloused and rough, suggesting he worked with them—into the pockets of his worn jeans. He wasn’t
over five-ten or five-eleven, but he looked almost as wide as he was tall. “That’s the thing,” he said. “I’m not convinced
you’re wrong.”
Lucy gaped at him. “You don’t think it was my father who killed your sister?”
“I know it wasn’t.”
His response was so opposite to what she’d been expecting, it took a moment for the meaning to sink in. “How can you be so sure?”
“I saw your father the night Aurora went missing. He was at the liquor store.”
She’d never heard this before. “How does that preclude him from... from hurting your sister?”
“The timing. She was already missing by then. I’d been trying to reach her for almost an hour, was looking everywhere. There’s
no way he would’ve had time to strangle her, dump her body in the river and get to where he was between the time I talked
to her and she quit answering my calls and texts.”
“When did you last have contact with her?”
“Shortly after 1:00 a.m.”
At least that remained true to his testimony. “And when did you bump into him?”
“Maybe... one forty? The liquor store was the only business still open. I was running out of options, but I wasn’t about
to go home without her. My mother was all over me that night, telling me I needed to get my sister before my father realized
she hadn’t come in. She didn’t want him to be mad at her for letting Aurora go out again. Aurora had been partying too much,
and Dad was worried about where it was all leading,” he said as an aside. “Anyway, I was hoping I’d find someone from the
party making a liquor run or something, and I’d be able to figure out where she was. The last time she answered her phone,
she told me she was at a big house on the Potomac. She was supposed to ask someone for the address and text it to me, but
she never did. By the time I got to the liquor store, your father was the only one around—just drinking and leaning against
one of the posts out front.”
Lucy remembered him relating some of the same details at her father’s trial—the part about the party and his attempts to get his sister to come home. But he’d never mentioned that he’d seen Mick. “Why didn’t you say something about this sooner? At the trial, for instance?”
Sighing, he stretched his neck. “It’s... complicated. I didn’t get the impression my parents, or the commonwealth attorney,
wanted me to talk about it. I was never asked about it on the stand. So I just... kept quiet.”
Lucy wasn’t sure how to react. She had this big hulk of a man on her porch—so large he was intimidating—and yet he was coming
forward with information that might help her. Sure, he could’ve said something before and didn’t. But given who he was, she
couldn’t imagine it was easy for him to speak up even now. “Did you ask my father when you ran into him at the liquor store
if he’d seen Aurora?”
“I did.”
“How’d he respond?”
“He didn’t even know who I was talking about. I got the impression he’d never met her. And he didn’t want to be bothered.
He just shook his head and stumbled off, but what I noticed at that point also makes it hard for me to believe he was the
one who killed her.”
She opened the door a little wider. “What did you notice?”
“He was drunk off his ass, could hardly stand up. He wouldn’t have had the physical strength, the balance or the coordination
to be able to drag a woman into the woods, strangle her and dump her. How would he have gotten her to leave the party with
him in the first place? I couldn’t even get her to leave. And he didn’t have his car. There was no way she would ever have been interested enough in
your old man to leave the party without some sort of force being involved, and he couldn’t force her if he could barely stand
up. Besides, there would’ve been people around.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“I wanted you to at least be able to tell the assholes who claim you put your father up to it to shut their damn mouths.”
She took a step back. “You realize you’re talking about your own parents.”
He ducked his head. “They aren’t the only ones, but... yeah.”
“Have you told them what you told me?”
“I tried—back then. They insisted I didn’t know what I was talking about, said your father could’ve run into Aurora right
after he left the liquor store and been far more capable than I realized. I was only eighteen, after all. They didn’t think
I knew anything. But they weren’t at the liquor store that night. They didn’t see what I saw.”
Seemingly satisfied that he’d accomplished what he’d come for, he started to leave.
She followed him into the yard. “Darren...”
He turned.
“If my father didn’t kill Aurora, who do you think did?”
“I have no clue,” he replied. “That was another reason I didn’t take a stronger stand fifteen years ago. I couldn’t believe
there could be someone else, not after the Matteo murders.” He took another few steps toward his truck, then turned back again.
“And maybe, on some level, I was afraid they’d try to blame me. The way Aurora and I fought... We couldn’t get along for
five minutes, and everyone knew it. I was terrified someone would point a finger at me, claiming I’d murdered my own sister,
because it isn’t as if I had an alibi. I’d been out alone, looking for her.”
Lucy could understand how a boy his age would be scared and might succumb to the pressure he was feeling from everyone around
him, especially with the trauma of learning his sister had been strangled. But it was ironic that he was the only person who
could provide her father with an alibi. “Why are you coming forward after all this time?”
“I felt if you were going to be brave enough to come back here, I’d better step up and do my part.”
As morose and off-putting as Darren had been when they were kids, she liked him now.
“Besides,” he continued before she could respond. “At some point, all the bullshit has to stop, right? I mean, if you can
find out who really killed my sister, that’s what I want—the truth and to see the bastard punished. I can’t stand the thought
that I’m letting Aurora down by hiding behind a lie just so Mom and Dad can live in some pretend world where they believe
justice was served.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to accomplish what I hope to accomplish here, but I’m going to do everything
I can. And the more I know, the better my chances.”
He nodded. “I hope it’ll make a difference.”
Lucy sagged a little in relief. This was huge, much more than she’d expected to get when she returned to town. Surely, she’d
be able to do something with it. “So do I.”