24
Chet’s heart leaped into his throat when he saw Ford’s name on his screen. Ever since he’d found out that Ford and Lucy were
focusing on the rowboat that’d temporarily gone missing from the Zampinos’ small stretch of shoreline, he’d been expecting
a call from Chief Claxton or the investigator Ford had hired. He was afraid they’d be much more dogged about trying to figure
out who’d returned it, since there was nothing to draw their attention away, not like there’d been before, what with the hysteria
surrounding the Matteo murders once they’d found Mick McBride’s DNA under Tony’s fingernails.
Fortunately, that call hadn’t come, but thanks to Ford and Lucy, Chet knew it still could. So he’d been thinking about fabricating
a story that would explain the boat away—get them to believe it was a dead end. Should he admit that he was the one who’d
returned it in case someone had seen him do it? He could say he’d found it floating free, recognized it and taken it home.
That didn’t make him guilty of murder.
“Shit,” he cursed as Ford’s call transferred to voice mail. He’d dithered too long, trying to make up his mind.
“Is something wrong?” his wife asked as she carried their baby into the bedroom he was using as his studio.
“No, why?” He felt guilty hiding so much from her, especially because of the nature of his dark secret.
“You’re working later than usual,” she said. “Kenzie and I were beginning to wonder if we’d even see you tonight.”
The moment Kira had walked into the room, Kenzie had started kicking her legs and stretching out her chubby arms for him.
“Sorry. I’ve been trying to finish this.” He gestured toward the blue and white sailboat he was painting on a cerulean sea,
but he hadn’t made much progress on the piece today. He’d spent the entire afternoon worrying about what he’d done fifteen
years ago and trying to devise a way to mitigate the threat Ford and Lucy suddenly posed.
He put down his paintbrush so he could hold his daughter and smiled as he pressed her soft, squishy body against his chest.
He couldn’t imagine loving anyone or anything more, unless it was his wife. He had a lot riding on the decision he was trying
to make.
He could put off calling Ford for a few minutes, but he couldn’t wait long, not if he planned to do the whole, “Hey, you were
asking me about the Zampinos’ boat when I was at Coastal Comfort, and it just occurred to me that I returned it myself” kind
of thing.
Briefly closing his eyes, he kissed the top of his baby’s fuzzy head before smiling at his beautiful wife, who was watching
him with a fond smile of her own.
His future hung in the balance. Which way should he go?
The orange truck belonged to Stephanie Beaumont. Lucy hadn’t expected that. She’d assumed the driver would be someone far
more threatening than the harmless-looking woman whose account she’d just pulled up on Instagram.
“Why do you think Stephanie would come to the cottage?” she asked Ford.
He was sitting next to her at the granite-topped island in the center of the kitchen, where they’d eaten before putting their
plates aside to call Chet. He hadn’t answered, but it turned out they didn’t need him, anyway. Dahlia had told Lucy that Stephanie
owned a truck like the one she described when Lucy called to tell her the window at the cottage had been repaired. “Stephanie
was with Aurora that night at the party, wasn’t she?” Ford asked.
Lucy nodded. “Do you think she heard I was in town renting the Smoot cottage and was coming to tell me how despicable I am
just because I’m related to the man she thinks murdered her friend?”
“Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Lucy held her phone up to read Stephanie’s latest post. “Neither would I. Maybe I’m glad she ran away instead of coming to
the door.”
Ford wore a thoughtful expression. “Although... it could be that she wanted to tell you something.”
“Like what?”
“Something regarding the murder. I’m sure people are talking about the fact that we don’t believe Mick killed Aurora. I’m
guessing she’s heard that, too.”
“But she didn’t seem to know anything important during the trial. She said she had curfew and left the party early, didn’t
know what happened to Aurora after that.”
“Maybe that isn’t true.”
Lucy scrolled through Stephanie’s earlier posts. “She seems nice. She posts about her pets, her friends, how damaging body
dysmorphia can be, goes over her weight loss journey and tries to raise funds for Alzheimer’s and cancer research.”
“We should reach out to her,” he said. “See why she came by—and why she ran away.”
Lucy had assumed whoever owned that orange truck wasn’t friendly, that the driver might even have been the person who’d broken in. The way Stephanie had fled had been suspicious. But Ford could be right. Either way, they needed to talk to everyone who was at the party, and Stephanie would be a great place to start. “How will we find her?”
“There’s nothing on Insta that indicates where she works?”
“No.”
Ford’s phone lit up. “Chet’s calling back. He might know. He seems to have remained in contact with a lot of the people around
here.”
He pressed the Talk button, and Lucy got up to carry the dishes to the sink.
“Doing great... Yeah, we need to get together again... That was a delicious dinner... How’s the baby?... And Kira?...
Tell her I said hello...”
After the small talk was over, Lucy returned to the table. If she listened carefully, she could also hear Chet’s side of the
conversation, and Ford turned his phone to make that easier.
“I was just calling to see if you could tell me who owns the beat-up orange truck that we’ve seen around town.”
“Did you say... orange truck ?”
“Yeah. It’s distinctive enough that I thought you might be familiar with it.”
“Why’s the truck important?” he asked.
“I’m not sure it is,” Ford replied. “Lucy mentioned it appeared at the cottage last week and then rocketed away. That’s all.”
“ Rocketed away?”
“As if the driver didn’t want to be seen.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know who that could be.”
“No worries,” Ford told him. “When you didn’t answer, we talked to Dahlia, and she was able to tell us it belongs to Stephanie
Beaumont.”
There was a long silence.
“Chet?” Ford said. “You still there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I got... I was distracted by Kenzie.”
Ford shifted in his seat. “You remember Stephanie, don’t you? She was with Aurora at the party the night she was murdered.”
“I remember,” he said. “Why do you think she went to the cottage?”
“Lucy and I have no idea. But we intend to find out.”
“Good luck with that.” His voice sounded oddly strained, giving Lucy the impression he didn’t believe they’d ever prove it.
But she’d known from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be easy to convince the people around here.
“Thanks,” Ford said.
Chet cleared his throat. “This might help, too—if only to identify a dead end.”
Lucy could see the curiosity in Ford’s eyes when he looked up at her. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“The rowboat you mentioned. The one someone at the party was messing around with and left in the water instead of dragging
safely to shore.”
“What about it?”
“I found it butting up against our dock the night of the party and carried it back to the Zampinos myself.”
Ford’s jaw dropped. “ You returned the boat?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Now or fifteen years ago?”
“Let’s start with fifteen years ago, when the police were trying to figure it out.”
“No one asked me,” he said.
“And when I brought it up?”
“It took me a minute, but that’s what reminded me.”
“What time was it when you took the boat back?”
“I have no clue. After I got home from the party I hung out in my room for a while, playing video games. Then I tried to go to bed but couldn’t sleep, so I went outside to dangle my feet in the river—and there it was.”
“No one saw you return it?”
“I guess not. By then, it was raining, and everyone had either left or gone inside.”
“I’m surprised the police never came to your door.”
“If they did, they talked to my dad or my mom. No one said anything to me.”
But he came to almost every day of the trial. Wouldn’t he have thought that information was crucial? Lucy drew her eyebrows
together in concentration as she listened harder.
“And you didn’t think it was important to say something?” Ford pressed.
“Not at all. I knew the boat had nothing to do with the murder, so I wasn’t worried about it. The police seemed to understand
that, too.”
Lucy grimaced. The police had turned their attention to her father almost right away, searched only for evidence that would
prove he was the one who’d done it. The boat didn’t help them build their case against him, so they’d simply ignored that
loose end.
Ford slid his chair back and offered Lucy a place on his lap—and she could hear even better when she took it. “Do you know
where Stephanie lives?” he asked Chet.
“No.”
“You haven’t remained in contact with her?”
“Here and there, but... hang on.” Chet went silent for a few seconds. “Sorry about that,” he said when he came back to
the conversation. “Kira needs me. I wish I could be more help.”
“No problem. I’ll talk to you later,” Ford said and disconnected as he looked at Lucy. “You heard that, right?”
She nodded. “I guess we no longer have to canvass the Zampinos’ neighborhood,” she said wryly.
“We should probably talk to the neighbors, anyway, see if anyone remembers anything strange from that night that we don’t already know about.”
“You think we might actually uncover something?”
“You don’t?”
“I’m afraid no one will talk to me. The people around here are more loyal to Aurora and Aurora’s family than they are to me,
so they’ll shut me out even though I’m only after the truth.”
“They think they already have the truth.”
“Exactly.”
“We could wait for Lester Friedman to take care of it once he’s done everything he can from DC,” Ford said. “Or I could go
alone. People might be willing to talk to me.”
“I think waiting for the investigator would be best. It’d seem more ‘official,’ make people feel as if they have an obligation
to help.”
He kept fiddling with his phone. “That’s probably true.”
Lucy tightened the arm she had around his shoulders. “Something wrong?”
“Not really.”
“ Now do you regret being involved—with me, with this case?” she asked.
He scowled. “Not at all. I was just thinking about Chet. I used to like him a lot more than I do now.”
“He’s changed?”
“Maybe not. Could be me.” Ford shifted her on his lap. “What do you think of him?”
“I quit liking him when he started telling everyone I put my father up to killing Aurora, especially because, once he said
it, everyone else piled on, and nothing I said in my own defense made a difference.” She toyed with the hair at the nape of
his neck. Those were some of the most terrible memories of her life and part of the reason she’d come back to this place.
She wanted to banish the guilt and shame she should never have had to feel in the first place, since she really hadn’t done anything to cause Aurora’s death. “It felt like the whole town was chanting the same thing.”
Suddenly uneasy, she got off his lap and walked to the window.
“That was a bum deal,” he agreed. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer. She was too caught up in the past.
Coming up behind her, he slid his arms around her waist, but he didn’t say anything. He just kissed the top of her head as
they both gazed out at the moon hanging like a giant pendant over the ocean.
“This summer’s going to hurt me just like that summer did,” she said, finally breaking the silence that’d settled over them.
“Isn’t it.”
It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t treat it like one. “This time, I’m pretty sure it’s going to hurt me more,” he said.
Chet stared at his own reflection in the window. While he was on the phone with Ford, he’d pretended Kenzie was in the room
with him. But that hadn’t been the case. Kira had taken her down the hall to put her to bed while he was supposed to be cleaning
his brushes. He’d needed his wife to be gone when he talked to Ford, was afraid that if anyone could see through him—sense
the mental gymnastics he had to go through to navigate the call he’d just placed—it’d be her.
Fortunately, he’d had the time alone since she was busy with their daughter. But did Ford believe him? Had he said enough
but not too much? Acted confident and untroubled? Completely convincing ?
“I had to admit I returned it,” he said aloud. Once he’d learned that Stephanie had gone to the cottage, no doubt looking for Lucy, he’d felt as if he had to reveal that much. After all, he’d hung out with both Stephanie and Aurora that night, at least until Stephanie left the party, so she’d heard a drunken Aurora ask him to take her out on the river—several times—and she’d also heard him say he would. And someone else might’ve seen him with the boat later on, loading it into his truck and driving it back. He’d been up the entire night messing with it.
Telling Ford he’d returned the boat was the best move he could’ve made, he reassured himself. But he was sweating so profusely
when Kira poked her head in to see why he hadn’t come out of the studio that she asked if she should turn down the air-conditioning.