25
Lucy woke up before dawn when the room was still almost pitch-black. Although the bed was more comfortable than any she’d
ever slept in, especially with Ford’s body curved protectively around hers, once she reached consciousness her mind wouldn’t
shut down again. There was too much going through it. Even while she’d been asleep, she’d had disquieting dreams. In the only
one she remembered, Stephanie Beaumont had suddenly turned into a screaming banshee and hurled rocks through the windows of
the cottage, yelling, “It is your fault Aurora’s dead!” And then her face melted into Aurora’s as it had looked in the upsetting and tragic photographs
shown at the trial after her death.
Could it have been Stephanie who broke in? That was hard to believe after checking out her Instagram account. But it could’ve been her, or one of several other people. Lucy hadn’t expected to be embraced by the North Hampton Beach community. It was the fact that she was getting involved with Ford again that worried her. She’d lowered her defenses, thinking she should simply let go and enjoy him while she had him—especially since she wasn’t likely to ever see him again once she returned to Vegas. But she was falling in love with him for the second time, and it was happening so fast. She couldn’t maintain any greater emotional distance as an adult than she could as a young woman, and she hadn’t expected that, not after getting her heart broken so badly the first time. How was it that she’d been able to hold every other man at arm’s length?
She had no answer. Ford was just different. So... should she cut off their relationship? Go back to the Smoot cottage before
she could want him even more? Or was it already too late?
“You okay?” Ford whispered, his breath moving a wisp of hair at her ear.
She hadn’t meant to wake him. Hoping he’d float back to sleep if she didn’t respond, she tried to slip out of bed so she wouldn’t
continue to disturb him. But he tightened his arm to stop her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding more alert.
“I’m just... worried about everything,” she murmured.
“Your father?”
“It would be good to finally reach the truth, to know if he’s really the kind of man who could do what was done to the Matteos,
for a lot of reasons, but one of them is so I’ll know whether I’m the one who let him down or he’s the one who let me down.”
Somehow, that had come to mean more than the rest of it. She didn’t want to feel as though she’d blamed her own father for
something he didn’t do. If anyone believed in him, it should’ve been her.
“You’ve navigated life the best way you possibly could, Lucy. I don’t think it matters, even if you were wrong. You need to
give yourself that kindness.”
“Just in case he didn’t murder anyone.”
“Just in case,” he confirmed. “Beating yourself up over how you handled what happened won’t do any good.”
She switched to her other side, so she could face him. “Your brother hasn’t been here for quite a few years, right? If he’s coming now, your mother must be pretty upset that we’re spending time together.”
“My mother insists coming here was Houston’s idea, that hearing about North Hampton Beach again has made him miss the ocean
and want to return.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know. Houston’s never expressed much interest in returning here. Matter of fact, he’s had only derogatory things
to say about this place—that it’s way overrated as far as beaches go, that there’s no good place to party, that it’s just
a sleepy little hamlet for parents with small kids. Apparently, he didn’t love coming here while we were growing up as much
as I did. He and my mother have been pressing me to sell this place, get rid of it.”
For some reason, Lucy hated the thought of that. “Do you have to listen to them?”
“Not necessarily. As trustee of my father’s estate, I’m in charge. The decision is mine. But they would benefit financially,
so it’s difficult to tell them no.”
“That would be a hard decision. This place is special.”
“I was planning on selling when I first arrived, but now... I’d really hate to see it go. I don’t want to make the decision
right now. There are too many other things on my mind.”
“You mean like my problems. That’s what’s on your mind?”
He nuzzled her neck. “Not your problems. You. Why would I want any distractions? Getting the house ready for sale would only rob me of some of the time we’ll have together
this summer.”
She didn’t want to lose that, either. But what if the consequences of spending all that time together turned out to be too
painful?
“You have nothing to say to that?” he asked, a grin in his voice, when she didn’t respond.
“I’ve had to weather a lot of things in my life, Ford.”
He sobered. She could hear it in his voice. “But...”
She couldn’t face losing him again, didn’t want a repeat of that , in particular. But she didn’t want to express so much emotion—wished she didn’t feel it—especially so soon. “Never mind.
So... why would Houston have such a sudden change of heart? It has to have something to do with me, don’t you think?”
Although she couldn’t make out his expression in the darkness, he sounded contemplative when he answered. “Possibly. I’m guessing
my mother’s told him you’re here. She probably wants to know what’s going on. But he was always big on gossip, loves being
in the middle of anything sensational, so I could see your return attracting him even without her.”
“Are your brother and your mother close?”
“Surprisingly, they are.”
“Why is that surprising?”
“They live together in Maryland. It’s not far from where I live in DC, but it makes sense that they’d form a closer bond than
the one my mother shares with me. They’re also more alike than she and I are. But she’s complained about him his whole life
for not taking more initiative, working harder and accomplishing something. So there’s some frustration and disapproval there,
too.”
Lucy remembered Houston coming to the courthouse quite often during the trial the following winter, but a lot of the citizens
of North Hampton Beach did that. They’d been up in arms, bent on getting revenge.
In retrospect, it reminded Lucy of biblical stories where a whole village would come out to stone an offender. “Were you more
like your dad?” she asked.
“Overall, I guess I was.” He curved closer to her and yawned, giving her the impression he was falling back asleep. But after
several moments of silence, he said, “Lucy?”
She let her hand slide up over his forearm, then his bicep and into his thick hair. If she was going to pay dearly for loving
him the way she did, she planned to make the most of every moment—memorize every inch of him, every detail. “What?”
“You know this time would be different if... if it could be different, don’t you?”
What she knew was that it was going to rip her heart out when he went back to Christina. “We still have the summer,” she said,
reminding herself as much as him.
He sighed deeply. “It won’t be enough.”
“We might as well make what little time we have everything it could be,” she said and nudged him onto his back before kissing
his neck and then moving down to his chest, his stomach and, finally, taking him into her mouth.
Anna jiggled her leg to siphon off the nervous energy she felt while waiting to speak to Chief Claxton. She’d just dropped
off her kids at school and needed to be at the barbershop by nine for her first appointment. She’d made it clear to the sergeant
she’d spoken with when she first walked into the station that she didn’t have much time. But Claxton didn’t seem to be in
any hurry. She could see him through the interior window of his office, talking on the phone, laughing and gesturing as if
it was a personal call.
Other officers were coming and going and moving around the station. Maybe meeting with one of them would be just as good.
Surely, they could take a report. But because this had to do with her brother, and Claxton had been on the force since the
murders occurred and would probably remember as much or more about them than she did, she felt it would be best to talk to
him. She also knew him personally. Although she was younger than he was, they’d dated a few times one summer while she was
home from college. He’d gained quite a bit of weight since, and was losing his hair, but he’d been attractive and athletic
back then. Once she’d gotten to know him better, however, she’d realized she wasn’t all that interested. Then she’d met Joel.
Finally, just as she was about to give up and go to work, she saw Claxton put down the phone.
A minute or two later, a female officer approached to tell her the chief would see her now.
Had he made her wait to flex his power?
She hated to think he’d feel the need to do something like that after so many years, but he hadn’t been happy when she’d told
him she didn’t want to see him anymore. She got the impression he’d never really forgiven her, could tell whenever they bumped
into each other around town that the rejection had been a major blow to his ego and he wasn’t likely to forget it.
As she was shown into his office, anxiety overcame the irritation she’d felt while he was on the phone.
“Have a seat.” He gestured toward one of the well-worn, blue-cushioned seats across from his desk.
Anna perched on the edge of it, eyeing a signed photograph of him with baseball player Barry Bonds that hung on the wall.
“Thanks for seeing me.”
“Of course. We’re old friends.” The ingratiating smile he gave her didn’t quite reach his eyes. She’d been right; he hadn’t
forgiven her for not wanting to pursue a romantic relationship with him. He’d married shortly after she did, but she saw his
wife, Pamela, at the barbershop when she brought in their son, overheard some of the things she said, and didn’t believe they
were very happy together.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I need to talk to you about Reggie.”
He got up and closed the door before circling back around to his desk. “I’ve already heard. Ford and Lucy called me. But you’re
getting yourself all worked up about nothing. McBride killed Aurora, Anna. At this point, all that really matters is that
we got the right guy.”
“Are you sure you got the right guy? Because Lucy doesn’t believe it.”
“Of course she doesn’t. Who would want to believe their father could be capable of something like that?”
“No one,” she admitted. “But it’s been so long. You’d think she’d come to terms with it if—”
“The amount of time doesn’t matter,” he broke in. “She’s still in denial.”
“Ford Wagner’s convinced there’s validity to her argument.” And that meant something to Anna. She’d always admired Ford, didn’t
know anyone who hadn’t thought highly of him.
Claxton gave her a “get real” look. “Ford Wagner is romantically involved with her.”
She relaxed slightly. Claxton’s level of conviction was making her feel as if everything she’d built up in her mind wasn’t
anything to worry about, after all. “Are you still convinced Mick McBride killed the Matteos, too?”
He rocked back. “Of course! His DNA was under Tony Matteo’s fingernails!”
She drew a deep breath. Maybe there’d been no need to come to the station, after all. But since she was here... “Then this
probably won’t matter, either, but I wanted to make sure you were at least aware of it.”
He rested his elbows on his desk as he leaned forward again. “What’s that?”
“Did the Matteos own a baseball card collection?”
He made a face that suggested he had no clue. “Not to my knowledge. Why?”
“Because around that time, Reggie came into possession of a baseball card collection worth a lot of money.”
Claxton blinked at her. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Now she was feeling almost euphoric. Thank God! After the way Reggie had acted yesterday, she’d begun to believe he was capable of anything. “Probably nothing,” she said with a relieved chuckle. “It just seemed strange that he would have some thing worth five thousand dollars, you know? He never had any money. And when I asked him where he got it, he told me some crazy story about trading a set of tires for it, which
didn’t really ring true. Putting that together with the fact that it came into his possession about the time the Matteos were
murdered, and knowing their murders started out as a burglary...”
“I get it. And I appreciate you coming in. But you’re jumping at shadows. Maybe Reggie lied. I’ll take your word for it on
that even though I’m betting he’d deny it—I know he would since I’ve already spoken to him about it—but I promise you the
baseball card collection doesn’t mean anything.”
She checked her watch and stood. “Great. Thanks. I’d better run, or I’ll be late for work.”
When they woke up the following morning, Ford had several issues he had to take care of for Wagner Business Solutions, so
after making breakfast—spinach omelets and coffee—Lucy decided to spend her time trying to figure out where Stephanie Beaumont
lived.
She assumed it would be difficult and that she’d have to ask Dahlia, who might be reluctant to tell her, or go through numerous
posts by the various people connected to Stephanie on social media, which might not reveal anything definitive. But that wasn’t
the case. All she had to do was Google Stephanie’s name along with “North Hampton Beach, VA” and an address popped up.
Lucy knew the general area. It was an older neighborhood of small homes built in the fifties and sixties. She asked Ford to
text Chet to see if he knew where Stephanie worked—she would’ve preferred to “bump” into her if it was someplace like a restaurant,
where such an encounter would seem natural. But Chet didn’t respond, so Lucy decided to drive to Stephanie’s house.
Even though Ford told her she could use the Land Rover, she walked to the Smoot cottage to get her own vehicle, and once she got there, she paused for several seconds to admire the carefully manicured yard. That Ford had gone to so much effort to make it beautiful for her seemed significant, meaningful, and yet she knew they were building only memories this summer—memories that would be bittersweet
in the years to come.
She’d gotten herself into a no-win situation.
With a sigh, she got behind the wheel and drove to the address she’d found online. There was always a chance Google had gotten
it wrong. Perhaps it was an old address. She’d thought that might be the case when she didn’t see Stephanie’s orange truck
in the drive.
After turning off her engine, she got out and went to the door. If she wanted answers, she had to be bold. Someone who had
a wind chime and a hummingbird feeder in the front yard, along with rows and rows of flowers and several ceramic gnomes, didn’t
come across as a hate-filled, dangerous person.
But no one answered the door. Lucy was walking back to her rental car when the orange truck she’d seen at the cottage, and
again in town, pulled into the drive.
Lucy turned as Stephanie got out. Since the other woman was sweaty and wearing workout clothes, it was easy to tell she’d
been at the gym. “Hey, sorry to just... show up out of nowhere,” she said, “but I was hoping to speak to you.”
Stephanie reached into the truck and pulled out a duffel bag she slung over her shoulder. When she looked up again, she said,
“I don’t think so. Not today. I don’t have time.”
“Then can I get your number so we can arrange something for later?”
“I’m afraid not. Sorry.”
Lucy followed her to the door. “If you don’t want to talk to me, why’d you show up at the Smoot Cottage? Are you the one who
broke in and messed up my things?”
She whipped around. “No! Of course not. I would never do that. I—I was thinking about having a conversation with you but decided not to. I don’t want to cause trouble, don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“Neither do I,” Lucy said. “I’ve never been out to hurt anyone, including Aurora. I hope you know that.”
She grudgingly acknowledged as much with a nod.
“You do know that?” Lucy clarified.
“I was one of Aurora’s best friends. She would’ve told me if you’d ever done anything wrong, would’ve used that to... to
make sure you paid for it. She hated you, considered you a rival and said terrible things about you all the time, so she wouldn’t
have held that back.”
It would’ve been nice if Stephanie had spoken up for her fifteen years ago. But she was one of the last people to see Aurora.
And, like so many others, she’d been young at the time and was probably too freaked out to do anything more than watch what
occurred in horror.
“My father didn’t kill Aurora, Stephanie.”
“How do you know?” she challenged.
“Because Aurora’s own brother saw him across town at the time Aurora was being murdered. It’s hard to be in two places at
once, even if you’re a psychopath.”
“Some people would say it doesn’t matter,” she said. “If your father killed the Matteos, he’s where he should be.”
She didn’t dare reveal that she was beginning to doubt that, too. “The Matteos are a separate case. Don’t you care to find
out for sure if he’s the one who killed your best friend?”
She looked confused. “I thought that was established.”
“There was no hard evidence.”
Obviously torn, Stephanie hesitated before unlocking her front door and pushing it wide. “Reggie comes down this street a
lot,” she said. “He’s seeing a woman on Brentwood who refuses to believe she’ll regret getting involved with him.”
“You must know that woman,” Lucy said.
“She teaches at the same school I do. She’s the one who told me you were back and how angry Reggie is about what you’re saying and doing. I’d rather neither one of them saw us talking.” She went inside, then gestured for Lucy to follow. “Come in. Like me, she’s off for the summer while school’s out, so she might be home today, too.”
Lucy stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her. She got the impression that Stephanie was single. She wasn’t
wearing a wedding ring, and there was no evidence of a spouse or children or even a roommate.
Stephanie dropped her bag on the closest chair. “You said someone broke into your house?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it Reggie?”
“I don’t know.”
She fanned herself with her hand. “Bet Ford didn’t like that.”
“ I didn’t like it,” Lucy said.
“But you’re seeing Ford again, right? That’s what I’ve been hearing.”
“It’s more of a working relationship,” Lucy said. It went well beyond that in her mind and heart, but she knew it wouldn’t
be anything in the end.
“Reggie claims you’ve hired a private investigator.”
“Ford has, yes. Is there anything you can do to help us? What I went through when I lived here... No one should have to
go through that, Stephanie.”
She frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything.”
“And yet you came to the cottage, said you wanted to have a conversation.”
“I’d just heard you were back in town and thought I’d say hi.”
“But we were never really friends...”
She looked even more uncomfortable. “I’m not proud of the way I treated you back then. It... it wasn’t kind. Aurora was
a bad influence. I regret it now.”
Lucy remembered the way Aurora and her friends had made fun of other people, how cliquish they’d been, and had to agree. The acknowledgment and apology were nice, but she’d been hoping Stephanie knew something about her father’s case. Disappointed, she turned to go.
She was just starting to open the door when Stephanie called her back. “Or... wait.”
Lucy turned.
“Actually, I did want to tell you something. Well, show you something.”
Lucy waited while Stephanie unzipped her bag, got out her cell phone and went through her pictures. “I’ve kept a screenshot
of it all these years because... because it was the last thing I ever got from Aurora. I didn’t show it to anyone at the
time. I was trying to figure out whether I should when the police landed on your father, and I thought it was beside the point.”
“You don’t think it is any longer?”
“Now that I have some distance from what happened, I feel I should’ve shown someone, after all, especially with what Darren
is saying these days.”
She thrust out her phone, letting Lucy read a screenshot of a text she’d received on the night Aurora died—a text that came
from Aurora herself:
Can you come get me? I don’t want to ride with my stupid brother. He’ll be pissed off that he had to pick me up, so we’ll
just fight the whole way. 1:06 a.m.
Never mind. Chet’s taking me out on the river. He’ll drive me home after. 1:18 a.m.
“I was asleep. Didn’t get them until morning,” Stephanie explained.
A chill ran down Lucy’s spine. Reading those texts was like hearing Aurora’s voice from the grave. “Did you ask Chet if he took her on the river?”
“I did. He said he didn’t. He said she was so stuck on Lance Zampino that he couldn’t get her to leave the party, after all,
and he was afraid if he didn’t get home his parents would realize he wasn’t in bed, so he had to leave without her.”
“You showed him these texts? He knows about them?” she clarified.
“I didn’t mention them specifically. I just asked him what happened after I left, and he said she wouldn’t go with him.”
“And you believed him.”
“I did. It never even crossed my mind that he could be lying. That’s why I assumed these texts didn’t mean anything. But my
neighbor says Darren is telling everyone your dad could not have killed Aurora. So then I thought... I thought maybe these
could be important. I highly doubt it, of course. Chet’s a great guy and always has been, which is why I’ve been hesitant
to say anything. I don’t want another innocent person to get the blame, but I also don’t want to keep these texts from the
investigation if there’s a chance Aurora’s murderer hasn’t been caught.”
Stephanie had to be horrified to think her best friend’s murderer could still be on the loose, especially after feeling as
though her murder had been solved. “Can I have a copy of this?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have shown it to you if I wasn’t ready to give it to the police, too.”
Lucy sent the screenshot to herself. “I’ll make sure they get it, but they may reach out to you to verify,” she said as she
handed the phone back.
“Okay, but...” Stephanie peered at her more closely. “You don’t think it’s anything important, do you? I mean, Chet would
never hurt Aurora. He loved her so much.”
“I can’t imagine he’d ever hurt her, either,” Lucy admitted. Ford would be even more shocked. But the fact that Chet had told Stephanie that Aurora didn’t go out on the boat with him and yet he’d ended up in possession of the boat seemed odd.
It was also odd that he didn’t come forward fifteen years ago to say he was the one who’d returned the boat. Was that really
something a person could forget?