27
On the drive home, Ford was mad at himself for doubting Chet. But he could remember how obsessed Chet had been with Aurora—and
such strong emotion could get out of hand.
“What happened that summer hurt everyone ,” he muttered as he turned down his street.
He was anxious to get back to Lucy. He wanted to tell her about his conversation with Chet, go out for a late lunch and then
head to the beach. While he was looking into Chet’s face, a face that was so benign and familiar to him, he’d started to feel
like a real jerk for even wondering if one of his oldest friends was hiding something.
That was bad enough, but as he reached Coastal Comfort, he saw something that upset him all over again. His brother had wasted
no time in coming to North Hampton Beach. Houston’s Ford Expedition was in the driveway.
Wondering how Lucy was faring with his brother, Ford parked in the driveway, too, instead of pulling into the garage, and jumped out of his vehicle. But when he barged into the house, Lucy wasn’t there. He found only Houston, watching the golf channel.
Ford didn’t even greet this brother. He glanced around the kitchen, then at the deck beyond the wall of windows that faced
the sea and down the hallway toward the master bedroom. “Where’s Lucy?”
“Don’t know,” he said with a careless shrug. “She left.”
Irritated that Houston would crash the best summer of his life—his only chance to enjoy being with Lucy—he stalked into the
bedroom and saw Lucy’s things were gone.
Immediately pulling out his suitcase, he started tossing his clothes inside.
A creak sounded in the hall just as he was zipping it up.
“Where are you going?” Houston asked, his voice filled with surprise.
“Where do you think?” Ford replied as he grabbed his shaving kit from the bathroom.
Houston leaned against the lintel. “Looks like you’re moving out.”
“I am. I’m going over to the Smoot cottage with Lucy.” He tried to pass his brother, but Houston stepped in front of him.
“You’re not going to talk to me?”
“No. Why would I? I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”
“I came to hang out with you, make sure you didn’t do anything stupid. It’s painful to go through a divorce. Mom and I didn’t
realize how bad you were feeling until you bugged out of town. Now I hear you’re getting back with Lucy. Are you kidding me,
dude? Her dad’s a murderer . Who knows what runs in her genes?”
It was difficult for Ford not to slug him. “Don’t ever say anything like that again,” he said, his hands curling into fists.
The menace in his voice caused Houston to straighten. “What the fuck? I’m just trying to look out for you.”
Since when had he needed Houston’s help to run his life—or anything else? If Houston really wanted to give him some support, why had he left Ford to figure out what to do with the company all by himself? To navigate every challenge and clear every hurdle with the business while providing for him? They’d both worked at Wagner Business Solutions for years, but the learning curve—once full responsibility became truly his—had still proved to be incredibly steep. “I appreciate the concern, bro. But Mom didn’t need to send you. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Everything but your personal life. Seems to be in shambles, you ask me.”
Ford shook his head. “Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black!”
“I have more room for error,” Houston said with a laugh. “No one expects much of me—and I’ve never been married.”
Someone who eschewed responsibility as much as Houston did probably never would get married. Ford would feel sorry for any
wife of his; he couldn’t be trusted to so much as pay a water bill on time.
“Now you have a baby on the way, too,” Houston was saying. “When you first said you’d be spending the summer here, I thought
it might be wise for you to escape, take some time to decompress. But I don’t think diving into an old mystery— that’s already been solved —and rekindling a romance with someone you haven’t seen in fifteen years is going to get you where you want to go.”
Determined that his family wouldn’t get in the way of his relationships ever again, Ford clenched his jaw. “I care about Lucy.”
Houston studied him carefully. “Are you saying you’re in love with her?”
Ford didn’t answer. It was none of Houston’s business. Houston had plenty of his own problems to worry about.
“Or is Lucy just an escape, Ford?” he continued. “That has to be what’s going on. You’re escaping an unhappy marriage, and unlimited sex on the beach seems like the perfect way to make yourself feel better. But it’s an illusion. You two have nothing in common. You haven’t even seen each other in fifteen years!”
“I never quit caring about her,” Ford insisted and shouldered his way past his brother.
“Ford!” Houston followed him out. “Have you ever considered that she might be using you?”
Ford whipped around to face him again. “Really? You’re going there? Saying she’s after me for my money?”
“Kevin Claxton claims you’re paying a fortune for the investigator who’s trying to get her father out of prison. Is that true?
Because I can’t imagine she has the resources to do that.”
“We’re not trying to get her father out of prison. We’re trying to find the truth. Hopefully, if we can get that far, everything
else will take care of itself.”
Houston caught the door as Ford tried to shut it and followed him into the yard. “Slow down. I’m just pointing out that you’re
on the rebound. It’s a thing, you know? A real thing. And it means you might not be seeing the situation very accurately.”
Ford shoved his bag in the backseat of his SUV before whirling around to confront his brother once again. “You, Mom and anyone
else who might try to influence me right now had better back off. I’ve been making my own decisions for a long time—and I’ll
continue to do so.”
He climbed behind the wheel, clicked on his seat belt and backed out of the drive, leaving his brother standing in the yard,
gaping after him.
Lucy knew her relationship with Ford would end with the summer, when they each went back to their regular lives. But having Houston show up seemed to have ruined their idyllic in terlude. At best, Ford would feel divided while his brother was in town. At worst, he’d distance himself from her all over again.
It was better to accept the loss now, before she got even more invested in the relationship, she told herself. And yet she
kept checking her phone and going to the window, hoping Ford wouldn’t abandon her as quickly and easily as he had before.
“What does it matter? He has to go eventually.” She spoke the words aloud, determined to convince herself.
But her heart was more stubborn than she’d imagined. She couldn’t concentrate on anything but him and paced around the dining
table until she saw him coming up the walk.
He was carrying his suitcase. At the sight of it, she nearly burst into tears. She was still trying to control her emotions
when he knocked on the door.
Pressing herself against a wall, where he couldn’t see her through the windows, she tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
The way things had gone fifteen years ago had created so much fear. Her mother had abandoned her years before that. Her father
had essentially abandoned her by doing the terrible things he did— if he were truly guilty. And Ford and most of the friends she’d had when she lived in North Hampton Beach had abandoned her,
too. Houston’s presence—the way he’d treated her when he showed up—had brought the pain of it all back.
“Lucy?” Ford called. “Lucy, open the door.”
Although she could easily hear him—it was so hot all the windows were open—she didn’t answer. She’d needed a few minutes to
gather herself, but he was already getting impatient. She heard a thump. He must’ve dropped his bag before starting around
the house, because he was moving fast when she caught a glimpse of him through a side window.
Once he reached the back porch, he’d be able to see her, unless she found a better place to hide. He’d also be able to get in simply by breaking the screen door. But doing anything more than ducking to the side for a few moments seemed childish. She had to speak to him. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Battling the specter of what she’d experienced in the past, she drew a deep breath and went to open the door.
She’d managed to hold back her tears, felt like she was once again in control, but he knew what she was feeling. She could
tell he did when his arms went around her and he kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay. Houston isn’t going to change anything.
He can stay in the big house, and we’ll stay here. It might get pretty damn hot without air-conditioning,” he said with a
chuckle. “But at least we’ll be together.”
Ford had told her before that he would remain committed to spending the summer with her even after his brother arrived. But
when Houston showed up and Ford wasn’t there to deal with him, she’d lost all confidence. For Ford to follow through, he’d
have to choose her over his family, and she couldn’t believe he’d really do that. He hadn’t before, and he probably shouldn’t
now. After all, they’d be part of his life long after this one summer. “I don’t want to come between you and your brother,”
she said, her mouth against his solid chest.
“If he lets the fact that I want to be with you come between us, that’s on him.”
It was more comfortable, at least for Lucy, to be back in the cottage. While Ford’s beachfront home was far more luxurious,
and there was something to be said for air-conditioning, living there was also a constant reminder of the rejection she faced
by his family. Houston’s appearance made it much more difficult to ignore the fact that Ford’s mother and brother weren’t
happy that she was infiltrating their sanctuary all these years later.
But she and Ford made a pact that they’d blow off Houston’s presence, at least for today. Other than discussing Ford’s conversation with Chet and Chet’s insistence that Aurora hadn’t left the party with him, they didn’t talk about the murders or her father. Houston’s showing up in North Hampton Beach had reminded them of how very short the summer would be. They wanted to spend the day together without the overhang of the past, so they walked on the beach, swam and bodysurfed. Then they showered in Sharon Smoot’s cramped tub-shower combo, and Ford took Lucy to Washington DC for dinner, where they could have an evening out without the worry of running into someone they knew.
It was midnight when they got back. Ever since someone had broken into the cottage, Lucy couldn’t help feeling wary as she
approached it, especially now, since it was so late. She could tell Ford was being cautious, too. He gently put her behind
him as he opened the door. But everything looked fine and a quick turn around the house while they opened all the windows
they’d closed when they left proved nothing had happened in the interim.
Ford had just gotten into bed and turned on the TV when she went out to get the mail and found a letter from her father.
“He wrote me!” she announced as she brought it into the bedroom and showed it to Ford before sitting down beside him.
He shifted to make more room for her, stuffing another pillow behind his back as she opened the envelope. “What does he say?”
As she stared at her father’s blocky all-caps printing—in pencil since inmates weren’t allowed pens—she marveled at the fact
that he and Ford were both back in her life. She’d certainly never expected that to happen. For so long, she hadn’t been able to imagine
feeling strong enough to return to North Hampton Beach, let alone interact with the two men she’d loved the most. She still
didn’t know where this summer would lead—if she’d be glad she’d made the effort, or if the past would sweep her back out to
sea, once again leaving her lost and alone and struggling just to survive.
But if there was any chance her father was innocent, she owed it to him to do what she could. And if he was guilty? If she could determine that with more certainty, she’d be able to move on with greater peace of mind, which also made the risk worth taking. At a minimum, she hoped to prove she’d had nothing to do with Aurora’s death—hadn’t even provided the motivation.
Regardless of how it all ended, she was in it now. There was no going back.
“He says that the clothes he washed the morning the Matteos were murdered were tested for DNA and there was no blood.”
“I remember that coming up at his trial,” Ford said.
“So do I. That was one thing his lawyer did point out. My father said he washed them because he’d thrown up the night before and didn’t want me to have to deal with
the mess. But all of that got brushed aside when the prosecutor hammered home the DNA evidence under Tony’s fingernails, even
though my father’s boots didn’t have any blood on them, either.”
“The assumption was that he must’ve cleaned them, like he did his clothes.”
“He insists he didn’t. And he brings up something new. He says Reggie used to buy dope from Cary Whitehead, who also lived
in the trailer park. There were rumors Reggie came over trying to score some drugs that night, but he didn’t have the money
and Cary wouldn’t sell to him on credit because he was already so behind.”
“That places Reggie—a known thug and troublemaker—in the park that night.”
“And he needed money. My father says that Susan Willett, who lived next door to Cary, told him she overheard the two of them
arguing. Reggie wasn’t giving up easily, kept saying he’d pay him back, that he was good for it and so on. She called my father—well
before the police discovered what had happened to the Matteos, which wasn’t until three days later—to complain about the noise.”
“Why didn’t the defense attorney make a bigger deal of that?”
“Because Reggie wasn’t the one on trial, I guess. The police weren’t looking for another suspect. Once they found the DNA evidence under Tony’s fingernails, nothing else mattered.”
“What a coincidence that your father was put in the same cell as Reggie.”
“And that Reggie’s the one who claimed he confessed,” she said.
“Do you believe what your father’s telling you in this letter?”
“I do,” she admitted, feeling a tiny surge of hope. “He gave up when they convicted him, couldn’t seem to trust that anything
would make a difference. It’s only now that he’s started trying to help me with this. Why would someone so fatalistic lie?
Someone who’s convinced he’ll never get out, no matter what he says or does?” She’d once taken such behavior as an admission
of guilt. Now she was seeing it in a whole new light. “He’s no longer telling me to go away, like he did before, so that’s
a change, too.”
“He told you to go away ?”
“What he actually said was that he never wanted to see me again.”
“Ouch,” Ford said with a wince. “I’m sorry.”
Too lost in the past, she didn’t respond.
“I hate that I wasn’t better to you,” he continued. “That I didn’t help you through that period of your life. Maybe my parents
would’ve disowned me, but we should’ve gone across the country together, living out of your van. We both would’ve been happier.”
Ford shouldn’t have meant as much to her as he had. They’d been so young when they fell in love. And yet losing him had been
almost as painful as all the rest of it. “It’s better that you got an education. I can understand why you did what you did—and
why your parents were adamant you stay on course.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“It sort of is,” she said with a grin and pecked his lips before rereading the letter from her father that signaled such a reversal in Mick’s behavior. For the first time, he seemed to be scraping together a little trust—enough to try to help her with what she was hoping to do. He didn’t have a lot of information to share. The events in question had occurred when he couldn’t even remember what he’d done the morning after. But it wasn’t his blood that was found in the Matteos’ kitchen sink, he didn’t have any injuries consistent with beating someone to death—not even any scratches—and there was no blood on his clothes or shoes.
Why not?
If he’d killed the Matteos, there should’ve been. Lucy had watched true crime show after true crime show where authorities
used luminol on various surfaces—even surfaces that’d been cleaned, days, weeks, sometimes even years after—and it fluoresced
to show the presence of human blood. That nothing had been found on her father’s clothes and shoes should’ve created more
doubt.
But it didn’t—because it had all come down to the DNA under poor Mr. Matteo’s fingernails, the fact that her father managed
the trailer park, could easily get in and knew they’d be out of town. And her father didn’t have an alibi.
Then Aurora was killed, and he got blamed for that, too.
“I can’t wait to see if the investigator gets a hit on CODIS,” she said. “It couldn’t be that easy, could it?”
“It could, but it probably won’t be,” he admitted.
When Lucy woke up the following morning, she found Ford already checking his phone. “Morning,” she mumbled.
“Morning.” His voice sounded subdued, and he didn’t look over at her.
She was sweating despite having the windows open, so she kicked off the sheet. “Something wrong?”
He handed her his phone. “A text from Chief Claxton.”
She read it:
Your brother and I had a drink together last night. He thinks you’re making a terrible mistake trying to prove Lucy’s father
is innocent. Apparently, you don’t understand the DNA evidence.
“Your brother and Claxton are friends?” Lucy asked as she gave his phone back.
“They used to hang out together.”
She remembered them playing volleyball at the beach, but she hadn’t realized they’d spent a great deal of time together beyond
that. She hadn’t been with Ford long enough to have gotten to know his family very well. The relationship had been so new
they’d just wanted to be alone together, didn’t have a chance to go beyond that before her father was arrested. “Have they
stayed in touch?”
“Not really. If I remember right, they had some kind of falling-out the summer of the murders.”
She scooted closer. “They seem to have gotten over it.”
“My brother rotates through friends pretty quickly.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“He’s not reliable. When he drinks, he can be hard to put up with. Always has to be right. Challenges you at every turn.”
He made a gesture that put an exclamation point on his words. “It gets tiresome. But he can be fun, too—and very generous
with money—so after pulling away for a while, his friends will sometimes drift back.”
“What are you going to say to Claxton?”
“I’m going to remind him someone else was in the Matteos’ trailer that night who bled in the sink, and that’s the guy we need
to find.”
He sent that message and got an immediate and emphatic response.
Back off, Ford. Go home to your pregnant wife before you regret coming here.
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
“He’d better not do anything.”
Lucy frowned. “What happened fifteen years ago has caused enough pain. Maybe you should listen to him, back away and let me
deal with this on my own.”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “That’s what I’d regret, and I know that’s true because of how much I regret the way I behaved
last time.”
She leaned over to kiss him, and he pulled her back into bed.