Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Kelly had survived the ceremony, the photographs, and two full conversations with one of her aunts about the state of Bergen's downtown revitalization project. She considered this a personal best.
The reception was in full swing now. The string lights had come alive overhead as dusk settled across the garden, casting everything in a warm amber glow that made even the polyester tablecloths look expensive.
The quartet had given way to a DJ who was working his way through a playlist that seemed designed to offend no one, while couples swayed on the small dance floor.
Kelly stood near the edge of the reception, nursing a glass of white wine and smiling at anyone who walked past. The smile was mechanical but effective.
She'd deployed it so many times this afternoon that her cheeks ached, but the alternative was not smiling, which in the Bateman family was treated as a declaration of war.
Ben was across the garden, deep in conversation with one of Trevor's cousins near the dessert table.
He'd been making the rounds for the last hour, shaking hands and nodding along to stories from people he'd never met and would probably never see again.
He was good at this. Better than she was, honestly.
He had the kind of steady, attentive manner that made people feel heard without requiring him to actually say much.
She was watching him select a miniature cheesecake when her phone vibrated inside her clutch.
The number on the screen wasn't one she recognized, but the area code was. Southern Illinois. Her stomach tightened.
Kelly glanced around the reception. Her mother was occupied with the caterer. Celia and Trevor were on the dance floor. Rob was holding court at a table of Trevor's groomsmen, explaining something with both hands.
She moved quickly toward the far corner of the garden, past the lattice screen and the potted ferns, to a spot where the music faded to a tolerable background hum. A single string of lights illuminated a wrought-iron bench that no one had claimed.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Ms. Bateman? Kelly? This is Patricia Givens. You left a message for me about Lori."
Relief washed through her body, hoping against hope that Aunt Patricia might have information that could help them.
"Mrs. Givens, thank you so much for calling me back," Kelly said, pressing her free hand against her thigh to keep it steady. "I know it's been a while since we last saw one another.”
“It has been a long time, hasn’t it? I hope you’ve been well. I’m sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Harold and I were visiting our son in Memphis. I only just got your message yesterday." A pause. "You said you had some questions about the summer Lori stayed with us?"
"Yes. The summer before her senior year. She spent about ten weeks with you and your husband, is that right?"
"That's right. She came to help after my husband had surgery. She worked in our ice cream shop on Main Street, the one with the green awning. Scooped cones and made milkshakes. She loved it."
Kelly pressed the phone closer to her ear. A burst of laughter erupted from the reception behind her. She turned her back to it.
"How was she when she first arrived?" Kelly asked.
"Oh, lonely," Patricia said without hesitation. "Homesick. She missed her friends, missed her boyfriend. She moped around the house for the first week or so. Harold and I didn't know what to do with her. We're not exactly exciting company for a seventeen-year-old girl."
“Did that change?”
"It did. About the second week, she came home from work just beaming. Said she'd run into someone from Bergen. A boy she knew from school. He was staying with family nearby and working at the hardware store for the summer. His grandparents lived in that town, apparently.”
Kelly's grip on the phone tightened.
"Did she say his name?"
This was it. A new lead.
“Of course. We met him. His name was Ethan. I don't remember his last name, but what a lovely young man. Friendly, well-spoken. We adored him, and Lori did too. When they both weren't working, they were inseparable."
The garden tilted slightly. Kelly sat down on the wrought-iron bench and pressed her palm flat against the cool metal armrest.
Ethan.
Ethan Walters. Student class president. Voted most likely to be president. Sandy blond hair, curly at the top. Slim and athletic. Currently, a local attorney running for mayor of Bergen. He was also attending the wedding today, and she’d seen him earlier at the buffet.
The same Ethan Walters that Rob had been bragging about not thirty minutes ago.
"Mrs. Givens," Kelly said carefully, "were Lori and Ethan romantic? Were they dating?"
"Well, she never came right out and said so," Patricia replied.
"But they were always together. He'd pick her up after her shifts.
They'd go for walks along the river. One evening I looked out the kitchen window, and they were sitting on the porch swing, her head on his shoulder, and I thought, well, that tells the story, doesn't it? "
"Did she mention a boyfriend back home? Someone named Cal?"
"She mentioned him a few times early on. But after Ethan showed up, I don't think she brought him up again. I assumed they'd broken up. Young love, you know. It changes like the weather at that age."
Kelly's free hand was trembling. She watched it shake against the armrest as if it belonged to someone else. Of all the people in all of the world…she hadn’t expected this.
"Did anything else seem different about Lori toward the end of the summer?" Kelly asked. "Before she went back to Bergen?"
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"She was quieter the last few days. A little sad, I thought. She and Ethan had some kind of talk, I think. I heard them on the porch one night, not arguing exactly, but serious. Intense. When she left, she hugged me for a long time and said thank you for the best summer of her life."
Patricia’s voice was clogged with emotion, giving the words even more meaning.
The best summer of her life. Not long after, someone strangled her and left her in a ditch by a cornfield.
"Mrs. Givens, I really appreciate you telling me all of this," Kelly said. "Would you be willing to talk again if I have more questions?"
"Of course, but I’m not sure how any of this is helpful. I’ve always hoped Lori could rest in peace.”
“I want that, too. More than you can ever know.”
She ended the call and sat motionless on the bench. The reception continued behind her, the DJ now playing something from the eighties that had drawn more people onto the dance floor. She could hear Rob's voice rising above the music, which was a feat given the volume.
Ethan Walters and Lori Powell. Together that summer. A secret relationship that no one in their friend group knew about. Not Kelly, not Hannah, not anyone.
And then Lori had come home, pregnant, not telling anyone.
Kelly stared at the dark garden beyond the string lights. The pieces were rearranging themselves in her mind, clicking into new positions like a combination lock turning.
What if the father was Ethan Walters, the boy with the serious expression and the bright future? The student class president who was voted most likely to be president? The young man who, according to Rob, would be nothing without his guidance?
And if Ethan was the father, did he know? Had Lori told him?
Had that confrontation gotten her killed?
Kelly's mind went to what Rob had said during the ceremony. "He was ready to blow his entire future, and I was able to get him to see reason."
What did Rob mean by that? Was this simply more of her brother blowing smoke up people’s asses?
The questions multiplied faster than she could process them. She forced herself to slow down, to think clearly. Facts first. Speculation later. That was how she approached every case on her podcast, and it needed to be how she approached this one.
Fact: Lori and Ethan had a secret relationship the summer before her death.
Fact: Lori came home pregnant.
Fact: Lori was murdered that fall.
Fact: Ethan Walters was currently at this reception, sitting somewhere among the wedding guests, less than a hundred yards from where Kelly sat with the phone still warm in her hand.
She stood up from the bench. Her legs were steadier than she expected. The trembling in her hands had stopped, replaced by something more focused. She smoothed the front of her navy dress, dropped her phone back into her clutch, and turned toward the reception.
She needed to find Ben. Then, she needed to talk to Ethan.
The dance floor was crowded now, and the DJ was playing something by Whitney Houston.
She spotted Ben among the crowd, holding a plate with two miniature cheesecakes and listening to a woman in a floral dress who was gesturing enthusiastically.
One of Trevor's cousins, maybe. Or an aunt.
Bergen weddings tended to blur the line between guest and relative after the third hour.
Kelly approached and touched his arm. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. Ben looked at her face, set down the plate, and turned to the woman in the floral dress.
"Would you excuse us? I'm sorry."
The woman waved him off with good-natured understanding.
Ben fell into step beside Kelly as she led him away from the dessert table, past the gift table, and toward a cluster of potted ferns that the event planner had arranged near the garden wall.
The ferns created a natural barrier between this corner and the rest of the reception.
"What happened?" Ben asked.
"I just talked to Lori's aunt. Patricia Givens." Kelly kept her voice low, her back to the reception. "Lori spent most of the summer with her aunt and uncle before senior year. Working at their ice cream shop. At first, her aunt said that Lori was homesick, but that didn’t last."
Ben glanced at the guests who were all ignoring them before nodding at her to continue.
"She ran into someone from Bergen while she was down there. A boy who was also staying with family for the summer. They spent every day together. Walks by the river. Late nights on the porch. Her aunt said they were inseparable."
"Who?"
"Ethan."
Ben's expression didn't change dramatically. A slight narrowing of the eyes, a tilt of the head. The reaction of someone fitting a new piece into a puzzle and watching the picture shift.
"Ethan Walters," Kelly clarified, though she was certain he'd already made the connection. "Student class president. Currently running for mayor. Rob's best friend."
"The one Rob was just talking about," Ben said.
"The very same. The one who was about to 'blow his entire future' before Rob saved the day. As usual.”
Kelly made a second mental note to talk to her brother.
"Patricia said they were dating?” Ben asked.
"She didn't use that word. She said she looked out her kitchen window one evening and saw Lori with her head on his shoulder on the porch swing. She said she assumed they were together, but Lori never confirmed it outright."
"And Cal?"
"Lori stopped mentioning him after Ethan showed up. Patricia assumed they'd broken up."
"So Lori comes home from the summer with a secret relationship and shortly after turns up pregnant. And it might be by the student class president with the bright future and the political ambitions," Ben said.
The words hung between them in the warm evening air. From the reception, the DJ announced that the bride and groom would be cutting the cake in ten minutes. A small cheer went up from the crowd.
"Patricia said they had some kind of serious conversation toward the end of the summer," Kelly added. "Not an argument, but intense. And then Lori went home and told her aunt it had been the best summer of her life."
Ben was quiet for a moment. Kelly could see him processing, sorting through the implications with the same methodical attention he probably once applied to business strategy. His eyes moved across the reception, scanning faces.
"Is he here?" Ben asked.
“I saw him earlier. We need to talk to him.”
Her heart was hammering against her ribs now, a steady drumbeat that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the fact that Ethan might be the key to everything. The father of Lori's baby. The secret she'd carried. Maybe the reason she was dead.
Or maybe not. Maybe he was just a guy who had a summer fling with a pretty girl eleven years ago and had nothing to do with what happened to her.
There was only one way to find out.