Page 101 of The Summer that Changed Everything
“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 togo 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 beforerereading 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.”
