Page 55 of The Summer that Changed Everything
“Did you see Aurora at the party that night?”
“I caught a few glimpses of her, here and there. My son didn’t want his parents hanging around so we were making ourselves scarce. But I did check on the party now and then.”
“Did you notice who she came with? Who she was hanging around with while she was here?”
“I can’t tell you anything more than what was said at the trial, Lucy. She came with Stephanie Beaumont, who went home fairly early.Shehad parents who were doing their job,” she added drily. “My son said Aurora stayed behind and was flirting with him and some of his friends. We didn’t want to hurt the Clarks any worse by making a big deal of her behavior, so that wasn’t really pointed out in court. To be honest, we also didn’t want anyone to claim that it was Lance or one of his friends who’d killed her. We were terrified the wrong person would get the blame.”
Which was exactly what’d happened. The only difference was that her father reallydiddeserve to be in prison, even if Aurora wasn’t one of his victims, so no one cared. “If you think of anything that doesn’t quite jibe with what came out at the trial, will you call me?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t have my phone on me. I was trying to get in a few practice serves when you came.” She gestured in the direction of the tennis court. “But I’ll give you my number, and you can text me so I’ll have yours.”
Lucy created the new contact record in her phone. “Thank you. I appreciate your patience and kindness.”
She nodded. “I’m glad to see you didn’t let what happened destroy you.”
It’d come darn close, but Lucy didn’t volunteer that. She just thanked her again and turned to go.
But Vickie spoke, causing Lucy to stop and turn. “Actually, now that I think of it, there was one thing that was never mentioned at the trial, and I’ve always wondered why.”
Lucy felt an upwelling of hope. “What was that?”
She gestured to the rowboat sitting on the sandy strip that formed the bank of the river. “Someone took this little boat out that night. We saw that it was missing when we came down to clean up at about... two-thirty? Our son was playing poker in the house with a handful of friends while we went out to bring in the decorations. It was raining, so we knew we’d have a real mess on our hands if we didn’t get to the crepe paper before it fell on the lawn. While we were doing that, my husband thought to check the boat we had moored here at the time. He actually wanted to be sure the motorboat was secured, and it was fine. It was the rowboat that was gone. We assumed the wind must’ve taken it, but when I got up the following morning, it was back.”
“And you don’t know who brought it back?”
“No. We just assumed it had to have been a neighbor. How would anyone else know where it belonged?”
“Had the boat ever gone missing before?”
“No. Not since then, either. At least, not during such a mild storm. The wind wasn’t even very strong that night—it was just rain. We figured one of our guests had been messing with it—that maybe someone took it out and had been drinking too much to drag it back up on shore. But when we tried to find out who’d been so kind to return it, every single neighbor said they didn’t know anything about it.”
“Why didn’t this come out at trial?”
“I don’t know. We told the police about it, but no one ever mentioned it again.”
“Did the police examine the boat? Check it for blood or DNA?”
“They did, but they didn’t seem to come up with anything, and they quit pursuing it once your father was arrested.”
“Because his DNA wasn’t found on the boat.”
“I guess.”
They would’ve mentioned it if it had been. That was the missing link they never found, why his conviction for Aurora hinged on circumstantial evidence and someone like Reggie. “I took some video,” Lucy told her, “just to get a feel for the layout of this place. I hope that’s okay. I’m only going to share it with a private investigator, to try to help him get a feel for Aurora’s last night.”
She seemed hesitant—it was an invasion of privacy, which was why Lucy had felt the need to tell her—but ultimately shrugged. “I can’t see how it would hurt anything.” She started to follow Lucy toward the house. “I’ll show you out.”
Ford left Darren’s totally astonished. He’d been going along with what Lucy said mostly to make up for letting her down so terribly in the past—and because, on some level he didn’t want to examine too closely, he still cared about her. He hadn’t hadany real conviction she was right. He just thought she should matter as much as anyone else, which meant she should have the chance to ask questions and do her own investigation in the hope that it could finally bring her some peace.
But that’d all changed while he was standing at Darren’s door. Speaking to the Clarks’ son had made him realize that Darren wasn’t setting her up or playing games. What she’d been talking about since she came back to town needed to be heard and acted on. Her fatherdidn’tkill Aurora Clark, which meant the real killer still needed to be brought to justice.
“Whoa,” he muttered as he drove away from Darren’s house. No wonder the Clarks didn’t want to hear what Lucy had to say. It was hard enough to lose a daughter, especially the way they’d lost theirs. But to believe the monster who’d murdered her hadn’t been caught and punished? They thought they had that much; losing it wouldn’t be easy.
His phone signaled a call. It was from Lucy. He hit the button that would cause his Bluetooth to pick up.
“How’d it go with Darren?” she asked.
“Surprisingly well,” he said as he turned out of Darren’s neighborhood, a blue-collar section of town filled with older homes and rentals not far from the trailer park. “He told me the same thing he told you, so now he’s said it to both of us.”
