Page 93 of The Summer that Changed Everything
“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 hersomuch.”
“I can’t imagine he’d ever hurt her, either,” Lucy admitted. Ford would be even more shocked. But the fact that Chet hadtold Stephanie that Auroradidn’tgo 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?
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Ford couldn’t imagine that Chet had anything to do with Aurora’s murder. “It can’t be him,” he told Lucy, adamant, when she got back.
“Why not?” she challenged. “Because he’s a family man now?”
Pushing his stool away from the island where he’d worked while she was gone, he stood and went to get a drink of water. “Because he was a decent human being even back then.”
She followed him to the fridge. “Most murders are an act of passion, Ford. Even Stephanie said, ‘He loved her so much.’ Maybe he was on something, didn’t have the restraint he would’ve had otherwise, and she enraged him—spurned him or belittled him.”
As much as he hated to admit it, that sounded like something Aurora would do. She’d thought she was so much better than everyone else. That was part of the reason Ford had never been attracted to her. She could be funny, was sometimes sweet, but she could also be mean. “So hekilledher?” he said skeptically.
“Someone did. It’s not always someone who looks like an obvious monster. Sometimes even nice people do terrible things.”
“I know that,” he said. “But not Chet. You’re asking me to believe it wasn’t your father. I’m asking you to believe it wasn’t my friend.”
She touched his arm, probably to soften her response or offer some empathy while she pointed out the obvious. “Except we know that Chet andnotmy father was one of the last people to see her alive. She was found in the river. His house backs up to the river. And he admitted to returning the boat. Why didn’t he mention that before? Thathewas the one who found the boat and returned it?”
“Because he forgot about it,” Ford heard himself say but knew how ridiculous it was to believe that Chet could forget something like that. Ford had found it odd as soon as Chet told him; he just hadn’t given that little niggle of concern much attention—had immediately pushed it away in favor of believing his friend. He knew him, liked him.
Although... things were decidedly different between them these days.
He could see the sympathy in Lucy’s eyes when she said, “Maybe you’re right.”
But Ford didn’t want her to give in just because he wanted her to see things his way.
He combed his fingers through his hair. He was making it stand up in the wrong places, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want it to be Chet, didn’t want to arrive at the obvious conclusion—that Chet had a greater chance of being involved in Aurora’s murder than Mick McBride. Mick hadn’t been anywhere near the Zampino house, while Chet had attended the party. “He’s never hurt anyone else.”
“That we know of,” she said gently.
With a sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose while tryingto hash it out in his mind. He knew there’d been a lot of drugs at that party. If Chet had been on something, it could’ve made a big difference in how he reacted to certain things... “If I accuse him—or even question him—it’ll be the end of our friendship.”
“I know. I say we give this information to the investigator and see where the case leads before we go that far.”
Ford wanted to agree, to back away from this as much as possible. But a scene was playing in his mind—the memory of Chet telling everyone they hung out with that summer that Mick McBride had killed Aurora because Lucy put him up to it. He’d been so adamant it had made Ford mad; they’d almost ended up in a fistfight. Was there a reason he’d been so quick to point a finger at her? Had he been using her as a scapegoat?
Pulling her to him, Ford rested his chin on her head. She was already coming to mean so much to him. The circumstances of those murders had robbed them of whatever relationship they could’ve had, and he felt they would’ve been happier if they’d been together.
If Chet was to blame for that...
Anger suddenly charged through him like fire racing down a line of gunpowder. Releasing her, he crossed the kitchen to get his keys.
