Page 50 of The Summer that Changed Everything

He turned off his ringer and put on some music. He was tired but not quite ready for bed. He wanted to live in this moment a little longer. The slightly bewildered expression on Lucy’s face as she’d gazed up at him tonight had to be the most heartbreaking look she’d ever given him, and yet there was something there that offered him hope of real forgiveness.

After a few minutes, the music cut out, signifying he’d received a text. He knew better than to do it, but he glanced down to see what it was. He’d been hoping it was Lucy. Regardless of everything, he liked being with her, felt at home in a way that was difficult to describe.

But it was Christina. She was saying she’d visited her OB/GYN today and heard the heartbeat of their baby for the first time. She’d sent him a recording of it.

Listening would only make him sad he wasn’t there, even though hecouldn’tbe there—couldn’t be with Christina—any longer.

Still, he pressed Play.

The heartbeat was much faster than that of a baby outside the womb and had a whooshing sound:Wow... wow... wow... wow...

He closed his eyes as he listened. He wanted to be excited. Especially because he’d just seen Chet’s baby and instantly loved her. How could he miss the birth of his own little girl or boy? Staying up at night to help with changings and feedings? Holding his child in his arms whenever he wanted?

And yet he couldn’t go back to Christinaagain, not when he already knew how it would end.

Although... Maybe the baby really would make all the difference. Would Christina care enough about their child to be decent? Should he get back with her and put off the divorce until he absolutely couldn’t take it anymore? Or stay with her indefinitely, no matter how miserable he got, for the sake of this other person they were bringing into the world?

A lump formed in his throat. He generally avoided a lot of emotion—did whatever he could to distract himself when the regret and longing struck. That was why he’d worked so many hours; work was the only antidote to his turbulent home life. But all the pain and disappointment, and the sense of failure, he’d been shoving away hit him as he played that heartbeat recording over and over.

He could take the summer for himself, but then he had to go back to Christina, he realized. She’d had him from the second she told him she was pregnant. On some level, she knewit, too. It was because he’d tried to tell her no that she’d sent him this little reminder. The recording sounded likewow... wow... wow... wow, but it was really saying,I’ve still got you. You’ll never escape.

Lucy woke up thinking about Ford. She’d gone to sleep thinking about Ford, too. And that simply wasn’t acceptable.

Disgusted with herself, she got out of bed and made breakfast. She was going to scan the two letters she’d received from her father so far and send them to Friedman. She thought he might be able to glean something from them or give her questions he wanted her to ask. After all, she was the only one who had a connection with Mick. She doubted her father would talk to anyone else—about Auroraorthe Matteos. He hadn’t in all these years, wasn’t the kind of guy who pandered to the press.

While she was eating, Missy texted her a picture of her plants, which were thriving. Her friend also said the last guy she’d dated had come back into the restaurant where she worked. Missy insisted he was feeling her out, hoping she’d encourage him to get back in touch with Lucy. But Lucy knew she’d done the right thing calling it quits with him. The way she felt when she was around Ford showed her what it should be like when she was interested in someone. She couldn’t allow herself to succumb to the attraction she felt for her first love—had to find someone else who stirred her in the same way. She was positive of that now, just as she was positive that she’d done the right thing breaking up with the other men she’d been with since leaving North Hampton Beach.

She told Missy to discourage him. Then she got dressed and grabbed her keys. She planned to go to the house where Aurora had attended the party the night she was killed—to see, through an adult’s eyes, how things might’ve played out. Whatexit Aurora might’ve taken. Where she might’ve walked. Where whoever killed her might’ve found her and/or abducted her.

Maybe, since it’d been so long, some of the neighbors who weren’t closely tied to the Clarks would be willing to talk to her—if the same people still lived in or used those homes.

She piled her hair into a messy bun, put on some mascara and lip gloss and grabbed her purse. But as she was letting herself out of the house, she heard the pounding of feet as someone ran away and turned just in time to see the trees move where whoever it was had torn through them to reach the road.

Who’d been in her yard? And why hadn’t that person come to the door?

Hoping to catch a glimpse of the culprit—to put her mind at ease that it was just kids—she started to follow. As far as she knew, there was no reason for anyone to be at the cottage besides Ford, who was taking care of the landscaping, and he wouldn’t run away when she came out.

But she hadn’t gotten very far when she heard a motor flare to life and saw a quick glimpse of the back end of a beat-up orange truck scatter gravel as the driver peeled out and rocketed away before she could see who was behind the wheel.

15

The house wasn’t as easy to find as Lucy had expected. Too many other neighborhoods had been built up around the original one. All the new development messed with her memory, but she eventually located the right street. The grand old mansions were still there, sitting on large lots that backed up to the river. Some had tennis courts, others had large outdoor living areas with pergolas and expansive barbecue areas. Almost every house had a pool as well as a dock with a fishing boat. The number of mature trees, everything from bald cypress draped with Spanish moss to silver maple to white oak, signified the age of the neighborhood. But even on the original street she found change. Several of the homes had been updated, which made it more difficult to decide which house Aurora had visited the night she was murdered.

The road was paved but narrow, barely wide enough for two cars, and didn’t have a curb or gutter. After cruising down it and not immediately recognizing what she’d come to find, Lucy parked just past the stop sign where the old neighborhood started and got out to walk, thinking it might be easier to lookon foot. She knew the house Chet’s family owned was also on this street. If she could decide which onethatwas, she figured she’d be able to get her bearings and go from there. From what she could recall, the Zampino house, which was where the party took place, was only two or three doors down from the Anthony house.

As she walked, the fecund scent created by all the vegetation, the moist earth and the nearby river triggered several memories—not of that fateful summer but of four years earlier, when, for a brief time, she’d been friends with Aurora. It was right after Lucy and her father had moved to town and Aurora had braces and acne and hadn’t turned into the beauty she would later become. At thirteen, Lucy would ride her bike over to this side of town from the trailer park and wait for Aurora to get out of the piano lessons she took from a Mrs. Lindsay, who’d long since moved away. Then Aurora would get on the back of Lucy’s bike, and they’d go to see another girl named Mara who lived in a little shack about half a mile down the river.

Aurora’s mother thought the friend they were visiting after piano lessons lived in the same neighborhood as Mrs. Lindsay and put a stop to it once she learned they were running around unchaperoned, catching snakes and bugs, playing with the feral cats she insisted “spread disease” and using an old tire swing to jump into the river, where they “could’ve drowned.”

After that, Mrs. Clark had made it more and more difficult for Lucy to see Aurora, and it wasn’t long before Mara moved away and Aurora changed and didn’t seem to mind the end of their friendship. She had a new set of friends who could afford the same fancy clothes, jewelry and makeup she could.

But Lucy’s trips to this part of town were certainly memorable. It wasn’t only quiet and peaceful, it was elegant. She remembered thinking that this was what an adult meant when he or she called something “tasteful.”

She hadn’t gone very far when she heard a motor. A vehiclewas coming up from behind. She immediately moved over to give the driver plenty of room to pass her, but the car didn’t go by. It slowed until it was barely rolling. Then the driver lowered the passenger window.

“Lucy? That you?”

Lucy ducked her head to see inside the older model Mercedes sedan.“Chet?”

---