Page 67 of The Summer that Changed Everything

Lucy shook her head. “They asked for it, but he refused.”

Ford winced as Friedman voiced the obvious. “No doubt they found that suspicious.”

“He didn’t trust them,” Lucy explained. “He’d never been friends with law enforcement, and once they made him their primary suspect, he told me they were out to get him whether he was the killer or not.”

“They had to have gathered his DNA somehow,” Friedman said. “What’d they do, steal your garbage and take it from a beer can or something?”

“They got it from a coffee cup he used at a neighbor’s while fixing their heater.”

“Okay,” Friedman said, “so just to clarify—you saw no marks on him after the killings, and we still don’t know whose blood was in the drain.”

Ford exchanged a look with Lucy before she confirmed. “Right.”

“Seems to me these loose ends should’ve been tied up,” Friedman said.

“I don’t think my word meant anything, since... since they thought I was aiding and abetting him,” she said. “And we couldn’t afford a high-powered attorney. We had to go with the public defender, who didn’t think there was any way to compensate for the DNA evidence against my father.”

Friedman made a sound of disgust. “Meaning he gave up before he even started.”

“Not to justify what the public defender did—or didn’tdo—but there was a lot going against him,” Ford said. “Mick knew when the Matteos were going to be gone, knew his way around their trailer and where to find the hammer that was used to break in. He didn’t have an alibi. He was a known alcoholic.”

Lucy frowned. “And that’s before you get to the hard evidence.”

“Exactly,” Ford concurred. “How do you explain his DNA being found under the old man’s fingernails?”

“Ican’texplain it,” Friedman said. “But I can’t explain these other things, either. The blood in the drain has to mean something, and the police never closed that loop.”

The air conditioner was on. It wasn’t overly warm in the house, and yet a sheen of sweat covered Lucy’s face—proof she was rattled by what they were learning. She wiped her hands on her shorts as if her palms were clammy, too. “So where do we go from here?”

“We try to figure out who else was there that night,” Friedman told her.

Something that was, no doubt, much easier said than done, especially after so long.

Lucy wore a troubled expression as she spoke up so she could be heard. “Do you think there’s any chance my father might be innocent, Mr. Friedman?”

Ford closed his eyes, hoping the investigator would handle this questionverycarefully. He didn’t want to see her crushed again, could feel the emotion flowing through her body even though he’d already let go of her arm.

“I have more questions than answers at this point,” Friedman said. “But if heisinnocent, I hope we’ll be able to find something to prove it.”

“That’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack—or maybe a needle that could be in one of several haystacks,” Ford said, trying to help her keep it in perspective.

Friedman readily agreed. “I can’t argue with you there. But I’ll stay on it and let you know what I come up with.”

They thanked him before disconnecting. Then Ford set his phone down and reached for Lucy’s hand. She gave it to him, somewhat reluctantly, and he tugged her into his arms.

He thought she might resist. She was so afraid of letting him get close to her. She reminded him of a wary animal, one that skittered away as soon as it was approached—or bared its teeth to scare off any threat. But she didn’t fight him. He was only trying to comfort her, and he was fairly certain she understood that.

“What if... what if he’s innocent?” she murmured against his chest. “I should’ve stood by him, Ford. I was all he had, and I let him down.”

He could feel her trembling. “Whoa, we have a long way to go before you start feeling that kind of guilt.” He held her tighter—as comfort, yes, but also because having her in his arms again showed him just how much he’d missed her. He remembered what she’d said to Claxton—that she’d been in love with him—which dredged up those old feelings, made them much more present. “You were only acting on the ‘facts’ provided by the adults around you, those in authority. And it’s still more likely that he did it than that he didn’t.”

“But what if he didn’t?” she asked again, obviously unable to get over that question.

“You were only seventeen,” he reminded her and pressed his lips to the top of her head, something he instantly regretted because that simple kiss seemed to wake her up to the fact that she was accepting solace from someone she’d been taught—by experience—not to trust, and she pulled away.

“I’d better call Dahlia and let her know about the broken window,” she said.

He watched her take out her phone. “Okay. I’ll walk over, vacuum up the glass and cover the hole with cardboard, but she’ll need to get someone out to fix it soon.”

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