Page 92 of The Summer that Changed Everything

Lucy stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her. She got the impression that Stephanie was single. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and there was no evidence of a spouse or children or even a roommate.

Stephanie dropped her bag on the closest chair. “You said someone broke into your house?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it Reggie?”

“I don’t know.”

She fanned herself with her hand. “Bet Ford didn’t like that.”

“Ididn’t like it,” Lucy said.

“But you’re seeing Ford again, right? That’s what I’ve been hearing.”

“It’s more of a working relationship,” Lucy said. It went well beyond that in her mind and heart, but she knew it wouldn’t be anything in the end.

“Reggie claims you’ve hired a private investigator.”

“Ford has, yes. Is there anything you can do to help us? What I went through when I lived here... No one should have to go through that, Stephanie.”

She frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything.”

“And yet you came to the cottage, said you wanted to have a conversation.”

“I’d just heard you were back in town and thought I’d say hi.”

“But we were never really friends...”

She looked even more uncomfortable. “I’m not proud of the way I treated you back then. It... it wasn’t kind. Aurora was a bad influence. I regret it now.”

Lucy remembered the way Aurora and her friends had made fun of other people, how cliquish they’d been, and had to agree. The acknowledgment and apology were nice, but she’d been hoping Stephanie knew something about her father’s case. Disappointed, she turned to go.

She was just starting to open the door when Stephanie called her back. “Or... wait.”

Lucy turned.

“Actually, Ididwant to tell you something. Well, show you something.”

Lucy waited while Stephanie unzipped her bag, got out her cell phone and went through her pictures. “I’ve kept a screenshot of it all these years because... because it was the last thing I ever got from Aurora. I didn’t show it to anyone at the time. I was trying to figure out whether I should when the police landed on your father, and I thought it was beside the point.”

“You don’t think it is any longer?”

“Now that I have some distance from what happened, I feel I should’ve shown someone, after all, especially with what Darren is saying these days.”

She thrust out her phone, letting Lucy read a screenshot of a text she’d received on the night Aurora died—a text that came from Aurora herself:

Can you come get me? I don’t want to ride with my stupid brother. He’ll be pissed off that he had to pick me up, so we’ll just fight the whole way. 1:06 a.m.

Never mind. Chet’s taking me out on the river. He’ll drive me home after. 1:18 a.m.

“I was asleep. Didn’t get them until morning,” Stephanie explained.

A chill ran down Lucy’s spine. Reading those texts was likehearing Aurora’s voice from the grave. “Did you ask Chet if he took her on the river?”

“I did. He said he didn’t. He said she was so stuck on Lance Zampino that he couldn’t get her to leave the party, after all, and he was afraid if he didn’t get home his parents would realize he wasn’t in bed, so he had to leave without her.”

“You showed him these texts? He knows about them?” she clarified.

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