Page 17 of The Summer that Changed Everything

“The result was the same.”

“Someone else killed Aurora,” she insisted. “Maybe it was even your brother.”

Anna’s jaw dropped. “What’d you say?”

“He was out of prison the night she was murdered,” she said. “He wasn’t arrested until right before my father was caught.”

“That doesn’t mean anything! A lot of people were out of prison.”

“None of them lied to help get a conviction against my father.”

She blinked several times. “He—he didn’t lie,” she stammered. “And he would’ve had no motive to... to hurt Aurora.”

“That you or I know about.”

The color rushed back into her face. “You can’t come here and accuse innocent people of—”

“Innocent?”she broke in, incredulous. “If I’m right, Reggie committed perjury and maybe obstruction of justice, too!”

“You’re grasping at straws. I’m not having this conversation,” Anna said. “The past is the past. Why don’t you just leave it there?”

Lucy gaped at her. “Are you saying it doesn’t matter who killed Aurora? That you’re fine with the wrong person getting the blame?” Stepping closer, she lowered her voice because she saw a curtain move on the other side of the duplex and knew the neighbor was looking out at them. “You realize that would mean there’s a murderer on the loose...”

“Well, if there is, it’s not my brother.”

The sound of an engine drew their attention. A man who looked to be in his fifties pulled to the curb, and Reggie got out of the passenger side.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he slammed his door shut so his ride could leave.

Anna put up her hands as if she could hold back the tide of his response. “Nothing. Lucy was just leaving.”

Lucy wanted to ask Reggie about his testimony. Surely, evenhe could understand that what he’d done meant whoever had really killed Aurora had walked away without any accountability.

But she felt outnumbered. And he was already so defensive and belligerent she didn’t think she’d get anywhere with him. She’d been hoping he’d grown a conscience since she left; that certainly didn’t seem to be the case. “I just want to say... if you lied on the stand that day, you should come forward—not to save my father from taking the rap. He’s where he needs to be, and he’ll never get out. But if someone else killed Aurora, it’s high time we recognized that fact and did something about it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “So you’re back to cause trouble.”

“I’m back to make sure justice was carried out—and to give Aurora a voice if it wasn’t.” She knew she was asking a lot of Reggie, probably too much. From what she’d learned on the internet, perjury was a Class 5 felony, punishable by up to ten years in prison. And there was no statute of limitations. Someone who lied under oath could also be charged with contempt and several other crimes. Not many people were tried—perjury was hard to prove—but if Reggieadmittedto lying during her father’s trial, there would be no burden of proof. No one could say how well that would go for him, but it might not go well at all.

“You’re calling me a liar?” he yelled.

She’d thought she could at least try to reason with him. But his instant rage suggested he’d never do the right thing, which meant her time in North Hampton Beach would not only be difficult, it would probably turn out to be a total waste of effort.

She was tempted to back down. After all, she wasn’t getting her information on good authority. Her father had killed two other people.

Still, she couldn’t escape the fact that she believed him about Aurora. Maybe that made her a fool, but he’d managed to convince her. And if he didn’t kill Aurora, Reggiehadto be lying. “Yeah, I am,” she said.

He charged toward her, calling her a stupid bitch who wouldn’t know her head from her ass, but Anna grabbed hold of his arm while Lucy hurried to get inside her vehicle. If she’d learned nothing else today, it was that Reggie wasn’t someone she wanted as an enemy.

And yet... what kind of person would she be if she backed away from her beliefs as soon as she faced resistance? If everyone did that, good would never triumph.

She wasn’t going to allow him to intimidate her. Whatever happened this summer couldn’t be any worse than what she’d faced fifteen years ago, when her entire world fell apart. At least she was an adult now. At least she had work and resources and a home waiting for her in Las Vegas.

She knew it was reckless, but before she pulled out of the drive, she rolled down her window. “I can tell you this much,” she said. “You might as well come out with the truth because I’m going to get to it eventually.”

6

Ford was sitting at Bleu Mer, a sidewalk café that served some of the best seafood in the world, working on his laptop when a hostess led Nelson and Patti Clark to a table nearby. Ford noticed them immediately. He’d been looking around while thinking about how to compose the email he was writing. But they didn’t see him. They were too preoccupied, visibly upset.

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