Ben was quiet for a moment. Kelly could see him processing, sorting through the implications with the same methodical attention he probably once applied to business strategy. His eyes moved across the reception, scanning faces.
"Is he here?" Ben asked.
“I saw him earlier. We need to talk to him.”
Her heart was hammering against her ribs now, a steady drumbeat that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the fact that Ethan might be the key to everything. The father of Lori's baby. The secret she'd carried. Maybe the reason she was dead.
Or maybe not. Maybe he was just a guy who had a summer fling with a pretty girl eleven years ago and had nothing to do with what happened to her.
There was only one way to find out.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Ethan was sittingat a table in the far corner, nursing a bottle of beer while also peeling off some of the label. His eyes were half closed, almost as if he was taking a bit of a nap during a soft and slow song, but he jerked to attention when Kelly asked if they could have a few words with him.
Privately.
The man was clearly puzzled but agreed, following them outside to a spot away from the other guests, so no one would hear anything. Ben stepped back, letting Kelly take the lead. She knew him better, obviously, and had a higher chance of getting Ethan to open up.
"Beautiful ceremony," Ben offered, because someone needed to keep the pleasantries moving while Kelly formulated what she wanted to say.
"It was," Ethan agreed. "Trevor's a good guy. They make a nice couple.”
The three of them formed a loose triangle beneath the expansive branches of a maple tree. Ben positioned himself so he could see both Ethan's face and Kelly's, though the dim lighting made expressions harder to read.
Ethan stood with his hands in his pockets, his suit jacket pushing back at the elbows. His gaze darted between Kelly and Ben, openly questioning with his body language why they were all here.
Kelly stood to Ben's left, clutching her purse with both hands. She was composed. Steady. But Ben could see the tension in her fingers where they gripped the small bag, the knuckles whitening slightly in the dim light.
Nobody spoke for a moment. The three of them stood in the warm evening air, the sounds of celebration carrying faintly from the garden behind them.
“Something is going on here. Care to enlighten me?” Ethan asked.
“We need to talk to you. About Lori. And the summer before our senior year,” Kelly replied.
Ethan nodded slowly, a half-smile turning up the corners of his lips.
"Okay," he said quietly. “Let's talk about Lori. And that summer.”
The knowledge of what they were about to discuss was written all over Ethan’s face. He wasn’t bothering to hide any of his emotions, and Ben could have catalogued them all easily.
Pain. Anguish. Deep sadness. Even Ethan’s entire body seemed to have shrunk a size and had gone weak as the man leaned against the trunk of the tree for support.
He sure as hell didn’t look like any killer that Ben had ever seen.
Kelly didn't ease into it. She didn't build up to the question or soften the landing with small talk. She looked Ethan Walters in the eye and said, "I talked to Patricia Givens tonight. She told me about you and Lori."
There was no denial. No surprise. Just a slow nod of acknowledgment. If anything, Ethan appeared to be… relieved.
"I wondered when someone would find out," he said. His voice was quiet. Not a whisper, but something close. "I'm surprised it took this long."
"Were you ever going to tell anyone?" Kelly asked, her tone tight.
“I hadn’t planned to. I’d thought about it. A thousand times. But what good would it have done? She was gone, and talking about us wasn't going to bring her back. If anything, it was something we shared only. It sort of made it even more special. It only belonged to us.”
Ben stood slightly apart from the two of them, close enough to hear every word but far enough to give Kelly room to work. He'd learned early in their investigation that Kelly's instincts with people were good. She knew when to push and when to wait. Right now, she was waiting, her arms folded loosely across her chest, her chin lifted just enough to signal that she expected the full story.
