“Furthermore, I hate to bring this up, but Nathaniel is still alive. He was old enough at the time that it’s possible he knows what his father did. It’s possible he…”
Clara wasn’t sure how much to share. It didn’t seem like Brittany and Sam were close to Nathaniel. In fact, they seemed suspicious of him too, but she couldn’t know how they’d react if she suggested he could possibly have something to do with all this. People in small towns often try to protect their own.
“You can tell us,” Brittany assured her. “We want to hear everything you have to say. We’re on your side.”
Clara nodded. “Well, I guess it’s possible he was part of it. At the very least, it’s possible he wants to finish what his father started. We can’t know for sure; I’m not accusing him of anything. But I do worry that he could be a threat to us. Hopefully, if we can bring out the truth of what happened, Nathaniel will be questioned, and we can rest assured that at least he was looked at and cleared of any wrongdoing. I just want everything taken care of, so we never have to deal with this again.”
Silence followed and she worried she’d gone too far. This was all a lot, and she wondered if she should’ve kept some of it to herself.
“I understand,” Sam said. “But I know Nathaniel. I don’t think he knows what happened to Lyla and Richard. If Billy killed them, I doubt he was in on it, and I don’t think he’s a threat to anyone. Might be best just to let it go.”
That caught Ezra’s attention. He still hadn’t told Clara about what Sam told him at the coffee shop, and he didn’t want her to think he had been hiding something from her. At the time, he simply didn’t want to worry her, and he didn’t see the point of mentioning since then, since Nathaniel was already gone. Yet Sam’s response confused him.
“You sure?” Ezra asked as he looked Sam. “I don’t mean to step on any toes, but you’re the one who warned me about Nathaniel in the first place. What made you change your mind now?”
Clara’s eyebrows rose. Brittany didn’t look surprised, but she did look frustrated. Clara waited for Sam’s response, irritated Ezra hadn’t told her about this.
“Yes well… I did warn you, I just… after thinking about it further, I can’t bring myself to believe he would be caught up in something like this,” Sam explained. “And even being accused of such a thing, even being suspected of it, could have serious repercussions for him. I wouldn’t want him to go through something like that if he’s innocent, you know?”
“Besides, the town’s already been through a lot,” Brittany added. “We’re all emotionally drained by this case. Bringing it up again could cause further uproar. No one wants that.
“I worry about the bed and breakfast too. You’re working so hard to change the narrative, and enough time has passed since their deaths that I think people will be open to seeing the bed and breakfast in a new light. I think people have moved on, and seeing the renovations will help them look past the murders and towards the future. You have a great chance at starting over with this place. You have a great foundation to build on.
“If the police reopen the investigation, more attention will be brought to the crime once again. News of it will be on everyone’s lips. They’ll associate this property with the murders again, and it’ll take a while before it settles down. With your opening coming up so soon, it could be detrimental. It could overshadow all the work you’ve done so far.”
Clara and Ezra hadn’t considered that. They looked to each other, unsure. She had a point. They had done a lot of work to try to shift the focus. They put their all into this property and it would crush them if everything didn’t go well, especially after everything they already went through.
They gave it some thought as they continued eating, leaving Brittany’s words hanging in the air.
“It will be tough,” Ezra finally admitted. “You have a great point and it’s not ideal. It’s not ideal that people were murdered here, the timing is awful, and it is likely to damper some of our efforts. That will be incredibly frustrating.
“But we also can’t be selfish when it comes to something so serious. Four people were killed here, we can’t ignore that fact just because it’s inconvenient. Lyla and Richard are now known for murdering their own children, and no one wants to be remembered like that. The truth must come out.
“Yes, it’s unfortunate. I don’t want to have to deal with it. But we can’t turn a blind eye to it either. We’ve got to go to the police with what we have. It might not be enough to even reopen the investigation anyway. They might already know all about this. Perhaps they have proof Billy wasn’t the killer, and that’s why they didn’t arrest him before he died.
“We can’t possibly know how they’ll react. But we do know we have something that might help them. I can’t sleep at night knowing I have something like that but kept it from them because I wanted my business to do better. That’s selfishness on another level, and I can’t be part of it.”
Clara took Ezra’s hand under the table. It would be difficult, not the ideal path, but she was proud of her husband. Lyla and Richard were victims, and they continued to be victimized by having their names smeared after their deaths.
She hoped that the investigation being reopened wouldn’t affect their business too much, but this was the right thing to do. They couldn’t lose sight of their morals in all this. No matter what lay ahead.
48
The subject was mostly dropped after Ezra’s statement, which really left no room for discussion. Brittany and
