“No, but I’d have come either way. I wanted to see you. Tell you I was sorry.”

The years peeled away, and I was looking into the eyes of a wounded eighteen-year-old boy. He still carried the weight of Clare’s death.

“Did you tell Richards that you’d gotten us mixed up?” I asked.

“No. It didn’t seem relevant. I’d enough to explain when the DNA tests came back. I had to tell him we’d had sex the night she’d died. That’s when I became Suspect #1.”

“You two were dating. Sex would have been understandable.”

“What mattered was that I didn’t tell Richards until he had the DNA in hand.”

“And when Clare left the party, you were talking to Tamara, right?”

“Yeah. That’s the beauty of being an eighteen-year-old. Erections were easy to come by.” He held up his beer. “Those were the days.”

Kurt’s dad had been diagnosed with ALS a month before Clare died. Kurt had told Clare how much he feared watching his father go downhill so fast. He’d felt helpless against a random, ugly disease. It didn’t have motive or intent. It simply struck as a wild animal might. And Clare’s murder, the police, and media scrutiny had made his father’s disease progress faster.

Kurt had left Richmond and come back a year later when his father was dying. He had skipped college, taken over the family business by the age of twenty, and all his dreams of playing college or pro ball had vanished.

“Did Clare mention that she’d had a fight with Brit right before she came to the party?” he asked.

“What was the fight about?” Brit had said nothing about a fight.

“She never said, but she was stewing about it in the car. I think that’s why she was in such a mood that night. I told Richards, but if he asked Brit about it, she came up with something that turned it all back on me.”

I’d read Kurt’s statement, and he’d said nothing to Richards about a fight between Brit and Clare. Maybe there were other files Richards hadn’t shared. Maybe Kurt wasn’t being truthful. Everyone lies.

“Where were you that night?” Kurt asked.

“I was with Jack. We were high.” Richards knew the truth, and he wouldn’t be shy about telling anyone if it got him his arrest. Sooner or later I’d have to also tell Brit.

“Jack?” He cocked a brow. “Weed, coke, or pills?”

The lemon floated in my club soda. “Pills.”

“You were having trouble with drugs then, weren’t you?” he asked.

“I didn’t think so, but yes.”

He sipped his drink. “Is there any reason to keep churning up Clare’s case? Some problems don’t have a fix. I know that better than anyone.”