Tony and Lyra were both dead. Perhaps this time, Wren was the actual target, and her son simply got caught in the crossfire.
Out of the four people involved in that brutal murder case 16 years ago, only Kurt came out unscathed. His wife got pushed into the water but was saved.
Robert felt like he was missing something, maybe a clue hidden somewhere.
He asked the cops to search the pavilion by Willow River and the surrounding area, just in case they missed anything.
Robert himself kept burning the midnight oil, going through a ton of records and case files related to these incidents.
He had to sort and cross-reference the events and individuals by time and name based on the extensive transcripts and case files. It was tedious work and needed a lot of attention.
Seven years ago, Tony's parents gave him a house, but Tony got into a fight and hurt someone, so he sold the house to pay them off.
Meanwhile, Kurt's company was booming, and he had a son.
That same year, Lyra quit her job as a hostess in a bar and didn't work again. Wren, who was sick, kept working with doctors for treatment.
Sophia was a freshman in college, going to classes and working part-time.
Five years ago, Tony and Kurt had a big fight, and after that, Tony got the house their parents were living in for free.
At the same time, Kurt's company was doing great, expanding its export business.
Lyra bought a house and had a miscarriage. Wren's condition got better, and she got pregnant.
Sophia won first prize in a college competition and got a full scholarship.
Later, Tony stopped hanging out with his gang friends and didn't get into any more trouble. He quit being a thug.
Then, as his friends said, Tony told them he was about to have a kid. But not long after, he got drunk and cursed women, saying one secretly had an abortion.
Coincidentally, Lyra had a miscarriage around the same time.
At the end of that year, Tony's cousin and her husband said Tony got scammed out of a lot of money.
A month later, Lyra bought a big house. But Kurt never transferred a large amount of money to her.
And most importantly, the timing of her house purchase and Tony getting scammed was too coincidental. Lyra and Tony must have had some connection.
"Quick, bring all the photos from Lyra's house," Robert urged Ethan. "Hurry up."
Ethan quickly found all the photos related to Lyra, and Robert kept flipping through them until 3 a.m. There were a few photos that Robert looked at over and over.
Ethan leaned in to look. The photos showed a bunch of food in the fridge. Just as he was about to ask, he heard Robert excitedly say, "Let's go to Lyra's house."
At 3:30 a.m., they drove to the late Lyra's house. Robert went straight to the fridge and found a bag of loose meatballs, which were usually used for cooking.
He put on gloves and picked them up one by one, examining them carefully, and then he found two that were unusual.
He handed the two meatballs to Ethan. "Look."
"What is this?" Ethan said in disbelief, "This can't be!"
In fact, these two round balls that looked like ordinary meatballs were Tony's severed testicles.
Robert said, "So, the woman who scammed Tony out of his money and had the abortion was Lyra."
Ethan asked, "But wasn't Lyra Kurt's lover?"
Robert said something even more shocking, "Maybe Lyra was sleeping with both brothers."
"This can't be true. How could Kurt let Tony sleep with his woman? He wouldn't have some weird fetish, would he?" Ethan found it unbelievable.
Robert said, "Lyra's friends said she was a money-loving woman. Maybe she was secretly sleeping with both of them, trying to get benefits from both."
Robert continued, "She was very greedy, possibly hoping that one day Kurt would marry her, so she could get half of his assets. But she also wanted quick money. When she found out that Tony got a house worth millions from their parents, she seduced him, tricked him into selling the house, and gave her the money."
Ethan said, "So Tony's testicles showing up in her fridge means she killed Tony? But if she already got money from Tony, why would she kill him?"
Ethan couldn't understand, and neither could Robert.
Lyra was Kurt's lover. If she wanted to replace Kurt's wife, she could secretly get pregnant with Kurt's child and then force Kurt to divorce his wife. This would be less risky than murder.
Even if Kurt didn't want to divorce, her child would still have the right to inherit part of the father's assets as an illegitimate child.