clients we needed prestigious offices. I found that heritage building where we are now, and I made all the decisions about the renovations. I’ve hired every administrative assistant and sat in on the interviews for all the juniors we’ve hired. I know when someone is Falconer Shreve material. I’ve made sure the bills are paid and the clients are handled with care – we entertain the ones who matter twice a year, Christmas and Canada Day. That party you were at was my idea. It was my idea for us all to build summer houses out here. When Kevin’s parents were alive, we’d just camp on the beach, but I knew if we were going to be a top law firm, we had to have houses, big expensive houses that said Falconer Shreve was a presence in the community.
“After we built the houses at Lawyers’ Bay, the people in town who had looked down their noses at me my whole life, who had called me names and treated me like dirt, like less than dirt, started treating me with respect. And I treated them with respect. There was nothing to be gained by holding a grudge. I had to make certain everything ran smoothly.”
I met her gaze. “Rose said that from the time she taught you to knit, you never dropped a stitch.”
Lily shook her head sadly. “I couldn’t afford to. I always knew that if I dropped a stitch everything would come undone.”
“And Clare Mackey was going to take away everything you’d worked for.”
Lily looked at me gratefully. “You do understand.”
My jaw was swelling. It was difficult to get out the words. “What happened with Clare?”
“She brought it on herself,” Lily said. “That business with the trust ledgers was old news. Every account had been balanced to the penny. Everyone in the firm took a lot of crap jobs to make sure we got back on top again.”
“So the partners knew.”
“About the trust accounts? No,” she said. “Chris was the only one who knew. I told the others we were in a slump because of the market. I said that, for a while, they’d have to take whatever cases came along, and they did.”
“Without question?”
“They trusted my judgement. If Clare had trusted my judgement things would have been different. I was the one she came to when she discovered the problem with the ledgers. I tried to convince her that since there were no victims, we could all just move along. I said that if she didn’t want to stay at Falconer Shreve, I’d make inquiries about other firms.”
“But she didn’t agree to that.”
“Oh but she did – at first.” Lily’s voice was thick with contempt. “And when she agreed, I arranged an interview with a really good law firm in Vancouver. Everything was taken care of. Then she missed her period, and things fell apart. I’d always gotten along well with Clare. She was like me – realistic, able to keep her focus – but the pregnancy threw her. It was almost as if she saw it as some sort of punishment. She arranged for the abortion. She didn’t tell Chris until it was over. He was devastated. Clare didn’t help matters there. She put the blame for the abortion squarely at his door, said that the poison of dishonesty seeps into everything and that if she was going to start a new life, she had to excise the poison by going to the Law Society. That’s when he came to me.
“He was in terrible shape. He felt he was responsible for the death of his child and now he was going to bring shame to the firm. It was just before the Remembrance Day holiday, so I went to Clare and begged her to take the weekend to think about her decision. I said she could use our place out here. I was certain if she just had a chance to consider, she’d realize that there had been enough grief.”
Lily’s eyes were beseeching. She was desperate to make me understand the forces that had driven her to kill Clare Mackey.
“Clare wouldn’t listen to you,” I said.
“No. When I came to pick her up on that Sunday night, she hadn’t changed her mind.” Lily laughed softly. “Did you know she couldn’t drive? Three university degrees and Clare Mackey couldn’t drive a car. If she had a driver’s licence she’d be alive today.” Lily shook her head. “But there’s no going back, is there?”
“How did it happen?” I said.
“I choked her to death with my bare hands,” Lily said. “We were standing on that spot where the gazebo is now, looking out at the lake. She just wouldn’t listen. No matter what I said, it was the same old tune – she had to get the poison of what Chris had done out of her life. No thought at all about how it would affect the rest of us. I was so angry. When it was over, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. Then, of course, I had to take care of the… aftermath… myself.”
“Did you have to take care of Chris, too?”
Lily’s smile was faint. “No. Chris took care of Chris. After he talked to you the night of the fireworks, he came to me. He said he was going to ‘atone.’ He’d already made some phone calls and he’d gotten up his nerve to call Clare.”
“He believed the story about the ‘dream job’?”
“No, he believed Falconer Shreve was paying Clare to stay away and stay silent. But all of a sudden he had to cleanse his conscience. He was as stubborn as Clare was. He was prepared to go to the ends of the earth to find her and ask her forgiveness, regardless of the consequences for the firm. So I told him what I’d done. I told him that I’d killed Clare to protect Falconer Shreve. I told him that all that time he’d been talking to you in the gazebo, he’d been standing on her burial ground. I thought that might shock him into understanding that his first loyalty should be to us, to the Winners’ Circle. But he said he had to go to the police.” Lily’s grey eyes met mine. “Do you know what he told me? He said he couldn’t live with the knowledge of what I’d done. So I said, ‘You don’t have to live with it.’ All I meant was that I was the one who had to live with what I’d done, but he heard it differently. He gave me a hug and said, ‘Point taken.’ The next thing I knew he’d driven his car into the lake.”
“The ultimate act of loyalty,” I said.
“Yes,” Lily said. “At the critical moment, Chris knew exactly what to do. Maybe that’s something members of the Winners’ Circle are born with, like their sense that they’re entitled to the best.” Her face crumpled. “I never quite managed to convince myself of that one.”
I remembered Chris telling Taylor that nothing lasts forever. He’d been wrong. Childhood lasts forever.
When I saw Alex’s Audi drive up, I felt a wash of relief. It was over. As Alex approached Lily, his voice was gentle and reassuring. “Time to go home, Lily,” he said.
In an instant, the pain and confusion were wiped from her face. “You always find me.”
“Yes,” he said. “I always do.”
She shivered. “I’m cold.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “Better?” he asked.
Silent, she nodded and drew closer to him. The moment triggered the memory of a night of changeable weather when a wind had come up, and Alex had put his arm around me. Something inside me broke.
For the first time Alex looked at me. “Are you all right?” he asked.
My jaw was so sore I could barely speak. “Just remembering,” I said.
Two words, but they were enough. “That night on the Albert Street bridge,” he said. “The beginning of the end.” I turned away because I couldn’t bear to look at his eyes. “It was probably for the best,” he said. “It would never have worked for us, Jo.”
I waited till they’d driven off before I went to my car. When I called Zack on my cell, I was prepared to leave a message, but he answered.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey, this is a nice surprise,” he said.
“I’m afraid it’s not,” I said. “Lily’s been arrested for Clare Mackey’s murder.”
“Oh Jesus,” he said. “What happened?”
“Zack, I’ve hurt my jaw. It’s hard for me to talk. But Lily will need a lawyer.”
“What about you?”
“No lawyer, just an ice pack,” I said.
“I’m calling a doctor,” Zack said.
“Don’t. Just make sure someone’s with Lily.”
“Was Gracie there when Lily was arrested?”
“No,” I said. “Rose took the kids over to Standing Buffalo for the day.”
“Thank God for that,” Zack said. “Hang on, Ms. Kilbourn. I’m on my way.”
