The Kind Worth Killing: A Novel

After Lily kills Brad, she pulls him into the passenger seat. Lily pulls off the freeway to stop at a closed auto shop and swaps Brad’s license plates with the license plates from one of the cars. A few hours later, Lily pulls up to Monk’s House. She drives up to the abandoned farmhouse and finds the well. Lily drags Brad’s body out of the car and pushes him into the well. Lily sees a vision of her younger self after killing her predator. She looks at her younger self, who also understands the need for survival that she feels, before she disappears.

Lily drives the truck into New York City after dumping Brad’s body. She parks the truck and drops the keys on the ground when she gets out of the car. Afterwards, Lily takes the train back to Connecticut. Her mother drives Lily to pick up her car. Lily warns her mother that, after prison, her father is a different man and that he has panic attacks. After the divorce, David married Gemma in England. David drove Gemma home drunk one night and slammed into a tree. David was unhurt, but Gemma died in the accident, and David served two years in prison for manslaughter. When Lily visited him after prison, Lily suggested that he move back to Monk’s House so that he did not have to be alone.

At the Severson house in Maine, Jim tells Kimball that Miranda was bludgeoned to death with a wrench. Kimball wonders if there was another person present, but Jim tells them there was no sign of that. Kimball tells James that he is going to speak with Polly about Brad’s alibi. Polly tells Kimball that she passed out from alcohol when they came back to his house and did not wake up until the morning. Afterwards, Kimball goes to the Kennewick Inn and shows the bartender a picture of Lily. The bartender says that she stayed at the hotel the week before. 

Lily drives her father to Monk’s House. She stays the night to help her father get acclimated to her mother again. When she parks her car in the driveway, she sees Kimball get out of his car and approach her.

Kimball waits for Lily outside her home. When Lily gets home, she says that she heard about what happened to Miranda, and she tells him to sit on the back porch while she puts her things down. Lily comes outside to sit with him, and Kimball tells her that he knows that she went to Kennewick after Ted died. Lily tells him that she lied because she was worried about how the stress of the murder investigation would upset her father. Lily tells Kimball that she realized who Ted was after she started talking to him on the plane and that he told her that Miranda was having an affair with Brad. Lily tells Kimball that she went to Kennewick to investigate. She came to her senses after a few days and returned to Winslow. Kimball says that Miranda told him that Lily stole her boyfriend in college, but Lily tells him that they just both dated the same boy. As they walk out to Kimball’s car, he asks Lily the name of her boyfriend in college. Lily tells him that his name was Eric Washburn and that he died of a nut allergy several years ago.

A week after speaking with Kimball, Lily returns to the Old Hill Burying Ground where she met with Ted before he died. She wanders around the cemetery and thinks about Ted. Lily walks down a dead-end street by the cemetery, hops the fence, and waits. She does not know if her relationship would have lasted, but she thinks that it would have been nice for someone to know her secrets for once.

Kimball trails Lily for a week. He does this in his free time, without the knowledge of the police department, because he cannot stop thinking about the fact that Lily is hiding something. The only person who knows that he is trailing Lily is James, and James thinks it is a bad idea. Kimball tells James about Eric Washburn and that he thinks that it is possible that Lily killed him. James tells him that if he thinks Lily is hiding something, then they need to bring her in for questioning. Kimball puts this off.

Kimball follows Lily to the cemetery and watches her from afar. Kimball sits at a bar, writing dirty limericks about Lily on a napkin that he stuffs into his pocket. He wanders into the cemetery and stops by the gravestone that Lily sat in front of earlier. He turns around to see Lily walking towards him. Kimball hears Lily whisper that she is sorry, and then she stabs him in the ribs.

Even though he hears her coming, Kimball does not say anything as Lily stabs him. Suddenly, Detective James appears and tells Lily to get her hands in the air. Lily lies face down on the ground, while James calls 911. Since she knows that she will go to jail either way, Lily hopes that Kimball does not die.

The next day, Lily’s state-appointed lawyer Stephanie tells her that even though Lily stabbed a police officer, they have proof that Kimball was harassing her. When James interviews her, Lily tells her about her supposed fear of Kimball and that she snapped when she saw him. James does not believe it, and he asks her what she said to Kimball before she stabbed him. Lily says she does not remember. James leaves Lily alone. Kimball walks in, and he tells her that he knows she remembers what she said to him. Kimball reminds her that she told him she was sorry. Lily says she does not remember saying that but that she is glad that he is okay. Suddenly a man walks in the room and angrily orders Kimball out of the room.

That night, Stephanie visits Lily and tells her that she heard that Kimball barged into the interrogation room. Stephanie tells her that they found dirty limericks about Lily in Kimball’s jacket and that she does not think that Kimball will ever work for a police department again. Stephanie tells her that because of Kimball’s actions, she does not think Lily will serve any time. Stephanie hands Lily a letter from David as she leaves. Lily opens her father’s letter and reads it. David writes about how he cannot wait to see her again. At the end of the letter, he tells her that a manager from the city bought the abandoned farmhouse behind them. He plans to level the area and build a huge house for himself. David tells her that the bulldozers have already arrived, and they plan on tearing everything up, including the meadow behind the house. David apologizes because he knows about Lily’s fondness for the meadow.