The Book of Cold Cases

This chapter returns to the time just after the Thomas Armstrong murder. Beth is driving around Claire Lake at night looking for Lily because she is sure Lily has killed Armstrong. Four months previously, Lily had called Beth and asked for help getting out of a psychiatric hospital, but Beth refused. As soon as Beth heard about the Armstrong murder, she understood Lily had somehow gotten out and come back for her. She is sitting on the lakeshore thinking about Lily when she hears a gunshot. As she drives toward the sound, she sees a blue Pinto pulling away. Beth gets out of her car and finds a man dead, shot in the face on the ground. She gets back into her car and leaves without seeing another man walking his dog step out of the trees.

Shea calls Beth, who is in Portland, from the Greer mansion. Beth tells her she knew she was there, as she was notified by the motion detectors on the property. Beth tells Shea that she killed Lily and did so because everything Lily did was her fault. Then she says that Shea feels responsible as well for Sherry Haines’s death, and Shea knows Beth is right.