“Lily knew,” Hayes murmured. “She told me she was afraid of ‘the business,’ but I thought she meant Jason’s temper. If this goes public, half the city council falls with Marcus Vane.”
“Then let it fall,” Emily said.
But the drama escalated when Rachel—the mistress who had vanished—suddenly appeared at the law office. She looked haggard, her designer clothes replaced by a cheap hoodie.
“He’s going to kill me next,” Rachel sobbed, clutching Emily’s arm. “Marcus thinks I told Lily everything. I didn’t! I loved Jason, but I’m not a murderer. I saw Jason push her, Emily. I was in the car outside. I saw it through the window.”
The trial of Marcus Vane became a media circus that eclipsed Jason’s. Rachel turned state’s evidence, admitting that the affair was a calculated move to control Jason’s finances. Emily sat in the front row, wearing Lily’s locket, watching as the “pillars of the community” crumbled one fir by one.
Jason, testifying from prison in hopes of a reduced sentence, tried to look Emily in the eye. He looked like a man who had realized he was nothing more than a pawn in a game he wasn’t smart enough to play.
When the verdict came down—guilty on all counts—Emily didn’t cheer. She walked out of the courthouse and went straight to the cemetery.
Epilogue: The Garden of Noah
Lily’s headstone was finally finished. It sat under a large oak tree, the grass green and well-tended. Emily sat on the stone bench she had installed nearby.
“It’s done, Lily,” she whispered. “Everyone is where they belong.”
She looked down at the trust documents in her lap. She had used the last of the money Jason had tried to hoard to build “Noah’s Garden”—a public park with a state-of-the-art playground and a memorial for victims fir of domestic violence.
The house—the scene of the tragedy—was gone. Emily had it demolished. In its place, she planted a grove of white lilies.
As she stood to leave, a young woman walked up to the memorial wall in the park. She was holding a small child’s hand, looking lost and tired. Emily recognized the look. It was the look Lily had in the grainiest frames of that security footage.
Emily walked over and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
