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“That is, until David approached us, demanding money for his new business opportunity. I told him I wasn’t interested. But David wouldn’t take no for an answer. He said: ‘I know whose bones those are, and I know who put her there.’

“He recounted that night to me, moment by moment. He knew it all, every awful detail—what we did, how we acted, things I said to Rick, words I’ll never forget no matter how hard I try. There was no doubt he was a witness.”

Erika shakes her head in a slow sweep of dismay.

My hard stare drills into her. “My grandmother died not knowing her daughter as an adult, not even being able to bury her. My mother became a shadow of herself, always living in fear. You took a lot more than one life that day.”

Erika’s eyes again fill with tears. “We didn’t mean to hurt her or anyone else. It was an accident. We’ve never forgiven ourselves.”

She buries her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Rick places his arm around his wife’s shoulders for comfort.

“I never understood your relationship with Rick or why you gave up your art for law school,” Julia says.

“But now I do. It wasn’t love that brought you together.

It was trauma. And you became a defense attorney to absolve others of guilt because you couldn’t do it for yourself.

But I don’t understand why David was there that night. ”

“He told us he came to have a beer at the Shack. He got there at the wrong time and saw what went down.” Even Rick’s thick beard can’t hide his pain.

“When he blackmailed us, we were shocked by what he knew—all those years he kept quiet, but he knew. We paid him what he wanted, and we kept paying when he came back for more, all while trying to find a way to end it. Our bank accounts were getting low, and he was building his huge house.”

While all of this is revelatory, it still doesn’t explain Fiona’s involvement, so I ask Erika about her. The regret rolls off her tongue like a great unfurling wave.

“I’ve known Fiona for a long time. I lied about that,” Erika admits. “We were never close because of our age difference, but I met her several times over the years. And Fiona knew all about me. She came to me looking for advice. She wanted to escape her life and get away from Jimmy T for good.

“She told me about Bella and what her father had done to that boy they found in the river. It wasn’t the life she wanted—a world full of violence, always looking over your shoulder and trying to stay one step ahead of the law.

She said something that I know to be true: it’s hard to leave the Mob when you know too much.

“I had managed to build a life apart from the family business, but I couldn’t really leave it completely until my father died. Fiona didn’t have that kind of out, and Uncle James kept an iron grip on her. She was stuck, and I wasn’t sure how to help.

“As we kept talking and getting to know each other better, she realized I was friends with David. She knew he was one of her father’s employees—the one Jimmy held second-most accountable for Bella’s death.

“And that’s when I came up with my idea. Fiona wanted to disappear, and I wanted to be free from David. I realized we could both get what we wanted, and David could get what he deserved.

“Revenge for Bella wasn’t really on Fiona’s mind, but when she heard my plan, it became an added bonus. The timing couldn’t have been better—thirty years since the last disappearance. We would tie it into the lake lore and start to build evidence against David.

“It was all carefully planned, and Fiona was more than willing to play her part. We set up a supposedly chance encounter in a coffee shop, and Fiona worked her charm. Everything was in place—missing girl, bloody evidence—but we still needed a smoking gun to make it all work.”

Julia’s face comes alive. “Baker told me that she found a gun in David’s house… I didn’t think he owned one. Did you two…?”

“There are no registration or licensing requirements in Vermont,” Rick says. “The police can’t trace ownership. David could say the gun isn’t his, but he can’t prove it. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

Wow. I’m horrified, but also somewhat amazed by the plan they managed to execute.

“You planted the gun used to kill my aunt in David’s house,” I whisper. “And what about the bloody shirt?”

“Fiona planted the gun,” says Rick. “And Erika put the shirt under the porch after the search ended. It’s Fiona’s blood from a small self-inflicted cut to her hand.”

“And now both bits of evidence are with Detective Baker,” says Erika.

“Rick and I had talked about planting the gun on David long before Fiona got involved, but it was too risky. Calling in a tip after all these years would seem suspicious. However, a missing person and a search warrant—and suddenly David looks like a careless killer responsible for the deaths of two different women.”

Her words sting with the finality of a bullet.

“Fiona must have messed around with the security system as well, so it wouldn’t record her leaving the house,” I mutter.

Erika nods slightly. “We gave Fiona the rest of the money we’d earmarked for David, along with the fresh start she wanted.

People don’t look for the dead like they do the living, and Fiona would most certainly be presumed dead.

We got what we needed out of the deal, too—freedom from David, and from a past that’s been haunting us since we were kids. ”

I’m stunned, unable to move, my brain rushing to make sense of this intricate web of deceit.

“The police will want to speak to all of us,” Erika says, wringing her hands. “Izzy, I know what you heard tonight is incredibly painful, but Rick and I have been talking, and we’d like you to consider something. We have no right to ask anything of you, I realize that, but…”

Erika’s anxiety makes me uneasy. I have no idea what’s coming. I’m glad Julia’s here. She puts her arm around me, while coolly assessing her friends. I can’t speak. I don’t really know how to address my aunt’s killer, but Erika doesn’t wait for my invitation.

“David’s going to tell the police that I killed Susie.

If that’s corroborated, he will walk. He’ll probably get a light sentence for threatening us with a gun, and the rape charges will never resurface.

He’ll pay no real price for his crimes. But if it’s just our word against his, with the evidence we planted, he will likely go to jail, for Fiona and for Susie.

The police don’t have to know that Fiona’s alive.

We can all deny that I made my confession, deny all of David’s allegations.

And when they match the bullet they recovered from Susie’s body to the gun in David’s possession, you can finally have some justice for your aunt.

He might not have pulled the trigger, but he did rape her, and he set everything in motion that led to her death.

She’s gone, while he’s continued to live a life of privilege and exploitation. ”

Rick steps forward. He looks broken. This tough, manly man is a shell of himself. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but now you have the truth. It’s up to you what you do with it.”

I look to Julia for guidance, but her eyes are veiled. I get the sense she’s giving me the space to decide for myself. It’s my call.

As if on cue, I see Detective Baker heading over. Her complexion is ashen and her expression grim. She might be a rugged Vermonter, but she’s human and has her limits.

“Heck of a night,” she says .

Is she competing for the Understatement of the Year Award?

“Yeah,” is all I can think to respond.

“I heard you put yourself in front of that rifle, Izzy… that must have been terrifying.”

“Actually, for once I wasn’t afraid,” I say.

“David is telling us an interesting story,” she says, diving right in.

Her eyes, like two stones, are fixed on Rick and Erika.

“He seems to think the bones we have belong to Susie Welch, Izzy’s aunt.

And that you, Erika, shot her with your father’s handgun, which you then planted in David’s house for us to find.

He also believes that Fiona is alive and well, that you and she orchestrated her disappearance to make him look guilty of her murder. ” Baker sends them a thin smile.

“I’ve been a cop for a long time, and I can’t say I’ve heard a tale as wild as this one,” she declares, clearing her throat. “Bottom line is, I’ve got a job to do—and I need to confirm if what David is saying is true. What’s your side of this story?”

Erika and Rick’s pleading eyes are on me. I sense an earnest desperation that’s hard to resist.

Their words run through my head. This could be my one and only chance for justice.

David has the money to buy himself out of trouble.

Maybe he’ll serve some time, but not much.

Erika is right. If he didn’t assault my aunt, Susie would be alive today.

How dare he walk away with only a slap on the wrist?

Julia says nothing. Maybe she would keep the lie going—David has caused so much harm—or perhaps she’d come clean eventually. But for right now, the choice is mine to make: live or die, thumbs up or thumbs down. I am the emperor at the Colosseum with the power to decide one man’s fate.

It’s not lost on me how Lucas will grieve.

And Taylor will ache for Lucas, which will cause Julia and Christian to suffer alongside her.

We are all links in some amazing chain. It’s not like David’s gold chain.

This one you can’t see or necessarily feel, but it’s wrapped around us nonetheless.

These links go back days, years, even generations, intertwining our lives.

Our actions have consequences; our words matter, connecting us in unexpected and profound ways.

I’ll never know the exact repercussions of my decision, how many lives I’ll impact, or whose trajectory I’ll forever alter.

“And the truth will set you free,” I say to Erika, using her own words against her. She looks at me with such vulnerability that I almost break. Almost. But no. I cannot.

“I came here for the truth,” I tell Detective Baker. “I came to find out what happened to Susie. I came here for my mother. I know how lies can destroy lives, and I can’t be a part of that. If I’m going to investigate anything, it has to be with integrity.

“What David said is true. Those bones belong to my aunt Susie. Erika shot and killed her thirty years ago. It was an accident. I know she’s sorry.

Rick helped to cover it up. And her father, Cormac Gallagher, was a gangster who murdered Anna Olsen because she threatened to expose him. I have the proof. And there’s more…”

The wind howls. A lone owl announces its presence from a nearby shadowed tree. But I hear something else, a sound like no other: a soft clink of a hammer on steel, the blacksmith at work, forging a new link in my ethereal chain, one that binds me to Lake Timmeny, now and forever.