The Kind Worth Killing: A Novel

In a flashback, Lily spends most of her time with Eric at St. Dunstan’s. She spends time with Eric’s ex-girlfriend Faith, who starts dating another member of the fraternity. After Eric graduates, Eric works in New York and visits Lily at Monk’s House every weekend. One week in the summer, Lily goes to New York to visit her father. Afterwards, she walks towards Eric’s office. She runs into a girl named Katie from college who offers to get coffee with her. Lily asks Katie about Eric and Katie seems under the impression that Lily and Eric broke up. Before Lily can correct her, Katie mentions that Eric visits his father every weekend, and his father has cancer. Lily feels sick to her stomach and leaves the coffee shop. Lily walks to Eric’s building and waits outside. She sees Eric walk out and before long, a red-haired woman gets out of a taxi and walks up to him. She kisses him. Lily realizes that it is Faith and that she has dyed her hair red. As Lily watches Eric and Faith, she feels enraged.

In the present, Ted meets Lily at the Old Hill Burying Ground, a cemetery in Concord. Ted and Lily discuss their plan to murder both Miranda and Brad. They walk through the cemetery and Ted kisses her. Ted tells her that after they kill Miranda, he wants to continue his relationship with her. She agrees and promises him that she will tell him all her secrets.

In a flashback, Lily studies abroad in London and rents an apartment with a girl named Addison. A few weeks into the program, Addison starts dating a boy named Nolan. When Eric visits Lily, they have sex one last time, and Eric takes a nap. When he wakes up, Lily takes Eric to a pub, which she knows has a beer drinking challenge. Lily knows that Eric’s competitive personality will make him want to take part in the challenge. After a few hours, Lily tells Eric that she is hungry and that she will pick food up for them and meet him back at the apartment when he finishes the challenge. Lily goes to an Indian restaurant and orders a to-go order of a rogan josh and a chicken korma. At her apartment, Lily goes through Eric’s luggage and takes his EpiPens out, hiding them under the mattress. She opens the chicken korma and picks out every cashew, then grinds the nuts up into a paste and spreads it back over the dish. She knows that chicken korma is one of Eric’s favorite foods, so she leaves it out for him. After a few minutes, Addison comes back to the apartment crying.

Ted has a flashback to when he asked a girl named Rebecca Rast to the junior prom. Ted was excited that Rebecca said yes, even though she was more popular than him. At the prom, Ted and Rebecca danced together. However, when Ted returned from the bathroom, he saw Rebecca kissing another boy. Rebecca left the prom with the other boy, and she never apologized to Ted. Ted waited a year, deciding how to get revenge on Rebecca. When he was sure that everyone had forgotten about what Rebecca did to him, he went to Rebecca’s house. No one was home, and he hid in Rebecca’s closet in black clothing and a ski mask. When Rebecca got home, she opened her closet and Ted jumped out at her. He wrestled her to the ground and duct taped her ankles and wrists together. He then put duct tape over her mouth, and left her in her closet. Afterwards, Ted panicked, thinking that somehow Rebecca must know that he had assaulted her. However, no one ever suspected him, and things went on normally, although Ted continues to have nightmares about it.

On Friday morning in the present day, Miranda leaves for Florida to attend a bachelorette party. Ted decides to drive to Winslow to see where Lily works. Ted wanders around Winslow College’s campus but does not see Lily. When he gets back to his car, he realizes he forgot to feed the meter and there is a parking ticket on his dashboard. When Ted gets home, he decides that he does not want to kill Miranda. He thinks that if he files for divorce, then she can be with Brad, and he can be with Lily. The doorbell rings and he sees Brad on his doorstep. Brad asks to come inside, and Ted says yes before realizing how strange it is that Brad is at his house in Boston. Ted starts to close the door on Brad when Brad pulls a gun out of his jacket and demands Ted let him inside.

In a flashback, Addison tells Lily that she discovered that Nolan has a girlfriend he did not tell her about. As Addison talks, Lily wonders if she should cancel her plan to kill Eric. The doorbell rings, and Lily sees Nolan outside. She tells Addison, and Addison agrees to see Nolan. When Lily goes back to the door, she finds Eric outside with Nolan. She lets them inside, and Eric and Lily leave Addison and Nolan alone. Before long, Addison tells them that she and Nolan are going to leave to give them some space. After they leave, Lily tells Eric that she is going to bed, but that there is chicken korma for him in the refrigerator. She waits in her bedroom and listens to Eric heating the food up in the microwave, then eating it. A few minutes later, Eric rushes into her room, his face puffy. He tells her there were nuts in the korma and he starts frantically looking through his bag for the EpiPens. Lily helps look for the pens, then pretends to call for help on the phone. Eric passes out, and Lily waits until she is sure that he is dead before calling for help. Then, she goes to the kitchen and places cashews in the korma and washes her hands. She goes back to the bedroom and puts the EpiPens in a baggie with a pair of socks and places it in his sneakers in his luggage.

After a few days, a constable comes to Lily’s apartment and tells her that the coroner ruled Eric’s death as “accidental.” A few months later, Lily returns to the pub to see Eric’s picture on the wall with the other winners of the beer drinking competition. She decides that Eric will be the last person that she murders because she is not going to let anyone get close enough to her to hurt her again.

In the present, Ted lunges at Brad and shoves him backwards as he runs up the stairs. Brad fires at him, but Ted continues to run up the stairs. He grabs the phone on a table but stumbles and knocks the table over, falling to the ground. Ted realizes that he is covered in blood, and when he turns over, he sees Brad standing over him. Ted tells Brad that Miranda is using him to get what she wants. Brad looks doubtful for a moment, and Ted wonders if he will go free. Then, Brad points the gun at Ted and pulls the trigger.