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Agent Isabelle Lacoste had been watching the whole thing, sent there by Chief Inspector Gaive away all they knew And the Chief wanted to knohether soive themselves away

"Tellforward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees One hand held the other lightly In a new, but necessary, gesture

Beside him, Inspector Beauvoir had his notebook and pen out

Clara sat back in the deep wooden chair and held on to the ar forward, she was plunging backward

Back through the decades, out the door of their home and out of Three Pines Back to Montréal Into art college, into the classes, into the student shows Clara Morrow slah school, then ele to a stop in front of the little girl with the shining red hair next door

Lillian Dyson

"Lillian wasup," said Clara "She lived next door and o months older than rew fast and tall and I didn’t She was sood at soot nervous Kids started picking on me early, but Lillian always protected h kid"

Clara s, staring down a bunch of girls ere beingto stand beside her friend, but not having the courage Not yet

Lillian, the precious only child

The precious friend

Lillian the pretty one, Clara the character

They were closer than sisters Kindred spirits, they told each other in flowery notes they wrote back and forth Friends forever They ers and soleether There, they’d declared Sisters

They loved the same boys from TV shows and kissed posters and cried when the Bay City Rollers broke up and The Hardy Boys was canceled

All this she told Gamache and Beauvoir

"What happened?" the Chief asked quietly

"How do you know anything happened?"