I'll Never Tell

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  From Catherine McKenzie, the instant bestselling author of The Good Liar, comes a riveting domestic suspense in the vein of Liane Moriarty that sees five siblings forced to confront a tragedy they thought was buried long ago.

  What happened to Amanda Holmes?

  After the sudden death of their parents, the MacAllister children return to the run-down summer camp where they spent their childhood. The four sisters and their elder brother haven’t all been together at Camp Macaw in over twenty years—ever since a tragic and mysterious accident.

  Over the course of the Labour Day weekend, the siblings must determine what to do with the property, now worth millions. But a stunning condition of their father’s will compels them to face their past—and come to a decision that threatens to tear them apart forever.

  A sharp and engrossing novel of suspense, I’ll Never Tell reveals what happens when the secrets and lies that hold a family together are finally exposed.

  Praise for I’ll Never Tell

  “A cleverly crafted, heart-wrenching tale of obsession, regret and the devastating effects of keeping secrets for far too long.”

  — A. J. Banner, #1 USA Today bestselling author of The Good Neighbor and The Twilight Wife

  "When it comes to psychological thrillers, lies and dark family secrets are the very best kind, and Catherine McKenzie handles them both with skill in I’ll Never Tell, a riveting story of siblings linked by long-ago tragedy. Suspicions swirl, and the truth is revealed in steady, page-turning increments that culminate in a whopper of an ending."

  — Kimberly Belle, bestselling author of Three Days Missing and The Marriage Lie

  “You can never go wrong with a Catherine McKenzie novel. Consistently superb suspense that doesn’t disappoint.”

  — JT Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Tear Me Apart and Lie to Me

  “An atmospheric thriller that takes the reader on a harrowing journey through one family’s quest for the truth no matter the cost. McKenzie’s characters leap from the page in this compulsive, riveting tale filled with twisty family secrets, suspect loyalties and deadly encounters. . . . Will keep you guessing until the very end.”

  — Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Weight of Silence and Not A Sound

  “McKenzie weaves a rich tapestry of flawed, untrustworthy characters, challenging the reader to solve the crime . . . a not-so-easy, but spell-binding task.”

  — Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series

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  Catherine McKenzie’s The Good Liar was a national bestseller. Her previous novels have been translated into multiple languages. A graduate of McGill University, Catherine practices law in Montreal, Quebec, where she was born and raised. Visit her at CatherineMckenzie.com or follow her on Twitter or Instagram @CEMcKenzie1.

  Praise for I’LL NEVER TELL

  “An atmospheric thriller that takes the reader on a harrowing journey through one family’s quest for the truth no matter the cost. McKenzie’s characters leap from the page in this compulsive, riveting tale filled with twisty family secrets, suspect loyalties, and deadly encounters. . . . [It] will leave you guessing until the very end.”

  Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Weight of Silence and Not a Sound

  “A cleverly crafted, heart-wrenching tale of obsession, regret, and the devastating effects of keeping secrets for far too long.”

  A. J. Banner, #1 USA Today bestselling author of The Good Neighbor and The Twilight Wife

  “When it comes to psychological thrillers, lies and dark family secrets are the very best kind, and Catherine McKenzie handles them both with skill in I’ll Never Tell, a riveting story of siblings linked by long-ago tragedy. Suspicions swirl, and the truth is revealed in steady, page-turning increments that culminate in a whopper of an ending.”

  Kimberly Belle, bestselling author of Three Days Missing and The Marriage Lie

  “You can never go wrong with a Catherine McKenzie novel. Consistently superb suspense that doesn’t disappoint. Stunning!”

  J. T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Tear Me Apart and Lie to Me

  “McKenzie weaves a rich tapestry of flawed, untrustworthy characters, challenging the reader to solve the crime . . . a not-so-easy but spellbinding task.”

  Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series

  “Secrets are the coin of suspense, and Catherine McKenzie spends them better than anyone. I’ll Never Tell builds incredible tension in a braid of a family’s past with its present, and what five siblings, set against each other by their father’s last will and testament, will do to secure their future. Twisty and brilliant!”

  Jamie Mason, author of Three Graves Full and Monday’s Lie

  “With its blend of can’t-put-it-down suspense and sharp psychological insight, I’ll Never Tell compels as both whodunit and family drama. . . . A fascinating, complicated family whose heartbreak, regret, and love leap off the page. This might be my favorite of Catherine McKenzie’s books yet.”

  Leah Stewart, author of The New Neighbor and What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw

  Praise for THE GOOD LIAR

  “A riveting thriller.”

  Entertainment Weekly

  “The questions raised . . . accumulate with every plot twist. . . . ­McKenzie has effected something of a Trojan Horse: The Good Liar is a novel of ideas in the convincing guise of a page-turner.”

  Montreal Gazette

  “[A] complex, thought-provoking psychological thriller . . . Who the good liar may be, and what that phrase might actually mean, are questions that will resonate long after the book is finished.”

  Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

  “One of the forty hottest thrillers of 2018.”

  Goodreads

  “With twists and turns, the lives of three women intersect in the most unexpected ways during the aftermath of a tragedy. Thought-­provoking, suspenseful, and mysterious, The Good Liar is a true page-turner that explores the ways stories are connected and created, and what can be hidden underneath. This is a book you won’t be able to put down!”

  Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and The Perfect Stranger

  OTHER BOOKS BY CATHERINE McKENZIE

  Spin

  Arranged

  Forgotten

  Hidden

  Spun

  Smoke

  The Murder Game (writing as Julie Apple)

  Fractured

  The Good Liar

  For the Lake Lovering crew, with love

&
nbsp; Amanda

  July 22, 1998—9:00 p.m.

  We only started the lantern ceremony my second-to-last year at Camp Macaw. Yet it’s buried in my summer memories like the smell of the smoke from the weekly campfire, the game we played that made it sound as if we were caught in a rainstorm, or the call-and-response of capture the flag bounding through the woods. Pine and mud, sand and sunscreen.

  It was a simple but effective idea: make a sky lantern out of tissue paper, candles, and wire, and then write a wish on its fragile walls. You could add your real heart’s desire because within hours, the lanterns would be lit and released into the sky, floating up and away and landing on some faraway shore.

  The ceremony began at dusk a few days before the end of the July session. On that last night, I held the lantern I’d built earlier away from my body so I didn’t crush it as I walked to the Swimming Beach along with the rest of camp. Pebbles collected in my sandals, and my best friend, Margaux, giggled when I lifted my foot and gave it a good shake.

  “Rock fall warning,” she said.

  “Rock-a-bye Baby.”

  “Rock, papers, scissors.”

  “Rock around the clock.”

  “Will you hush, you two?” Ryan said with a touch of annoyance, glancing at us over his shoulder. He was Margaux’s older brother, twenty to our seventeen, a genuine adult, and the object of my penciled-in wish.

  She stuck out her tongue at him, then rearranged her face in mock seriousness. As junior counselors, we were supposed to be setting an example. Mostly, we took this responsibility to heart, but we also worried our wishes wouldn’t come true if we made too much noise on the way to the beach. There were rules, after all. Did the Patron Saint of Wishes care about the giddy thoughts of girls? We weren’t ready to take the risk.

  There were 150 of us altogether, campers and staff, holding multicolored paper lanterns—a kaleidoscope of hopes and dreams. We snaked onto the beach, our unusual silence, instead of the usual mix of French and English voices, a warning that something was coming, something important, something forever. The lake was flat the way it often was at sunset, its brackish scent so familiar we didn’t smell it anymore. Ryan led us out onto the floating docks that swayed beneath our feet. There was a wisp of wind, and the rising moon was full, a flashlight on the mirrored water. Two hundred feet away, a small fleet of sailboats rocked gently on their moorings, their halyards pinging out an off-key melody.

  Someone ahead of me tripped on the edge of one of the docks. Her cargo splashed into the water.

  “My lantern!”

  The shhh! of twenty counselors rippled through the night. The girl, ten, buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. She won’t get her wish tonight, I thought as I tightened my grip on the stays of my own lantern, even though I knew my own hope wouldn’t come true—that the flutter in my heart was more wishful thinking than anticipation.

  And yet . . .

  The docks were arranged in a squared-off U; if you walked around the perimeter, you ended up back on the beach. At the halfway point, on the larger lifeguard dock, Ryan took a lighter out of his pocket. The flick, flick of the flame lit up his handsome face. Every summer camp there ever was has a boy like Ryan, who leads the boys and has his pick of the girls. Back when Camp Macaw was started, in the 1950s, Ryan would’ve been holding a Zippo, a cigarette dangling from his lip. But it was 1998; we wore Tevas and board shorts, and the boys kept their hair shaggy.

  A lighter would have to do.

  Ryan worked quickly. We were supposed to release our lanterns as close together as possible for maximum effect. As I neared him, I turned mine around, making sure my wish was pressed against my sweatshirt because Ryan was the kind of guy who might lift it out of my hands to see what I wanted. He’d done it the summer before, in the middle of my crush. I hadn’t dared write his name then. Instead I put down something silly about staying up on a Windsurfer. He’d offered me lessons, but he didn’t mean it. I was only another admirer then, one of many.

  Not this summer, though. I’d been bold and written down what—who—I wanted. But instead of trying to read it, he leaned in close and said, “See you on the Island later?”

  All I could do was nod as my heart jumped in my chest like a frog caught on a hot road. He flicked the lighter. He lit the candle, and I held the lantern close to me for a moment, feeling the heat seep through the thin paper. I moved forward on the dock, waiting for it to start tugging in my hands. When it did, I lifted it up and let it go, watching it join the others as I rounded the docks and stepped back onto the solid ground.

  When all the lanterns were headed skyward, Margaux started singing “Fire’s Burning” in her sweet alto voice. We sang both the English and French versions in a round, again and again, our voices rising and falling like the boats.

  When our lanterns were a distant haze in the sky, Margaux and I walked over to Boat Beach. We carried a canoe between us down to the water, adjusted our headlamps, and climbed in.

  And then we paddled to the Island.

  Amanda

  Margaux

  Ryan

  9:00 p.m.

  Lantern ceremony

  Lantern ceremony

  Lantern ceremony

  TWENTY YEARS LATER

  FRIDAY

  CHAPTER 1

  ROUTINE

  Sean

  For Sean Booth, every morning for as long as he could remember began the same way, waking up in a small room crammed into the eaves of the lodge, the cheap blankets he slept under twisted around his ankles, the sound of the breeze rushing in the trees outside his open window.

  It was 6:45. It was always 6:45. He didn’t have to check the time; he knew it in his bones. Sean rose immediately. He wasn’t a layabout. He had his routine, and he stuck to it. One minute to take the towel off the end of his bed and wrap it around his naked waist. One more till he was in the shower at the end of the hall, first in freezing water, then letting it get so hot it almost scalded him. He believed in three-minute showers, no more, no less; anything else was wasteful. He scrubbed his short hair with a bar of Dove soap, then passed the bar across his chest and into his crevices. At forty-five, he had more of those now than he used to, but everything else was pretty much the same as it always was. He turned off the shower, brushed his teeth, and was back in his room at 6:52. He used the worn towel to rub off the water, then put on his faded cargo pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt. Then, because it was Labor Day weekend, and the morning chill would linger until later in the day, one of his two Camp Macaw sweatshirts.

  It was 6:58 when his Tretorned feet hit the stairs that brought him down into the lodge’s main room. The smell of scrambled eggs and slightly charred toast greeted him before he hit the last step. He waved to Amy in the kitchen, the only kitchen staff left now that the campers had all gone home. She was still there because of the guests who would be arriving soon.

  He pushed open the creaking screen-porch door. The sun was bright, but there was still a touch of frost on the grass. It needed mowing, but he was going to have to wait until the day steamed the moisture away before he could climb onto his ride mower and cut it back.

  He walked to the end of the wooden porch and surveyed the open-air courtyard—the tetherball court, the Craft Shop on the other end, the path to Boat Beach and Swimming Beach. The hundred-year-old pines gave it a closed-in feeling, but that never bothered him. This was the only home he’d ever known, the only home he wanted, and the thought of not having this place, of losing his routine and his room upstairs in the lodge was too much to bear. It was too much to—

  But there he was, getting worked up when nothing had happened yet. Mr. MacAllister had promised he’d be taken care of and, so far, everything Mr
. MacAllister had told him had come true. He needed to be patient. Lord knows he knew how to do that.

  He lifted his arm and took hold of the frayed bell rope. Even though there was no one left to wake, he jerked it anyway, sounding out the start of the day. He rang it eight times, once for each of them and one last time for her. The bong wormed into his head; the hearing in his right ear was diminished from having performed this task thousands of times.

  But enough of this. He had work to do.

  The Mackerels were coming.

  CHAPTER 2

  YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN

  Margaux

  When Margaux MacAllister stopped in town at the McDonald’s for a breakfast sandwich she didn’t want and coffee she didn’t need, she knew she was stalling. She could tell herself it was tradition all she wanted to, but something wasn’t a tradition anymore if it had been twenty years since she’d done it, was it?

  But her car turned in to the drive-through lane almost automatically, and her stomach rumbled because she’d left the city before she usually woke up, let alone ate, and so here she was in the parking lot with the smell of grease clogging the air in her car. As she ate the sandwich, Margaux was hit with what she assumed would be the first swell of déjà vu that would soak the weekend. It was one of the reasons she’d told Mark not to come; she didn’t want to have to translate the past for him or let him see the hold it still had over her. She’d learned long ago that he wasn’t someone who could roll with unfamiliar scenarios. Instead, there was a constant litany of “Who was that again?” and “How come you didn’t introduce me?” The thought of it exhausted her, so when he’d offered to come along, she told him no. He was annoyed, and hadn’t even turned over to say goodbye when she’d gotten up this morning, but she’d deal with that when she got back. She had enough on her plate as it was.