The Only One Left by Riley Sager

TWELVE

I was wrong about the sunrise.

It doesn’t peek over the horizon.

It stares.

I sit up, squinting at the yellow-orange light blasting through the window. As I do, I notice something strange. Everything on the bed—mattress, blankets, me—is slightly bunched at the bottom of it. Because of the house’s tilt, we’ve all slid a few inches lower during the night. That at least explains the inching-down-a-slide feeling from my nightmare.

I sway when I get out of bed, as if the floor has sloped a few degrees more overnight. Which, for all I know, it could have. In the shower, I notice the water is slightly higher on one side of the tub than the other as it rushes toward the drain. The same happens in the sink as I brush my teeth. Watching the pooled water gurgle down the drain, I wonder if this is why Mary left. She couldn’t spend another minute inside this crooked house.

After dressing in one of Mary’s abandoned uniforms, I go to the adjoining door to check on Lenora. I pause before opening it, remembering the creaks I’d heard during the night. I can’t think of anything that would have caused them except a person walking around inside that room.

But no one else had been there.

Just Lenora.

I crack open the door and peek in, finding her still asleep and in the same position as when I last saw her. Which of course she’d be. Lenora can’t move anything but her left arm without assistance. To think otherwise is ridiculous—and paranoid.

Careful not to wake her, I quietly close the adjoining door before slipping out of my room and going downstairs. Halfway down the service stairs, I notice a crack in the wall that I’m almost certain wasn’t there last night. About four feet long and as jagged as a lightning bolt, it’s impossible to miss. Either I did just that all day yesterday—or it appeared overnight.

I think of last night’s wind and how it seemed to jostle the entire house. My mind turns, wondering if that’s what caused the crack. And if there are more just like it now scattered about Hope’s End. And, if a few wind gusts can do all that, how much damage an actual storm would cause. The thought sends me rushing down the remaining steps, eager to be on solid ground. Well, as solid as ground can be atop a cliff that’s being eaten away by the ocean.

In the kitchen, I find Archie at the stove, looking like he’s been cooking for hours, even though it’s barely past seven. A stack of pancakes sits atop a platter on the counter, along with a plate full of bacon and a basket of fresh-baked blueberry muffins.

“Nice to see a fellow early riser,” I say.

“It’s Tuesday,” Archie says. “Delivery day. All the groceries for the week arrive bright and early every Tuesday.” He gestures to the food on the counter. “Help yourself, by the way. There’s fresh coffee, too.”

I make a beeline toward the coffee and pour myself a mug. The scent alone perks me up.

I take the mug to the counter and down half the coffee in three huge gulps.

Archie notices and says, “Rough night?”

“I had trouble sleeping.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. New place and all that. Probably didn’t help that the wind was wicked last night.” At the stove, Archie measures out some Quaker Oats from a cardboard cylinder and dumps them into a pot of boiling water. “We always get a few gusts, being up here on the bluff with nothing to protect us. But last night was something else.”

That doesn’t explain what else I heard during the night. I know what wind sounds like. And it doesn’t sound like footsteps. I think again of Mary. Had she heard them, too? Could that be the reason she left so suddenly?

“Did Miss Hope’s previous nurse ever mention hearing things or having trouble sleeping?”

“Mary? Not that I can recall.”

I reach for a muffin on the counter and start peeling away the liner. “How well did you know her?”

“Well enough, I guess. Nice girl. Seemed to be great with Miss Hope,” Archie says, proving Jessie wrong about only Mrs. Baker not calling Lenora by her first name. “Can’t say I’m a fan of the way Mary left, though. I understand this place isn’t for everyone. But you don’t just leave in the middle of the night.”

“There were no signs anything was wrong?”

“Not that I saw.”

“So she had no problems with Miss Hope?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And Mary never mentioned being nervous around her?”

Archie, stirring the oatmeal now bubbling on the stove, turns my way. “Are you nervous around Miss Hope?”

“No,” I say, aware the reply is too fast, too emphatic. To cover, I take a bite of muffin. It’s so delicious that I already know I’m going to be eating a second one, with maybe a third to snack on later.

“It’s good, right?” Archie says. “I coat the blueberries in flour. Keeps them from sinking to the bottom.”

“Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

“Here,” he says, turning back to the pot. “I pretty much grew up in this kitchen. Started as a dishwasher when I was fourteen. By eighteen, I was the sous chef.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“Almost sixty years.”

I pause, the muffin top in my hand lifted halfway to my mouth. “So you were here in 1929?”

“I was. Me and Mrs. Baker are the only two left from the good old days.”

“Were you here the night of—”

“No,” Archie says, also too fast and emphatic. “None of the help was here that night. Including Mrs. Baker. She’d left Mr. Hope’s employ earlier that day.”

An interesting tidbit. Especially since Mrs. Baker mentioned yesterday how she’d left Hope’s End after the murders. I take another bite of muffin, mostly to cover the fact that my head is spinning with more questions.

“You must like it here,” I say after swallowing. “Or Miss Hope likes you. I heard most of the staff was let go.”

“A lot, yeah. The rest quit immediately after . . .”

Archie lets the rest of the sentence remain unspoken. Not that it needs to be said. I get the gist. Most of the staff would rather quit than continue working for a murderer.

“I’m sorry to have brought it up,” I say. “I was just surprised you’ve known Miss Hope all this time.”

“Since we were kids.” Archie’s voice has returned to its usual warmth. A relief. The man preparing my meals is the last person I want to piss off. “Growing up, Miss Hope and I were quite close.”

“Are the two of you still close?”

“Not like we used to be,” Archie says as his broad back stiffens and the hand stirring the pot goes still. “Things changed.”

What he doesn’t say—but what I infer—is that one thing changed. Namely, the murders of the rest of the Hope family.

“You’re welcome to come up and see her,” I say. “I think she’s lonely.”

“That’s why you’re here,” Archie says, once again all coldness as he ladles oatmeal into a bowl placed atop a wooden serving tray. He sets the tray in front of me and says, “Miss Hope’s breakfast. You should bring it up to her before it gets cold.”

I get the hint, even before Archie turns back to the stove. There’ll be no more talk about Lenora today. Or maybe ever.

“Thanks for breakfast,” I say before placing my coffee and another muffin atop the tray and carrying it up the service stairs.

At the halfway point, I’m met by Mrs. Baker on her way down. She’s dressed the same as yesterday: black dress, pale skin, red lips, glasses she lifts to her face to inspect my appearance.

“Good morning, Kit. I hope your first night here was pleasant.”

“It was,” I lie. “Thank you for asking.”

My gaze flicks to the jagged crack in the wall, wondering if Mrs. Baker’s noticed it yet. Surely she has. It’s very noticeable. Yet she acts as if nothing is wrong.

“And you’re finding your new quarters satisfactory?”

“Very. Although I do have a question about Mary’s things.”

“Things?” Mrs. Baker says with a schoolmarmish head cock. “You’ll need to be more specific, dear.”

“Her belongings. Everything’s still in my room.”

“Everything?”

“Her books, her clothes, even her medical bag,” I say. As I’m talking, a thought pops into my head. “Is it possible she plans on coming back?”

The notion should have occurred to me sooner. It makes more sense than anything else about why she left everything behind. It could be that Mary really was called away—by her family or some other pressing matter—and has every intention of returning.

“If Mary were to return, she wouldn’t be welcomed back,” Mrs. Baker says. “Not after leaving Miss Hope all alone like that.”

I let out a little huff of relief. At least I still have a job. “But she could come back for her stuff, right?”

“It’s been a week,” Mrs. Baker says. “If she wanted any of it, she would have done that by now.”

“So what should I do with it?”

“Just hold on to everything, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Baker says, though in fact I do mind. This is literally a mansion, with dozens of empty rooms. Surely there’s somewhere else to store it all. “I’ll decide what to do with it all later.”

She acts as if that settles the matter, when in fact it doesn’t. She resumes her descent, forcing me to call after her.

“I have another question, actually.” I pause, waiting for her to stop, which she does with obvious reluctance after taking three more steps. “Were you in Miss Hope’s room last night?”

“Now that you’re here, I have no cause to enter Miss Hope’s quarters.”

“So that’s a no,” I say.

“Yes, dear. A definite no.”

“But I thought—” I look down at the tray, stalling. “I thought I heard someone walking around in there last night.”

“Walking?” Mrs. Baker couldn’t look more incredulous if I had mentioned aliens or Santa Claus. “That’s ridiculous.”

“But I heard the floorboards creaking.”

“Did you investigate?”

“Yes. I didn’t see anyone.”

“Then perhaps it was your imagination,” Mrs. Baker says. “Or the wind. Sometimes, when it hits the house just so, it makes all sorts of noise.”

“Does anyone else go into Miss Hope’s room on a regular basis? Like Archie? Or Jessie?”

“The only person who’s supposed to frequent Miss Hope’s quarters is you,” Mrs. Baker says. “So I suggest you get back there before she wakes.”

“Yes, Mrs. Baker,” I say, feeling the urge to curtsy the same way Jessie did yesterday. I’d probably do it, too, if not for the tray in my hands. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

I head into Lenora’s room, finding her awake in a triangle of morning sun that gives her a disconcertingly angelic glow. Rather than squint like I did, Lenora appears to luxuriate in the light. She has her head tilted back, mouth slightly open, from which escapes a contented sigh.

The patch of sunlight slowly moves across Lenora’s bed as I prop her into a sitting position and feed her oatmeal with her morning pills crushed in. By the time I get her cleaned, changed, and through her circulation exercises, the sunlight’s slid off the mattress and onto the floor in a tidy rectangle. Lenora eyes it from her wheelchair as I check her vitals and make sure the bruise on her forearm continues to heal. When that’s over, her gaze slips to the typewriter.

She remembers last night.

Part of me thought she’d forgotten.

A bigger part of me wishes she had.

Because whatever she intends to type, I still haven’t decided if I want to see it.

Lenora’s mind, though, is made up. She moves her gaze from the typewriter to me, giving me a look that’s half anxious, half hopeful. One without the other probably wouldn’t have been able to sway me. But the combination of the two makes me realize this has nothing to do with what I want.

It’s what Lenora wants.

And right now, she wants to type.

I still have no idea why. I can’t think of any reason she’d wait so long to talk about that night. If she was innocent, she would have told her story decades ago.

Unless she thought no one would believe her.

Yesterday, Mrs. Baker told me Hope’s End was a place where young women are given the benefit of the doubt. That’s not true everywhere. It’s true hardly anywhere. Perhaps Lenora tried to tell her story all those years ago and no one believed her. Or, worse, no one even listened.

Maybe she thinks I will.

And that I’ll believe she’s innocent.

Because she thinks the same of me.

That idea—that Lenora’s urge to talk stems not from shared guilt but possibly shared innocence—is ultimately why I wheel her to the desk, where the page from last night sits next to the typewriter. Even though I don’t remember removing it, I must have. I wrack my brain, trying to recall the events of last night.

Lenora offering to tell me everything.

Finding Mary’s belongings.

The wind and the waves and the creaking floorboards.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I left that page in the typewriter.

“Lenora, was someone in here last night?”

She responds with a single-tap no against the wheelchair armrest.

“Are you sure?”

Two taps.

I stare at Lenora. She stares back, looking utterly guileless. If she’s lying—and I see no reason why she would be—she hides it well. And even though I’m close to certain I didn’t move that page, I’m also aware someone else could have done it while Lenora was asleep. Mrs. Baker slipping in to do some snooping, for instance. Or Jessie coming in bright and early to tidy up.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, because it truly doesn’t. What matters is that Lenora is about to reveal all. And my job is to help her do it.

In a desk drawer, I find a partial ream of paper and insert a new page into the carriage. I then place Lenora’s left hand on the typewriter, wondering if this is the start of something wonderful or something I’ll regret.

Or if it will end up being anything at all.

Lenora’s fingers twitch atop the keys, almost as if she’s unable to keep them still any longer.

I inhale, exhale, nod.

Then we begin.