The Only One Left by Riley Sager
TWENTY-ONE
The fingers of Lenora’s left hand sit atop the typewriter, atypically still. Under normal circumstances, they’d be sliding from key to key, slowly but surely adding words to the blank page I’ve wound into the carriage.
But these circumstances are anything but normal.
A pall has settled over the house now that the police have left. The place is quiet and the mood somber. A resident of Hope’s End is gone, and while I never knew Mary Milton, I feel her loss all the same. We were alike in so many ways. More than I ever imagined.
That’s why I brought Lenora to the typewriter after dinner instead of guiding her through her circulation exercises. An infraction I know Mrs. Baker wouldn’t approve of. I stand next to Lenora, hugging myself despite the gray cardigan thrown over my uniform. Although the storm has passed, it’s left behind a damp chill that seeps through the windows, giving her room the shivery air of a ghost ship.
Fitting, seeing how on the desk next to the typewriter is the page Lenora had typed on earlier. Two words catch my eye.
my sister
“Why did you lie to me about Mary being scared of your sister?”
Lenora looks up at me, apprehension flashing in her green eyes. Then she types.
it wasnt a lie
“Your sister is dead, Lenora,” I say, tightening my cardigan around me. “And ghosts don’t exist. So you’ll have to do better than that to hide the fact that you and Mary spent a lot of time typing.”
Lenora can’t hide her surprise. She tries, but her expressive face betrays her. There’s a slant to her lips and a twitch at her right eye, like she’s working hard to keep it from widening.
“You were telling her your story, weren’t you?”
Lenora taps twice against the typewriter. With it comes a twinge of disappointment that I wasn’t the only person she trusted enough to tell. I’d thought I was special and that there was a specific reason Lenora chose me. Now I have no idea why she’s doing it.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or Detective Vick?”
Lenora slowly pecks the keys.
it had to be a secret
“Who decided that? You or Mary?”
mary
“And whose idea was it to start typing your story?”
Rather than signal for me to hit the return bar, Lenora types Mary’s name a second time, running it together with the first.
marymary
I’m not surprised, given that Jessie told me Mary had been obsessed with the Hope family massacre. She said it might have even been the reason Mary took the job caring for Lenora. If that’s true, then it makes sense she would want to hear Lenora’s version of things.
“That’s why she bought the typewriter, isn’t it?” I say. “She wanted you to write it all down for her.”
This brings another two taps from Lenora.
“Did you want to?”
Lenora thinks about it a moment, her face falling into that pensive expression I’ve come to know so well. When she types, her response is as rambling as I imagine her thoughts to be. Further evidence that what she’d typed with me had all been written before. The second draft, so to speak.
not at first i didnt want to talk about what happened because the memories make me sad but i loved the idea of writing again so i told her yes
“How long had you been working on it?”
weeks
Even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, I say, “So what you typed with me, you also typed with her?”
Lenora taps twice before typing additional information.
and more
“How much more? About you and Ricky?”
Lenora keeps typing. Ten keys she presses slowly and deliberately, making the importance of her response clear.
everything
“When did you finish telling her?”
Lenora doesn’t need to think about it.
the night she left
My stomach suddenly drops. Mary knew everything about the night of the murders—including who did it, how they did it, why they did it. And the day she learned all that, she—
Jumped.
That’s what I should be thinking, since it’s what Detective Vick said happened. Yet it feels wrong. Like a lie. Instead, a different word ricochets through my brain.
Died.
That’s the brutal truth.
And it can’t be a coincidence.
“Did Mary ever tell you why it needed to be a secret?”
Lenora types instead of taps.
yes
She then adds three more words to the line.
she was scared
I glance again to the page beside the typewriter, onto which Lenora had typed the same answer to a different question. As I do, a thought occurs to me. Something I should have considered sooner but was likely too scared myself to contemplate. But now there’s no avoiding it.
“Lenora, did you really think Mary left?”
I study her face—the key to all her emotions. Even the ones she’s trying to hide. This time, though, she doesn’t even attempt to disguise the way she feels. Sadness clouds her features as she taps once against the typewriter.
No.
“You thought she jumped?”
Another single tap. One that kicks my pulse up a notch.
“Do—” I swallow. My mouth, suddenly dry from fear, can barely get the word out. “Do you think what happened to Mary is because of what you told her?”
Two taps from Lenora confirm my worst fear.
She thinks Mary was murdered.
Swirling within that dreadful realization is another, smaller thought. One brought about by another quick glimpse of the page next to the typewriter.
“What did Mary do with the pages the two of you typed?”
Lenora responds with a confused look.
“She helped you write the whole story.” I think about the pages the two of us have typed, now sitting with Lenora’s pill bottles in the lockbox under my bed. If Mary and Lenora had typed for weeks, why haven’t I seen any evidence of it? Every piece of paper inside the desk is blank, and I saw no sign of typed pages anywhere else in Lenora’s room or mine. “That must have been a thick stack. What did Mary do with them?”
Lenora’s reply—she hid them—doesn’t help me.
“Do you know where?”
This time, her response provides a bit more clarity.
in her room
A bad feeling skitters down my back. What had once been Mary’s room is now my room—and the truth about the murders has been hidden there all this time.
A truth that might have gotten Mary killed.
The rest of the evening passes with agonizing slowness. I bathe, dress, and lift Lenora into bed, the whole time telling myself that we could be mistaken. Maybe Mary really did jump. Maybe she had deep wells of despair within her that she could no longer control. Maybe this is just another sad chapter in the overall tragic story of Hope’s End.
Or maybe she was murdered because she knew that story.
After leaving Lenora with the call button, I go to my room and conduct a thorough search. Since all of Mary’s belongings are here, it stands to reason that whatever she and Lenora typed is still in here as well. Where, I have no clue. But I’m determined to find out.
I begin with the dresser, removing Mary’s clothes until every drawer is empty. I even check behind the dresser and beneath it. There’s nothing.
Next is the bed, both under it and between the mattress and the box spring. The only item of interest is my lockbox. I open it with the key from the nightstand and check its contents. A stack of typewritten pages and six bottles of pills.
After that, I do a scan of the bookshelf, thinking the pages could be tucked among all the books Mary had left behind, and check the bathroom for potential hiding spots. Both yield no results.
The last place I look is the closet, since I did a thorough inspection of it the night I arrived. Nevertheless, I check Mary’s medical bag, root through her coat pockets, and check the box on the floor that had once held books but now holds nothing.
I stand, wiping the front of my uniform, and stare at the patch of clean floor next to the box. Unlike my uniform, it’s free of dust, as if something had sat there until very recently. I noticed it my first night here but gave it little thought. Now, though, I can’t help but wonder what used to be there—and when it was removed.
I take a closer look. The dust-free area is rectangular, which would suggest a second box if not for the rounded corners.
That means it was something else.
Like a suitcase.
Mary was a caregiver. She knew the score. A box and suitcase are all we need.
With adrenaline buzzing through me, I grab my suitcase and bring it to the closet. With a nervous breath, I place it over the clean patch. It’s like the uniform—not an exact fit, but close enough.
As I lift the suitcase from the closet, I notice something that amps up my adrenaline level from a buzz to a roar.
On each end of the handle is a metal ring attaching it to the suitcase itself.
Each ring is about the same shape and size of the bent piece of metal I found on the terrace.
Everything goes sideways, as if Hope’s End is finally, inexorably tipping into the ocean. But it’s only me, shell-shocked by the realization that Mary took a suitcase with her when she left.
Inside that suitcase might have been the typewritten truth about Lenora and the night her family died.
Now, like Mary, it’s gone.
I stagger into the hallway and down the service stairs. The crack in the stairwell, I notice, has gotten larger. It now runs the entire height of the wall, with a second, smaller crack branching out of it. Another crack has formed on the opposite wall. At this rate, the whole stairwell will soon be webbed with them. I shudder, thinking of spiders and flies and sticky strands of cobwebs clinging to my skin.
In the kitchen, I head straight to the phone and dial the number printed on the card Detective Vick gave me. The phone rings six times before he answers with a groggy “Hello?”
“It’s Kit McDeere.”
“Kit.” There’s a rustle as the detective no doubt checks the clock on his nightstand. I do the same with the kitchen clock. Just before midnight. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” I say, my bluntness making it clear I don’t care. “But I thought you’d like to know that Mary Milton didn’t jump.”
“What do you think happened to her?” Detective Vick says after a disconcerted pause.
I pause myself, trying to collect my thoughts. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, let alone about to say it. Yet I do, the words tumbling out with unforced urgency.
“She was pushed.”
