The Only One Left by Riley Sager

TWENTY-TWO

Here’s a question I’m sure I’ll regret,” Detective Vick says. “But why do you think Mary Milton was pushed?”

“There was a suitcase in her room.”

“And?”

“Now it’s gone.”

“And?”

“Mary took it with her.”

Detective Vick sighs. “You have exactly one minute to explain.”

I waste not a second trying to get him to believe the unbelievable. A tall order for someone so skeptical. Yet I do my best, telling him about the bare patch in the closet, how I think it was created by a suitcase recently removed from the bedroom, and why I suspect Mary left the house with it the night she died.

“If she intended to kill herself, why would she take a suitcase with her?”

“I have no idea,” Detective Vick says.

“Because she wasn’t planning to leave,” I say. “That’s why everything else she owned is still here. Mary intended to come back.”

“I suppose you also have a theory about what was inside this alleged suitcase.”

“The truth about the Hope family murders.”

The sudden squeak of bedsprings tells me the detective just sat up. I finally have his undivided attention.

“I think Mary came here with the intention of finding out what really happened that night,” I say. “And she did. Because Lenora told her.”

“Let me guess,” Detective Vick wearily says. “She typed it.”

“Yes.”

“Kit, we already—”

I cut him off, unwilling to give him yet another chance to call me a liar. “I know you think I’m making this up, but Lenora can type. I have an entire stack of pages I can show you. All typed by Lenora. And if you still don’t believe me, there’s photographic proof. Jessie has a picture of Mary and Lenora typing together. They were doing it in secret. With Mary’s help, Lenora wrote about everything that happened the night her family was killed. When they finished, I think Mary planned to go public with it. She took what Lenora typed, put it in her suitcase, and left. But someone at Hope’s End knew what she had planned and stopped her before she could do it.”

“By pushing her to her death?”

“Yes.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“Because they didn’t want the truth to get out.”

There’s silence on Detective Vick’s end. Either he’s thinking over what I’ve said or is on the verge of hanging up. It turns out to be the former, although from his tone, the latter still feels like an option.

“This all sounds pretty outlandish, Kit.”

“I’m not lying,” I say.

“I didn’t say you were. I think you sincerely believe it’s what happened.”

“But you don’t.” Pain throbs at my temples. A headache’s brewing, no doubt caused by lack of sleep and an abundance of frustration. “What part don’t you believe?”

“All of it,” Detective Vick replies. “First of all, do you know how hard it is to shove someone over a railing?”

“Not this railing,” I say, remembering the way it hit the small of my back, sending me off-balance enough to make me fear I was about to flip over it. “It’s short.”

“Duly noted. But you also said Mary put everything she and Lenora typed into this suitcase. Where do you think she was taking it?”

“You, most likely.” A wild guess based on my own instincts. Lenora had just told her everything about the town’s most infamous crime. I haven’t given any thought about what I’ll do when Lenora finishes telling me what happened. But my gut tells me I’d take it to the police. “Mary had the truth about that night.”

“And that’s the first of many holes in this theory of yours,” Detective Vick says. “Mary’s time of death was around two a.m. Do you really think she’d be going to the police at that hour?”

I look to the kitchen window. Outside, there’s just enough moonlight to make out the railing running the length of the terrace. I imagine Mary there, bathed in a similar glow, flipping over the railing and vanishing out of sight.

“How do you know when she died?”

“Because it was low tide,” Vick says. “Mary disappeared on Monday night. Low tide that day was shortly after two a.m. If there had been any water there, her body would have been swept out to sea. Instead, Mary hit the exposed beach and died upon impact. When the tide came in, she got buried in sand.”

I get another image of Mary. One I don’t need to imagine because I saw it. Her corpse mostly covered by sand and seafoam. I close my eyes and turn away from the kitchen window.

“But there’s a suitcase missing from her belongings,” I say.

“There very well could be,” Detective Vick says. “But a week passed between Mary’s death and your arrival. During that time, anyone could have taken it from the room. Why are you so certain Mary had it with her?”

“I found a piece of it on the terrace.”

“You did?”

Detective Vick’s tone changes from dismissive to interested in a snap. I allow myself a smile, even though he can’t see it. It feels warranted. A small moment of triumph.

“A metal hook that attaches the handle to the suitcase. It was bent and lying on the ground, making me think the handle broke when someone snatched the suitcase from Mary.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Detective Vick says. “Do you still have it?”

My smile falls away. “I lost it.”

Detective Vick doesn’t ask how, and I don’t volunteer that information. Telling him I dropped it when I almost fell off the terrace will only make him more convinced that what happened to Mary wasn’t murder. Not that he doubts himself in any way.

“I knew it,” he says. “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I really did. But please, enough of this bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Kit. It’s the exact same thing you attempted this afternoon. You’re taking what happened to Mary—a very serious, very tragic event—and twisting it into a way to ease your guilt.”

“My guilt? You still think I’m making all of this up?”

“I’m not blaming you,” Detective Vick continues, as if I’ve said nothing at all. “I don’t even think you’re aware you’re doing it. But it’s obvious what’s happening. Your mother took her own life. How big of a role you played in that is still up for debate.”

“It’s not up for debate. It was an accident.”

“So you keep trying to convince me,” Detective Vick says.

I want to scream.

And cry.

And rip the phone off the wall and smash it against the kitchen floor. Considering its age and my rage, I suspect I’m capable of it. But common sense grips me harder than frustration. If I sound hysterical, Detective Vick will be convinced that I am. Which is clearly the only thing I can convince him of.

“I am telling you I think a woman was murdered,” I say. “Shouldn’t you take that seriously? Shouldn’t you at least investigate it?”

Detective Vick sighs. “I have investigated it. After talking to you and everyone else at that house, my conclusion is that Mary Milton took her own life.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“The coroner’s preliminary findings show that her injuries are consistent with a fall from that height. There were no defensive wounds, which there would likely have been if she had been attacked in the manner you suggest. I had officers search the grounds, the beach, even the terrace. They found nothing to indicate there was a suitcase or a struggle or a murder. In fact, they found nothing at all.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“I’m sorry,” Detective Vick says. “I’m not the person you thought I was.”

I grip the receiver tight, flummoxed. “What?”

“Mary’s suicide note. That’s what it said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not the person you thought I was.’ Found neatly folded in the pocket of her uniform. The paper sustained heavy water damage, but it was still readable. Now, give me one reason not to hang up right now.”

“Lenora didn’t kill her family,” I say, more out of desperation than anything else. I certainly have no plan. But I hope dropping a bombshell like that will keep Detective Vick listening. “At least, I don’t think she did. We haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“We?”

“Me and Lenora. I told you, we’re typing her story, just like she did with Mary. But there was a worker here. Ricardo Mayhew.”

“I know,” Detective Vick says. “I used to work there, remember?”

“Did you also know Lenora was in love with him? And that it’s possible he’s the one who killed her parents and sister? I’m pretty sure Lenora knew he did it and covered for him. Now I think she wants to come clean, maybe in the hopes that he’ll be caught, even though he vanished the night of the murders.”

When I finally give Detective Vick a chance to speak, his voice wavers between intrigue and wariness. “Are you sure about this?”

“You have access to the police report from that night,” I say. “Look at it and see. You’ll also see that there’s a whole lot of unanswered questions from that night. Mary had those answers. Now she’s dead. That’s not a coincidence. And it’s sure as hell not suicide.”

I hang up before Detective Vick can poke another hole in my theory, tell me I’m wrong, and then smugly trot out some other bit of evidence to prove it. I know I’m on to something here.

And it terrifies me.

Because Lenora’s also telling me her story, I could be next.

Yet that’s not the scariest part of all this. The truly chilling, scarier-than-Stephen-King part is that Mary wasn’t killed by some random stranger. In a twisted way, that would put me more at ease. But whoever pushed her off the terrace knew what she was up to.

They knew her.

Which means it was likely someone at Hope’s End.

Other than me and Lenora, only four people fit that description—Mrs. Baker, Archie, Carter, and Jessie.

Why one of them would feel the need to kill Mary over something Lenora typed is beyond me. I reach for the phone again, itching to call Detective Vick back. He needs to hear this, even if it’s doubtful he’ll believe me.

He hasn’t yet.

About anything.

I’m about to dial when I hear a noise behind me. Footsteps. Moving from the darkened dining room into the kitchen. I whirl around to see Carter halt in the doorway. Hands raised in innocence, he says, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Yet he did. My heart pounds so loud I suspect he can hear it. Adding to the pounding is this: Carter is one of the four people who could have shoved Mary off the terrace.

He sways slightly as he steps fully into the kitchen. He’s been drinking. A truth he acknowledges with an unapologetic “It’s been a shitty day.”

I remain with my hand on the phone, frozen. “It has.”

“I was out on the terrace and heard someone on the phone. Thought I’d come in and investigate.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Some of it.”

“Some of it or all of it?”

“Most of it,” Carter says. “And I get why you’re nervous right now. You should be. But not around me. I knew what Mary was doing.”

“Then tell me.”

“She was trying to help me.” Carter crosses the kitchen, drawing closer. Close enough for me to smell the whiskey on his breath. “And I think it’s my fault she died.”

“You have exactly one minute to tell me what you mean by that,” I say, fully aware that I sound exactly like Detective Vick.

“Not here,” Carter says.

I stay where I am. “Yes, here.”

I’m not about to walk off alone with a killer. If that’s what Carter is. While his words make it sound like he’s about to confess, his body language says otherwise. Hunched and shambling, he appears incapable of harm. But appearances can be deceiving.

“There’s something you need to see,” he says, adding, “And I can’t show you here. So you’re just going to have to trust me for five minutes.”

“You said Mary was helping you?”

“She was, yeah,” Carter says. “And now I want to help her by finding out what really happened. Because she didn’t jump. I know that, and judging by that phone call you just made, you know it, too.”

The fact that he believes me is the only reason I follow Carter to his cottage. Even then, I make him walk several paces ahead of me, hands where I can see them. Once inside the cottage, I stay by the door in case I need to make a run for it. But Carter’s movements are anything but threatening. After clearing the almost-empty whiskey bottle from the table, he pours himself a cup of black coffee to sober up.

“Want some?” he says.

“Coffee or whiskey?”

“Take your pick.”

“I’d rather see what it is you needed to show me so bad,” I say.

“In a minute.” Carter sits at his table for two and takes a sip of coffee. “First, I need to admit something. I lied about why I took a job here.”

I edge a half step toward the door. “If you want me to trust you, that’s the wrong way of doing it.”

“It is indeed,” Carter says. “But it’s important you know that. Now, remember that regular customer I told you about? The one who used to work here and suggested I take his place?”

“I do,” I say. “And I’m assuming he had a name.”

“Anthony,” Carter replies. “Although everyone called him Tony. Well, Tony did more than suggest I work here. He insisted on it.”

“Why?”

“He worked here for decades. Knew all the nooks and crannies. One day, he was poking around in the rooms above the garage. Some of the servants used to live there.”

“I thought they lived in the house or this cottage,” I say.

“In its heyday, Hope’s End was overrun with servants. There was a mechanic whose sole job was to look after Winston Hope’s collection of Packards. He had five of them. Archie told me that Mrs. Baker had to sell them over the years to help pay for this place’s upkeep.”

It’s strange to consider how populated Hope’s End once was. Every room filled, including ones over the garage. A small village atop a windswept cliff, all here to serve one outlandishly wealthy family.

“After the murders, the rooms above the garage were used for storage,” Carter says after another sip of coffee. “Boxes of stuff from the twenties, even earlier. It was winter and there wasn’t much to do around the grounds, so Tony decided to make himself useful and get rid of whatever was in those boxes. Most of it was junk. Moth-eaten clothes, cracked plates, stuff from people who worked here way back when. Basically, all the stuff they left behind when this place cleared out.”

Carter retreats to the sleeping area of the cottage and pulls an envelope from its hiding place under his mattress. When he brings it to the table, I join him there, my caution overruled by curiosity.

“In one of those boxes, Tony found this.”

He removes something flat from the envelope and slides it toward me, facedown. From its shape and sepia color, I can tell it’s a photograph. An old one, as evidenced by the date scribbled on the back.

September 1929

I pick it up, turn it over, and see it’s a picture of Lenora in her youth. By now, I have no problem recognizing her. Even if I did, the divan Lenora sits on and the wallpaper behind her give it away. It’s her bedroom through and through. A photographic re-creation of the portrait in the hallway.

The only differences between the two are the dress—the one Lenora wears in the photo is flowing cotton instead of satin—and her position. Gone is the studied pose from the painting. Instead, Lenora leans against the back of the divan in a fashion that’s anything but ladylike, her hands resting over her rounded stomach.

I go numb with shock.

“No,” I say. “That can’t be.”

But the photograph doesn’t lie.

A month before her family was slaughtered, Lenora Hope had been pregnant.

It was an accident, Mary.

Or foolishness.

Or likely a bit of both.

Ricky and I were too besotted with each other--and, yes, brimming with lust--to think about the consequences. Not that I knew what they were. No one had thought to teach me about the birds and the bees. What little I knew of sex had been gleaned from the records my sister loved to listen to. Songs of mischief and romance that made it all seem like harmless fun.

And it was incredibly fun. Ricky brought me pleasure in ways I didn’t think possible. When someone makes you feel that good, it’s hard to pay attention to the fact it could all go bad.

In hindsight, I suppose it was inevitable that I would get pregnant. I could tell immediately, by the way, despite my limited knowledge. Between the morning sickness, my insatiable appetite, and my missed period, I knew without a doubt I was pregnant. What I didn’t know was what to do about it.

I waited weeks before telling Ricky, fearing he’d react badly to the news. I’d read many books in which women in my position were treated poorly by the men who put them there. I feared I’d be just like those doomed characters. That Ricky wouldn’t believe me or, worse, run away, leaving me all alone in my very dire predicament. To my relief and surprise, he was elated.

“So you’re happy about this?” I asked after I told him.

“I’m going to be a father,” he said. “I’m overjoyed!”

But both of us knew we were in a tricky situation, for so many reasons. Ricky told me he needed time to plan, and I did, too.

Our unexpected joy thus became our biggest secret. One that was surprisingly easy for me to keep. No one paid me much mind to begin with, so it went mostly unnoticed when I started gaining weight. Yes, I heard tut-tutting from my mother’s maid when I asked her to let out my clothes an inch or two. And of course I noticed the servant girls stifle their judgmental giggles when I requested a second helping at dinner. I didn’t mind that everyone thought I was simply getting fat. It meant that no one suspected the truth.

Those five months or so were the happiest I’d ever been. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel alone. I always had someone with me--a constant companion right there in my belly.

I took great--albeit secret--pride in knowing I was about to bring another life into this world. Gone was the girl who’d considered jumping from the terrace on her birthday. I was now a woman with a purpose. The thought of bearing a child and raising it with Ricky made me hopeful about the future.

One evening in early September, I snuck Ricky up to my room to discuss that future. It was a Tuesday, and the house was mostly empty. Miss Baker had been given the night off with the rest of the servants, which was customary every other Tuesday, and my sister had gone off with friends. My father was gone as well, heading to Boston on some emergency business. The London stock exchange had just crashed, and there were growing fears the same thing would happen here.

Since I knew my mother wasn’t about to leave her room--or her laudanum--I felt confident I could bring Ricky upstairs and we could share a bed like a proper couple.

We made love that night. Tenderly at first, mindful of the child growing in my womb. But lust soon took over, as it always did, and Ricky ravaged me in a way I never knew I wanted or needed.

Afterward, as we contently laid together, I pictured our lives being exactly like that night. Just me, Ricky, and the baby, together in a small cottage somewhere far away from Hope’s End.

“I wish things were different and we didn’t have to sneak around like this,” Ricky said as he held me in his arms. “I wish I was a better man.”

I looked at him, concerned. “What do you mean? You’re wonderful.”

“Hardly,” Ricky said with a dismissive sniff. “You deserve better than what I have to offer. You--and our child--deserve a man who can take care of you properly. I’ve been saving for months and yet I still barely have two nickels to scrape together.”

He tried to slide out of bed, but I clung to him, keeping him from leaving. “If it’s money you’re worrying about, don’t. My family has plenty.”

“I refuse to take a penny from your father,” Ricky said.

I wasn’t talking about my father, whom I’d started to suspect didn’t have as much money as he claimed. Recently, when passing his office, I’d heard a heated phone call between him and the man who managed his company’s finances.

“What do you mean the money’s no longer there?” he shouted into the phone. “What happened to it?”

I was referring to me and my sister, who were set to inherit the sizable fortune left behind by my grandparents. They had neither liked nor trusted my father, and when they died, they left nothing to their only daughter out of fear it would be squandered. Instead, their money was split between me and my sister and placed in a trust that neither of us could access until we turned eighteen.

“I’m talking about my money,” I said. “Well, what will soon be mine.”

Even about that, I wasn’t certain. The main reason I hadn’t yet told my family I was pregnant was out of fear they’d disown me once they found out. That seemed the likeliest course of action, considering Ricky’s situation and status. Add in the fact that we had conceived out of wedlock and it was a recipe for disappointment, anger, and punishment. If it weren’t for the money, I wouldn’t have minded being disowned. I hated Hope’s End and wanted nothing more to do with it. That humble cottage with Ricky and our child was all I needed.

Ricky seemed shocked by the prospect of possessing money he hadn’t earned. “What kind of man would I be if I let you pay our way?”

“The man I love,” I said.

He finally freed himself from my grasp and reached for his trousers. “Can you love a man with zero pride? Because that’s what I’d become. I’m not some charity case.”

I watched, hurt, as Ricky slid on his pants and began pacing the room, his hands shoved into his empty pockets.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said.

“Well, you did.”

“Then forget my money. We’ll figure something out, even if it’ll be hard at times.”

Ricky stopped pacing long enough to glare at me. “Hard? You don’t know the meaning of the word. Have you ever worked a day in your life?”

“I never needed to,” I admitted.

“And that’s your problem,” Ricky said. “You and your family sit around all day letting the rest of us do the real work. If the shoe was on the other foot, I bet none of you would last a day.”

I’d never seen him angry before, and the only reaction I had was to start crying. I tried to hold the tears back, but they fell anyway, streaming down my cheeks.

Ricky’s tone softened as soon as he saw them. Pulling me close, he said, “Hey now. No need for that. I’ll think of something. It’ll just take a little more time. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

Because Ricky told me not to, I didn’t.

A mistake, Mary.

For there was much to worry about.

But don’t think for a second that this is simply a tale of a young girl used and discarded by a callous man. There’s more to it than that. Nearly everyone at Hope’s End played a role in what happened--and most paid dearly for it.

Including me.

Especially me.