The Only One Left by Riley Sager

TWENTY-EIGHT

Which one of you did this?” I hold up the sheet of paper so everyone can see what’s been typed on it. “I know it was someone in this house.”

All of us are crammed into Lenora’s bedroom. Every single person living and working at Hope’s End. Carter and Jessie share the divan. Archie sits on the edge of Lenora’s bed. And Mrs. Baker stands in the doorway, arms crossed and eyeglasses on so she can get a better view of what she probably thinks is a mental breakdown.

I deserve more credit than that. If I was truly hysterical, I wouldn’t have waited until after breakfast to demand everyone gather in Lenora’s room. I would have done it at four in the morning, right after I spotted the page.

“Who does Miss Hope say did it?” Mrs. Baker says.

“Her sister.”

Mrs. Baker’s eyes grow large behind her cat’s-eye frames. Archie coughs, probably trying to suppress a laugh. Carter and Jessie look worried.

Or weirded out.

Or both.

As for Lenora, she simply sits by the window in her wheelchair, observing the proceedings with keen fascination. From the Mona Lisa smile on her face, I assume she’s enjoying it. She likely hasn’t had this many visitors in decades.

“That’s impossible,” Mrs. Baker says.

“I know it is,” I say. “Which means one of you snuck into this room and did it.”

“Why would one of us do that?” This comes from Jessie, who asks while twisting one of the many bracelets around her wrist.

“I don’t know,” I say, when in truth I think I do. Whoever did it is likely trying to scare Lenora to keep her from telling me as much as she told Mary.

Because the mystery typist is also the person who killed her.

The very idea makes me short of breath.

I am in a room with a killer.

It doesn’t matter that the gate was open the night Mary was killed or that, as Kenny and his friends proved, it’s so easy to hop the wall. The typed page in my hand leaves me convinced this was an inside job.

I look from person to person, studying their facial expressions and body language, searching for signs of a tell. Jessie’s bracelet twirling, for instance, could be a nervous tic. The same with Mrs. Baker’s eyeglasses, which she’s lowered but I’m sure will raise to her face again before speaking. As for Archie, he’s harder to read. So quiet and still. Other than that single cough, he’s done nothing to bring attention to himself. Maybe that’s his tell.

“I have a question,” Mrs. Baker says as she puts on her glasses just like I predicted she would. “How was Miss Hope able to tell you she thought her sister did it?”

“She tapped yes.”

“So you specifically asked if it was her sister?”

“That’s a weird thing to do,” Archie says, finally piping up.

“Indeed,” Mrs. Baker says. “I can only assume you did it because you went through all of our names with Miss Hope and was told no.”

“That part doesn’t matter,” I say. “What’s important is that she said it was Virginia. Which we all know isn’t the case.”

“Why does she think that?” Jessie says.

Honestly, I don’t know. My best guess is that talking about the past has Lenora dreaming about it. Those humdinger nightmares that linger. When she wakes, she thinks they’re real. Just for a moment. And that her sister is with her still.

But saying that would reveal all. A tempting idea. Tell them everything and see what happens. Admit that I’ve been helping Lenora type her story, that Mary did the same thing, and that it’s why I think someone shoved her off the terrace. I don’t because it would also give away Carter’s secrets. Something the nervous ping-ponging of his eyes tells me he wouldn’t like.

“It’s the power of influence,” Mrs. Baker says, answering in my place. “Something in Kit’s body language or the way she spoke our names indicated to Miss Hope it wasn’t the answer she wanted. But the way she mentioned Miss Hope’s sister did. Miss Hope was merely trying to please her.”

Not knowing how to respond, I begin to smooth the skirt of my uniform. My tell. “What are you suggesting?”

“That the culprit is you, dear,” Mrs. Baker says.

“Why would I type this?”

“Attention?” Jessie suggests while shooting a quick glance at Carter she probably doesn’t want me to notice.

I glare at her. “I don’t need anyone’s attention.”

“Then why are we all here?” Mrs. Baker tilts her head, staring directly at me, her blue eyes boring into me like the sunrise. “You’re the one who demanded we all come here so you could show us the words on that page and tell us Miss Hope claims it was her sister. Why go to all that trouble?”

“Because I want whoever did it to stop,” I say. “Please. And stop sneaking into Miss Hope’s room at night.”

Mrs. Baker’s body goes rigid. “Someone’s been doing that?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did,” I say. “The morning after my first night here. I told you I heard footsteps in Miss Hope’s bedroom and you said it was just the wind. But I heard it again the next night. And saw someone at that window. And watched a shadow pass the door between our rooms. That wasn’t the wind. So it was either one of you or it was Lenora.”

I stare at Mrs. Baker, silently daring her to chastise me for not saying “Miss Hope.” She doesn’t. Instead, she says, “Tell me immediately if it ever happens again.”

Then she leaves, thereby bringing an end to this melodramatic—and ultimately fruitless—household meeting.

Archie is the first to follow her out. Then Carter, who gives me a we-need-to-talk-later look before slipping out the door. Jessie, however, lingers. Remaining on the divan, she says, “Sorry about that. I don’t really think you did it for attention.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Jessie stands, steps closer, touches my arm. “What I mean is that I don’t think you did it at all.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lenora pretending she isn’t paying attention to every single word. Before Jessie can say anything else, I pull her into my room and shut the adjoining door behind us.

“Did you do it?” I ask her. “Did you type it and get Lenora to tell me it was her sister?”

Jessie drifts away from me, toward the bookshelf. “No way. How could you, like, even think that?”

Because she’s done this kind of thing before. In the ballroom. With a Ouija board. Like we’re in a goddamn game of Clue.

“If it was some kind of prank, I’d—”

“I told you it wasn’t me,” Jessie snaps. “How do you know it wasn’t Lenora? She can type, right?”

“Not like this.” I glance at the page in my hand, filled with proper capitalization and punctuation. “And not without help.”

“Maybe she can do more than you think.”

Kenny said the same thing last night. And I thought it myself before that, as I fiddled with the Walkman to see if it could shut itself off.

“Did Mary—” I have no idea how to phrase this without sounding insane. Did she ever say Lenora is stronger than she looks? Did she ever think Lenora’s faking this whole thing? “Did Mary ever say she thought it was possible for Lenora to recover?”

“In what way?”

Walk, I think. Shove. Kill.

“Any way,” I say. “Mentally. Physically.”

“Like, learning to walk again?” Jessie says. “No. She never did.”

“But it’s possible, right?”

Jessie leans against the bookshelf, her hands behind her back. “I was just talking about typing. I didn’t mean for you to think Lenora is running around without telling anyone. Sure, we’ve all heard stories about people suddenly snapping out of a coma or paralyzed people miraculously being able to walk again. So I guess it can happen. But probably not to someone Lenora’s age. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. That kind of thing.”

“But what if this isn’t a case of an old dog learning a new trick?” I say. “What if they’ve known this particular trick since they were young?”

“You think Lenora’s faking this?” Jessie says. “Why would she do that?”

I don’t have an answer other than that Lenora seems to enjoy keeping secrets. She’s been doing it for decades, never telling a soul what she knew about the Hope family massacre until Mary came along. And now, despite all common sense and reason, I can’t shake the feeling that once she revealed her biggest secret to Mary, Lenora decided to take it back.

If such a thing is possible.

“I’m kind of worried about you, Kit,” Jessie says. “You’re acting like Mary.”

“In what way?”

“Um, every way.”

I’d be worried about me, too, if I didn’t know what I do. That someone’s been walking around Lenora’s room. That she’s lied to me repeatedly about who it is. That she turned off a Walkman using a hand everyone thinks she can’t use.

“I’m fine,” I say, even though I’m not.

When Jessie departs, claiming she needs to dust the urns in the downstairs library—a sure sign she wants to get far, far away from me—someone who’s fine wouldn’t transfer Lenora from her wheelchair to the bed.

Someone who’s fine wouldn’t then examine Lenora’s legs and right arm, searching for signs of untapped strength, feeling for muscles tense from disuse.

Someone who’s fine wouldn’t also tickle Lenora’s palm, looking for a twitch, a twinge, a flicker of movement.

I do all those things as Lenora watches me from the bed, more wary than suspicious. I think she knows what I’m up to. If she’s capable of resisting, she shows no sign of it. Her limp right arm is easy to stretch across the mattress, palm up, fingers spread. When she sighs, as if she’s been through this before, I wonder if Mary also tried it.

I wonder if it worked.

I wonder if Lenora then felt the need to make her disappear.

With that in mind, the next logical step would be to try the opposite of tickling—inflict pain, which is more likely to induce a reaction. It would be so easy, too. Grab a syringe and needle from Mary’s medical bag. Jab it into Lenora’s right hand. Watch for the wince.

I shove the thought out of my mind. It goes against everything I’ve been trained to do. I might not trust Lenora right now—and I might be far from fine—but I’m still a caregiver.

So I cross to the desk, grab the sheet of paper I’d found in the typewriter, and read the accusation running from the top of the page to the bottom. I’m so tired that the words begin to blur, the letters rearranging themselves before my very eyes.

It’s all your fault

It’s all Kit’s fault

What they’re saying’s not true, Kit-Kat

I crumple the paper into a ball, take it to the bed, and drop it into Lenora’s open right hand. My hope is her reflexes take over when it hits her palm, the same way we catch something without thinking about it. It just happens. At some point, instinct takes over.

Not in this case. The balled-up paper bounces off Lenora’s palm and onto the floor.

I pick it up and try again.

Then again.

Then I throw it across the room, where it ricochets off the window before rolling into a corner.

I need something heavier. Something Lenora will really feel when it lands in her hand.

I eye the open door between our rooms and the paperbacks that once propped it open but were pushed out of the way when someone (Virginia? Lenora?) pulled it shut. I grab one—Ordinary People by Judith Guest—and hold it spine down a few inches from Lenora’s hand.

I let it drop.

The book stands upright a second before flipping onto its side over Lenora’s thumb and forefinger.

Still nothing.

Because, I realize, it doesn’t matter if she catches it. The book, like the ball of paper, is expendable. Both mean nothing to her. If Lenora’s faking all of this, she’s not going to reveal it without a good reason. To get her to move her right hand—if she can move it—I need to provide a bigger incentive than a wad of paper and a dog-eared book.

I scan the room, considering and dismissing its contents. A hairbrush? Too worthless. A handheld mirror? Too unwieldy. The Walkman? A strong candidate. But it, too, could be replaced.

My gaze lands on the Eiffel Tower snow globe on the sideboard. Stereotypical Paris under glass.

Now we’re talking.

A gift to Lenora from her long-dead parents, it has sentimental value. It’s likely also worth a lot of money. It’s an antique, for one thing, and I doubt people like Winston and Evangeline Hope went for a cheap snow globe when choosing one for their daughter.

I pick it up, convinced Lenora would never, ever, not in a million years let it fall from her grip. The journey from the sideboard to the bed kicks up some of the gold flakes resting at the bottom of the waterless globe. They sparkle and swirl as I hold it upside down over Lenora’s hand.

Flat on her back, Lenora strains to see what I’m doing. When she spots the gold flakes inside the snow globe, she takes on a panicked look. Her eyes burn bright, and a grunt rises from the back of her throat.

I ignore it, holding the snow globe steady, waiting for the right moment to drop it. I tell myself I’m doing nothing wrong. That Lenora can catch it if she really wants to. That the reason she’s so stressed is because she knows I’m on to her.

Both of us stare at the snow globe, watching the gold flakes settle into the curve of the overturned dome. When the last one falls, I let go.

The snow globe smacks against Lenora’s palm.

I hold my breath, watching and waiting.

For her fingers to curl around it.

For her to prove that she can use her right hand.

For the moment when at least one of my suspicions is confirmed.

Instead, the snow globe topples from her hand and rolls across the mattress.

Then it hits the floor and shatters.

The sound coming from behind the closed door of my mother’s room was unmistakable.

Breaking glass.

Upon hearing it, my sister gasped. I merely flinched, as if whatever my mother had just thrown across the room was flying directly at me and not at my father.

“For Christ’s sake, Evie,” I heard him grumble. “Haven’t you destroyed enough?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

My mother’s voice was loud and clear behind the door. A sign that she was well and truly furious. Normally, the laudanum kept her sounding meek and muddled. It pleased me to hear her sounding like her old self again, even though I knew it was prompted by the worst fight my parents had had in years.

“Nothing is destroyed,” my father said. “Everything is fine. The firm is just going through a rough patch. Which is why it’s so important right now that we have the money to keep it going.”

My mother let out a derisive snort. “Our daughters’ money, you mean.”

“It should be our money.”

“Over my dead body,” my mother said.

This prompted my father to reply, “Don’t tempt me.”

“My parents had good reason for creating that trust,” my mother said. “If you could get at that money, you’d spend it all in a year and Lenora and Virginia would have nothing.”

“Nothing is exactly what they’ll have if the business goes under and this place is foreclosed on.”

My sister and I exchanged worried glances. We had no idea things were that bad, even though we should have suspected it. My parents barely spoke, let alone fought, which is why when their argument echoed down the hall, we both ran for the door to listen in. We knew something big had to have caused it.

“They’ll be just fine if it does,” my mother said.

“And what about me? You won’t care if I lose everything?”

“I’ve already lost everything,” my mother said. “Why shouldn’t you? Or are you more worried about your little whore? I suppose I should say whores, since there have been many over the years.”

“Don’t act so innocent with me, darling,” my father shot back, spitting the term of endearment he used on me with undisguised venom. “We both know the truth.”

My mother’s reply was so quiet that my sister and I had to press our ears against the door to hear it. Even then, we could barely make out the half-whispered “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” my father said. “I know why you married me. Just like I know that Lenora isn’t my daughter.”

I gasped. So loudly I was certain my parents heard it through the door. My sister was certain, too, for she clapped a hand over my mouth and whisked me down the hallway to the first open room. She yanked me inside just as the door to my mother’s bedroom opened. We huddled in that darkened room, my heart pounding and my head woozy from shock, as my father looked up and down the hallway.

“Girls,” he said in a voice so stern it turned my blood cold. “Were you eavesdropping?”

My sister kept her hand over my mouth as my father passed the open doorway, mere inches from us. I’d started to cry then, and my tears dripped over her fingers.

“Are you there, my dear and my darling?”

When he paused just past the door, I became certain he was about to leap inside, grab us both by our necks, and drag us out of the room. To my utter surprise, he moved on, down the hallway and to the Grand Stairs. When his footfalls faded to silence, my sister and I finally emerged and hurried to my bedroom. Inside, I threw myself onto the bed and began to weep, fully and openly.

My sister stood by the wall, her arms folded, in no mood to comfort me. I’m sure it never even crossed her mind.

“Do you think it’s true?” she said. “That we could lose Hope’s End?”

“That’s what you’re concerned about? Even after what Father said?”

“Oh, that.” My sister shrugged. “Mother was in love with one of her parents’ servants and got pregnant. He abandoned her and she had to marry Father to avoid a scandal. I thought you knew.”

I shook my head. I had no idea.

Although, in hindsight, I think I should have. My sister and I bore only a slight resemblance to each other. Our noses were different. As were our hair and eyes. We looked less like siblings and more like cousins, which strangers had mistaken us for on more than one occasion.

“Well, now you do.” My sister paused as a cruel smirk formed across her lips. “Honestly, you should be relieved. Now you know where you get it from. And that you’re not the only slut in the family.”

She then swanned out of the room, leaving me alone and with a hollow feeling in my gut that she knew about me and Ricky.

And it was only a matter of time before she told everyone else.

The only choice I had was to beat her to the punch and tell at least someone other than Archie. In my mind, the best person was my mother. She’d take the news far better than my father, for one thing. Also, I hoped she’d understand, having gone through the same predicament herself.

My mind made up, I walked to the end of the hall and crept into her room. My mother was barely awake, even though it was only late afternoon. Sunlight peeked between the drawn curtains at the windows, trying to trickle in the same way water did through a crack.

“Is that you, my darling?” she murmured from the bed.

I stood at the foot of it, trying to come up with the right words to say. But there was so much to be said--and so many questions to be asked--that I simply blurted out, “Is it true? What Father said?”

A sigh rose from the covers my mother had buried herself under.

“Yes, my darling.”

“So you don’t love him?”

“No,” my mother said.

“Did you ever?”

“Never.” My mother sounded dreamy and distant. Like someone talking in her sleep. “Never, ever. He knew it, too. He knew it and paid the man I did love to run away and never see me again. When that happened, I was trapped. I had no choice but to marry him.”

My mother’s voice drifted into a slur.

“No choice at all.”

The slur became a whisper.

“Sorry, my darling.”

The whisper faded to a gasp.

And then . . . nothing.

“Mother?” I rushed to her side, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a good shake. Jostled by the movement, her right hand flopped against the mattress, releasing the laudanum bottle she’d been holding.

It was completely empty.

She’d swallowed it all, likely right before I’d entered her room.

“Mother?” I cried, shaking her even harder, trying to jolt her back into consciousness. But it was no use. As my mother lay there, motionless, the empty bottle of laudanum rolled across the mattress and hit the floor with a crash.