The Only One Left by Riley Sager

THIRTY-THREE

The full extent of the damage can’t be assessed until morning, when all of us gather on the terrace not long after dawn. If anyone else paid a visit to Lenora’s room during the night, I didn’t hear it. I was too focused on the sound of the waves pounding the base of the cliff, eating away at it inch by inch. Lying in the darkness, listening to that steady churn, I wondered how long we had left until the whole thing fell. To judge from the state of the terrace, not very long at all.

The damage appears even worse in daylight, with the rising sun shedding full light upon the fissure slicing across the terrace. About two inches wide and unfathomably deep, it runs down the steps on the left all the way into the empty swimming pool. Following its path is a line of broken marble tiles, many of which now jut from the terrace at jagged angles.

Mrs. Baker peers at it all through her glasses, her eyes weary and sad. “Is there someone we could call?” she says.

Carter, who’d been on his stomach studying the crevasse, climbs to his feet and brushes dirt from his jeans. “To do what?”

“Fix it. Or support it. Or something.”

“There’s no fixing this,” Carter says. “This cliff is going to go eventually. And when it does, Hope’s End is going to go with it.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Mrs. Baker says, as if she has any say in the matter. “I’ll go make some calls.”

She hurries back into the house, leaving the rest of us to stare anxiously at the cracked terrace.

“She’s delusional,” Carter says.

“Totally,” Jessie echoes.

I turn to Archie, hoping our trust pact is still intact. “Do you think there’s a way to convince her to abandon this place?”

“Leave Hope’s End?” he says. “She’ll never do it.”

“I’m more concerned about Lenora. If something like this happens again—”

“When it happens again,” Jessie says. “Come on, guys, you know it will. And next time it’ll probably be worse.”

I sigh, because I agree with her. “When it happens, the rest of us can escape if we need to. But Lenora can’t.”

Archie promises me he’ll talk to Mrs. Baker about it before going back inside to start breakfast. Jessie quickly follows, saying nothing as she takes a long, disbelieving look at what’s left of the terrace.

Carter and I remain, our backs against the mansion and the brisk sea breeze in our faces.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Carter says with a shyness I haven’t seen from him before. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

The wind picks up, bringing with it a biting chill that warns winter is on its way. I pull my cardigan tight around me and wonder if Hope’s End will still be here when winter does arrive.

“I’m not sure I am. Honestly, how long do you think this place will remain standing?”

“I have no clue. It could be years. Or months.”

“Or hours?” I say.

“Yeah, that, too.”

“I long for the days when I thought the scariest thing about this place was the three murders that happened here.”

“Four murders,” Carter says.

“Right.” I lower my head, ashamed to have momentarily forgotten about Mary and what befell her on this same terrace.

“Anything new about that?” Carter says. “Or about anything?”

I fill him in on both my conversation with Mrs. Baker and my clandestine search of her room. “No suitcase. But I did find something interesting. Do you know anyone who might be staying at Ocean View?”

“That nursing home in town?”

“Yes. I found a bunch of cleared checks, going back years. Mrs. Baker’s been giving them a thousand dollars a month.”

Carter lets out a low whistle. “Charitable donation?”

“I doubt Mrs. Baker would be giving away thousands of dollars a year when Hope’s End looks like this.” I survey the broken terrace and the rubble scattered across it. It resembles a war zone. I’m all for philanthropy, but in the case of Hope’s End, charity really does begin at home. “She wouldn’t be wasting that kind of money unless she had to. She’s paying for someone to stay at Ocean View.”

Carter goes rigid beside me. Clutching my arm, he says, “I think I know who it is. I remember Tony mentioning once or twice when I worked at the bar that a couple people who used to work here are still around. And one of them is at Ocean View.”

“Who?”

“Berniece Mayhew.”

A look passes between us. One borne of surprise and confusion. For some reason—and for many, many years—Mrs. Baker has been paying the living costs of Ricardo Mayhew’s wife.

“Why would she do that?” Carter says.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I have a feeling Lenora might.”

Carter scratches the back of his neck, thinking. “Good luck getting her to tell you anything now that the typewriter’s gone.”

I thought the same thing this morning after waking on a mattress slid halfway down the bed frame. I hauled it back into place, showered in an alarmingly uneven tub, and put on another of Mary’s uniforms before checking in on Lenora. The moment I entered her room, I instinctively looked for the typewriter I’d forgotten was no longer there. Staring at the empty desk, I realized communication between the two of us had just gotten a lot harder. Some answers require more than just tapping yes or no.

“Maybe she can write with her left hand,” I say, wishful-thinking aloud. Even if Lenora was left-handed before her series of strokes, I don’t think she has the strength to hold a pen and scrawl something on paper for any extended period of time. The only thing I can think to do is write out the alphabet and have her point to the letters.

Which, truth be told, isn’t a bad idea.

In fact, I don’t even need to go that far.

Someone’s already done it for me.

“I just thought of a way,” I say, moving to the French doors. “It’s not typing, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

I leave Carter on the terrace and hurry through the dining room into the kitchen. I climb the service stairs quickly, passing the second-floor landing and going straight to the third, which feels like walking through a fun house. Staggering like a drunkard, I make my way to Jessie’s room. Her door is open, so I peek inside and try to casually say, “Hi. I was wondering if I could borrow your Ouija board.”

Jessie, standing at the foot of her bed, gestures to the top of her dresser, where the Ouija board and planchette sit. “You can have it. It’ll just be one less thing I need to pack.”

Every drawer in the dresser, I notice, is open, and a suitcase sits on the bed in front of Jessie.

“You’re leaving?” I say.

“Yep.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” For emphasis, Jessie balls up a sweater and stuffs it into the suitcase. “Just as long as it’s anywhere but here. You heard Carter. This whole place is falling apart. Literally. I’m not going to be here when it does. You shouldn’t, either. Honestly, we both should have left right after you found Mary.”

There’s no arguing with that. Watching Jessie toss more clothes into the suitcase, I can’t help but imagine what my life would be like right now if I’d walked away that day and never looked back.

But I stayed as Mary’s death and the Hope family murders filled my waking hours. And I’ll continue to stay, even though the smart thing would be to follow Jessie’s lead.

“I can’t abandon Lenora,” I say, which is both the truth and an excuse.

I’m also staying because I can’t shake the feeling that the full story is right at my fingertips, just out of reach. That same feeling is what draws me to the dresser, where I grab Jessie’s Ouija board and planchette.

“I’m only borrowing it,” I tell her, pretending we’ll see each other again when in all likelihood we won’t. “I plan on giving it back.”

Jessie gives me a surprise hug, which she finishes off with a girlish squeeze. “Take care of yourself, Kit. And take care of Lenora, too. And please promise me you’ll get her away from this place as soon as possible.”

“I will.”

“I’m serious,” Jessie says. “I’m worried about her. And you.”

“I promise,” I say. “I swear.”

I’m about to leave the room when Jessie says, “Wait! I forgot something.” She hurries to the dresser and hands me a cassette tape. “The end of the book I was reading for Lenora. I hope she likes it.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m sure she will.”

I pocket the cassette and let Jessie resume packing, knowing I should be doing the same thing. Instead, I’m carrying a Ouija board down a hallway no one should be allowed to walk through, on my way to get a mute woman to speak not with the dead, but like them.

Five minutes later, the meal tray is attached to Lenora’s wheelchair. On top of it sits the Ouija board, with the planchette placed in the center beneath Lenora’s left hand.

“You ever use one of these things?” I say.

Lenora lifts the planchette to give a single tap against the board.

“It’s easy.” I place my hand over hers and glide the planchette around the board. “Just slide this to whatever letters you need to spell out your answer. Got it?”

Biting her bottom lip in concentration, Lenora pushes the planchette to the yes located in the upper-left corner of the board.

“Perfect,” I say. “You ready to answer a question?”

The planchette stays where it is, which I assume is another yes.

“How well did you know Berniece Mayhew?”

Lenora slides the planchette to the double row of letters arcing over the center of the board. Slowly, she brings it to the L.

Then the I.

Then the T.

Then the T a second time.

Then the L again.

Then the E.

“A little?” I say, making sure it’s what she meant.

Rather than return the planchette to the yes, Lenora taps it twice against the board.

“What was she like?”

Lenora slides the planchette again, spelling out a word with a meaning that needs no confirmation.

nasty

“Then why is Mrs. Baker giving her money every month?” I look to the Ouija board, where the planchette remains still beneath Lenora’s hand. “Did you know she was doing that?”

This time, Lenora spells out her answer.

yes

“How long has it been going on?”

Beneath the letters, a row of numbers is centered on the Ouija board, going from zero to nine. Lenora jerks the planchette to four of them, forming a telltale year.

1929

Because I was never good at math, it takes me a minute to add it all up in my head. The figure I come up with boggles my mind. Since 1929, Berniece Mayhew has been paid more than six hundred thousand dollars.

“Why?” I say, too stunned to phrase it any better than that.

Lenora returns the planchette to the letters, falling into the same kind of rhythm as when she used the typewriter. In roughly the same time it would have taken her to type it, she’s spelled out her answer.

because she knows

I still don’t understand. “Knows what?”

Lenora keeps the planchette sliding.

about that night

I nod. There’s only one night she could be referring to.

“What about that night?”

Lenora keeps the planchette moving, skipping from one letter to another to another.

she

The planchette continues to slide. Down to one of the last letters on the second row, then up to the first one in the first row, then back down to the second.

was

I keep my gaze fixed on the Ouija board, too afraid of missing a letter that I don’t even blink.

here

My heart thuds once against my rib cage.

Berniece Mayhew was at Hope’s End that night.

Not just before and after the murders, but during them.

By the start of October, I had reached the point where I could no longer hide my condition, even with the help of Archie and Miss Baker. My body had changed too much to merely blame on weight gain. Soon anyone who looked at me would know I was pregnant.

Without another way to keep it a secret, Miss Baker suggested I take a cue from my mother and stay in bed. Reluctantly, that’s what I did. Anyone who came into my room and saw me propped up on pillows and covered by ample blankets wouldn’t know I was pregnant.

My excuse for taking to my bed--exhaustion brought about by extreme nervousness--was also inspired by my mother. Everyone believed it. Like mother, like daughter. Even clueless Dr. Walden had no trouble thinking it was the truth. Rather than examine me, he simply provided a bottle of laudanum and told me to sip it regularly to ease my delicate condition. I poured the foul liquid down the sink as soon as I was alone. I might have been acting like my mother, but I certainly had no plan to become her.

For a restless girl like me who lost every time my father forced us to play the game in which he locked us in our rooms, I shockingly had no trouble spending most of my time in bed. Very quickly, I learned how to lay very still, sometimes for hours, while my mind roamed the world, going wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Often, I’d put my hands on my stomach and whisper to the child growing inside it about all the things I had planned for us and all the places we would go. Paris, of course, but other, more adventurous locales. Jungles and mountains and tropical islands with water that shimmered like sapphires.

I thought of it as nothing more than daydreaming, but Archie, whose curious nature compelled him to read about such things, said I was practicing meditation.

“What’s that?” I asked him on one of the rare times he could sneak into my room.

“Disassociating the mind from the body,” he replied, which didn’t clear up much.

Still, I had ample time to let my mind wander. Few people came to see me. My mother was bedridden herself, and my father, overwhelmed by business woes I knew very little about, had taken to spending more time in Boston. Even Archie’s visits grew scarce as the weeks passed.

The only two people I saw on a regular basis were Miss Baker, who brought me meals and made sure I ate every bite, and my sister, who seemed to revel in discussing her social life, including all the things she was doing, people she was seeing, and places she was going.

“Peter and I are going on a picnic,” she said the day before everything changed, even though none of us knew it yet. “I do wish you could join us.”

She didn’t mean it, of course. It was simply her way of making sure I knew she had the carefree existence I could only long for. Little did she know that I was doing fine. I had someone who loved me, his child growing inside me, and a happy family in my future.

Or so I told myself.

But doubt had crept in, and no amount of daydreaming--or meditation--could keep it at bay.

The truth was that Ricky hadn’t once checked in on me in the three weeks since I had been forced to fake being an invalid. He knew it was a ruse to hide the pregnancy, for I made sure to tell him.

Day after day, week after week, I asked Miss Baker, who by then knew Ricky’s identity, if he had come around trying to see me. And day after day, week after week, I was told no.

“I’m sure it’s very difficult for him to sneak away,” Miss Baker said each time I asked.

Of that, I had no doubt. What bothered me was that he didn’t even seem to be attempting to check on me. My patience eventually wore thin, as did my certainty that Ricky truly loved me and wanted this child as much as I did.

Fueled in part by my sister’s flaunting of her robust social life, I chose that night to sneak out and see him. The doubt had become too much to bear.

When Miss Baker arrived with dinner that evening, I pleaded with her to locate Ricky and tell him I would meet him on the terrace at midnight. It was the only time I could leave my room without being seen. Reluctantly, she agreed.

At the stroke of midnight, after I was certain everyone else had gone to bed, I crept downstairs into the kitchen, on my way to the terrace. I was halfway across the kitchen when I realized I wasn’t alone.

Berniece was also there. Although she pretended to busy herself with late-night work, it was clear she had been waiting for me.

“I knew it,” she said when she saw my rounded stomach. “Well, you’re one apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I replied, trying to muster anger when all I felt was pure fear.

Berniece sneered. “That you’re a whore. Just like every other member of your family.”

I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. I knew what the servants said about us behind our backs, of course. I just thought they valued their jobs too much to say it to my face. Not Berniece, apparently.

“You honestly think I don’t know what’s going on?” she said. “My husband sneaking out at odd hours, hardly paying any attention to me, looking like he’d rather die than touch me. I’ve known for months. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”

She glared at me, as if everything about me repulsed her.

“What do you intend to do about it?” I said, which I’m sure sounded like a challenge to Berniece even though it wasn’t. I was intensely curious--not to mention frightened--of her next move.

“I intend to get rich,” she said. “I’ll stay silent and look the other way if you and your family pay up.”

I stayed completely still, stunned. “How much?”

“Fifty thousand dollars should be enough,” she said before tacking on a threat I was certain she’d carry out. “For now. You have until tomorrow night to think it over.”

Immediately, I began to panic.

Tomorrow.

That wasn’t much time. Not nearly enough to plan our escape. But escape was the only option. Of that, I had no doubt.

I burst from the kitchen, running outside to the terrace, where Ricky waited in the shadows. I hushed him before he could say a word, worried that Berniece had followed me out.

“Not here,” I whispered before whisking him away to the first floor of the garage, where the gleaming Packards my father owned but never drove were kept. We climbed into the back seat of one of them, hiding from the rest of the world.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” Ricky said.

“She knows,” I blurted out. “Berniece knows. And she wants money or she’s going to tell my father. But telling my father is the only way to get the money.”

“How much does she want?” Ricky said, his voice more curious than angry.

“Fifty thousand dollars.” I wanted to sob. The situation was so dire that I had no idea what to do. No matter what we chose, the decision would irrevocably change my life. “What are we going to do?”

Ricky had the only answer.

“Run away,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”