The Only One Left by Riley Sager

FORTY-ONE

Let me get this straight,” Carter says. “Mrs. Baker is actually Lenora Hope. And Lenora is really Virginia Hope. And she’s the one who killed her parents?”

“Correct.”

We’ve been on the road for ten minutes, during which time I managed to tell him all that I’ve learned during this long, surreal night. Still, I get why he’s confused. It’s a lot to take in, especially when it means he came to Hope’s End for nothing.

“And I’m not related to any of them,” Carter says with a sigh, resigned to the fact that his birth family remains a mystery.

“I’m sorry. I know how much you wanted to know.”

“I thought I did know.” Carter stares out the window, watching the scrubby pines of the Cliffs zip past as we descend into town. “The timeline seemed to fit perfectly.”

What neither of us counted on was the possibility of a premature birth, which I learned during my health aide training is more common in teenage mothers. As a result, Virginia likely has a child living somewhere in Canada, oblivious to who his mother is or what she’s done, and Carter, who knows both of those things, still has no idea who his real grandmother could be.

And Mary is dead because of it—a horrible truth temporarily forgotten in a night filled with them.

“I can’t stop thinking about Mary,” I say. “How she was killed for no reason whatsoever.”

Carter looks away from the window long enough to say, “You still think she was pushed?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know anymore.” He sighs again. “I’m not Lenora’s—sorry, Virginia’s—grandson. So there’d be no reason for someone to kill her because of that.”

“But she knew all the other secrets about that place,” I say. “Lenora’s true identity. Virginia’s guilt. The fact that both have been lying about it for decades. Someone felt the need to stop her before she could reveal it all.”

“So that leaves either Archie or Lenora.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I don’t think so.”

Both Lenora and Archie laid bare all their secrets tonight. Yes, I’d forced Lenora’s hand when I told her I knew she wasn’t really Mrs. Baker. But both were forthcoming after that. They did what Virginia had promised to do my first night at Hope’s End—tell me everything.

What they didn’t do was swear me to secrecy or threaten me in any way. If one of them was so concerned about Mary knowing the truth that they felt the need to murder her, then why am I still alive?

Because I’m not a threat to them.

I doubt Mary was, either.

But she was to someone.

My left hand slips off the steering wheel, leaving a smear of blood, sticky and hot. Using my right hand to steer, I glance at the wound. It’s still bleeding and probably infected, but I’ll survive.

That gate, however, should be melted into scrap metal.

I wipe my hand on the skirt of my uniform, not caring about the stain it will leave. I’ll never be wearing it again. In fact, I won’t even be a caregiver again once Mr. Gurlain finds out I quit, fleeing Hope’s End without even closing the damn gate behind me.

Another thought occurs to me, about another time the gate was left open.

“Hey, Carter,” I say. “When did you say you found the gate open?”

“The day Mary died.”

“I meant the day. What day of the week?”

“Monday.”

“And what time?”

“Midmorning. Why?”

Because Carter said he assumed it was left open after the groceries were delivered. But Archie told me those arrive on Tuesdays. A fact confirmed by all those receipts I found under Lenora’s bed.

That means the gate had been opened for a different reason.

Not to let someone enter and leave, but to let someone leave and come back undetected. I did it myself earlier tonight. Opening the gate when I left for Ocean View Retirement Home and leaving it like that so I wouldn’t need to call the main house to be let back in.

Since the gate was open Monday morning, it’s possible it had been like that since the night before.

“The lab already had your blood sample, right?” I say.

“Yeah. I got it drawn the week before. All they needed was Virginia’s blood.”

“Which Mary was supposed to get Monday night for you to bring to the lab the next day.”

“Which never happened,” Carter reminds me.

We’ve entered town, the streets I’ve known my entire life lit by the dull glow of streetlights. We pass Ocean View, where Berniece Mayhew is likely watching TV this very minute, and then Gurlain Home Health Aides. I make a right, heading to my father’s house two blocks away. Even though I should be thinking about what I’m going to tell him when I get there, my mind is preoccupied with something else.

“How long does it take to get a blood sample analyzed?”

“About a day,” Carter says.

“So if you took a sample to the lab on, say, a Sunday night, they’d have the results Monday night?”

“I guess so.” Carter eyes me from the passenger seat. “Why are you so focused on that?”

Because it seems to be exactly what happened. Someone left Hope’s End on Sunday night, leaving the gate open so they could return without anyone realizing they were gone. Carter noticed the open gate on Monday morning. He then left it open overnight because he intended to leave for the lab early Tuesday. During that time, someone could have left and returned once again.

Someone like Mary.

Coming back from the lab on Monday night.

With the results of a blood analysis performed on a sample she brought there the night before.

I slam the brakes, and the car comes to a screeching stop in the middle of the street. Carter looks at me, one hand braced against the dashboard and his body still thrust forward from the sudden stop. “What are you doing?”

“It was you,” I say.

When she was pushed off the terrace, Mary wasn’t leaving with a suitcase that contained a bunch of pages typed by Virginia and a sample of blood about to be tested.

She was coming back with the results.

“You knew Virginia wasn’t your grandmother,” I say. “Mary drew her blood and took it to the lab a day early. Because your bloodwork was already done, they could tell pretty quickly if it was a match. It wasn’t. And when Mary told you the results, you—”

“Killed her?” Carter says. “Why would I do that?”

Because he wanted Hope’s End. He changed where he worked, where he lived, his entire life. All because of the possibility he might be related to the infamous Lenora Hope and could one day inherit everything she owned. When Mary told him that wasn’t the case, he did whatever he could to hide that fact.

“You did it,” I say. “You killed Mary.”

“Do I look like a killer to you?”

He doesn’t. Then again, neither does Virginia. Yet he’s as guilty as she is. The only difference between them is that she’s now harmless.

Carter, however, isn’t.

I shoot a glance up the street, weighing my options. My father’s house sits on the next block. I can see the warm glow of the porch light, beckoning me home. I can make a run for it and hope Carter doesn’t catch up, or I can force him out of the Escort and speed the rest of the way home. I pick plan B. Being inside the car seems like the safest bet.

I shove my right hand into my pocket, fumbling for the corkscrew. I pull it out and hold it up, its pointed tip aimed at Carter’s side. He sees it and raises his hands.

“Jesus, Kit. There’s no need for this.”

“Get out of the car,” I say.

Keeping his hands where I can see them, Carter unfastens his seat belt and pulls the handle of the passenger door. It clicks open, setting off a warning beep because the car’s still running.

“You’re making a mistake,” he says. “I swear to you I didn’t do it.”

“I don’t believe you!”

Anger courses through me, making my blood pump so hard I can feel the cut on my hand pulse. He lied to me. Just like Virginia lied to me. The pain of their twin betrayals stings like a third-degree burn. I jab the air with the corkscrew, forcing Carter closer to the open door.

“Kit, please!”

I jab the corkscrew again, this time lunging forward until its tip is a breath away from Carter’s neck. He scrambles out of the car and stands in the street, calling to me as I speed away, the passenger door flapping like a broken wing.

Knowing Carter can still easily catch up to me, I aim not for the driveway but the yard, thumping over the sidewalk and skidding to a stop mere feet from the front door. I burst from the car, Carter’s loud and fast footfalls echoing up the street behind me.

“Kit, wait!” he calls.

I do the opposite, running to the front door, flinging it open, slamming it shut behind me. Carter reaches it just as I turn the deadbolt. He pounds on the door, pleading with me.

“Kit, please! You’ve got it all wrong.”

I back away from the door, unsure what to do next. I need a phone to call Detective Vick, peroxide and a Band-Aid for my hand, and to find my father, so I can finally reveal the truth about my mother’s death.

I head to the living room, expecting to find my father in his La-Z-Boy, waiting up for me like he did when I was a teenager. Only his chair is empty. As is the living room. And, it seems, the whole house.

“Dad?”

I move down the hall, to the bedroom he once shared with my mother but now sleeps in alone. Peeking through the doorway, I spot a suitcase on the bed.

One that doesn’t belong to him.

It’s smaller than his battered suitcase, which I remember from so many family vacations. Nicer, too. Quality leather as dark as brandy. Its single flaw is a broken handle, which dangles from the suitcase, held on at only one end.

My vision narrows, darkness pushing in from all sides until it looks like I’m staring down a train tunnel. But there’s no light at the end of it. Only confusion as I zero in on the suitcase’s lid. My hand shakes so hard I can barely lift it open.

When I do, I see a test tube with blood inside it and a stack of typewritten pages. I scan the first line of the top one.

The thing I remember most--the thing I still have nightmares about--is when it was all but over.

A sob croaks out of me. I can’t hear it because my pounding heart is loud in my ears. A shock. I’m so heartbroken I’m surprised it can even beat at all.

Because I know what my father did to get this suitcase.

And I know why.

All my life I’d only heard him referred to as Pat.

But his real name is Patrick.

Patrick McDeere.

It didn’t occur to me that the second half of his name could also be turned into a different nickname.

Ricky.

Ricky sat in one of the leather chairs next to the fireplace. My father stood beside the other one, his back toward the door. Neither one of them noticed me as I crept into the room, the glinting knife in my grip leading the way. They only became aware of my presence once I said, “Where’s my baby?”

“It’s gone, Virginia,” my father said with his back still to me, as if I wasn’t even worth the effort of turning around.

“Bring him back.”

“It’s too late for that, my darling.”

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped, my hand tightening around the knife. “Don’t you dare call me that ever again! Now tell me what happened to my son.”

“Miss Baker took him. She won’t be returning.”

“What do you mean?”

“That she’s gone for good.” My father said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “She agreed to leave Hope’s End with the child, find it a good home, and never speak of the incident again.”

A hot and stinging jolt of pain went through me. It was, I realized, the pain of betrayal. I felt so stupid then. So utterly foolish that I had deemed Miss Baker worthy of trust when all she truly cared about was herself.

“For how much?” I said, for I knew there was a price.

“Not as much as Patrick here.” My father looked at Ricky. “I did get the name right, didn’t I? Patrick McDeere?”

Ricky swallowed hard and nodded.

“For fifty thousand dollars, Mr. McDeere will leave, never return, and never speak of his bastard child. Isn’t that right, son?”

“Yes, sir,” Ricky mumbled, refusing to look at me.

“You made him agree to this,” I said to my father. To Ricky, I added, “Tell him no.”

At last, my father turned around, his gaze bouncing from one part of me to another. My crestfallen face first, then to my hand, where the knife remained.

“Now, look here, Virginia,” my father said as he continued to stare at the knife. “There’s no need for that.”

I kept my own gaze on Ricky. “Tell him! Tell him you love me and that we’re going to run away and find our baby and have a happy family.”

“But he doesn’t want that,” my father said. “Do you, son?”

“You’re lying.” I turned to Ricky. “Tell me he’s lying!”

Ricky’s gaze also skipped about. To the unlit fireplace, to his hands, to the zebra rug under his feet. Anywhere but at me.

“It’s true, Ginny,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

“See?” My father’s tone was shockingly boastful. He was, I realized, enjoying the worst moment of my life. “I know you’re hurt now, but it’s for the best. You don’t want trash like him dragging you down for the rest of your life.”

“But--”

It was all I could muster. Shock and heartbreak had silenced me. But I knew I could still speak volumes with the knife in my hand.

I tried to rush at both of them, not caring which one I hurt just as long as I inflicted pain on someone. But before I could take a step, I was halted by a gentle grip on the arm that held the knife.

My mother.

No doubt summoned by my sister.

Although I was surprised to see her out of bed and walking around on her own, my mother barely seemed fazed by the sight of me holding a knife. Alert for the first time in weeks, she knew exactly what was transpiring in that billiard room.

“Don’t, my darling,” she said, her hands disconcertingly strong as she wrested the knife from my grip. “They’re not worth destroying your young life over.”

I let her take the knife from my hand and collapsed against her, weeping. With the knife in one hand and stroking my hair with the other, she addressed my father.

“Fifty thousand dollars, Winston? Your price has gone up. If I recall, you only offered twenty-five thousand to make the man I loved go away.”

“That didn’t stop him from taking it,” my father said with not an ounce of softness in his voice. “You can judge me for it all you want--and you certainly have--but it was the best thing to happen to you. It allowed you to get married, pretend that Lenora was my child, and keep your precious reputation intact.”

His words caused something inside my mother to break. I watched it happen. Her eyes went dark and her body still. Standing silent and motionless, she reminded me of a clock unnervingly stopped at midnight.

Yet one small part of her continued to tick. I saw that, too. Something coiled around the gears of her mind, ready to spring.

And spring she did.

Toward my father.

Knife in hand.

Not stopping until the blade was deep in his side.

My father didn’t scream when the knife plunged into him. I did that for him, letting out a sharp cry that pinged around the room in an infernal echo. I could still hear it when my mother yanked the knife from my father’s gut.

He clutched at the wound, blood seeping between his fingers as he stumbled against the pool table.

“Please take my daughter out of the room,” my mother said to Ricky in a voice as calm as a spring morn. “Now.”

Ricky leapt from the chair and took me by the hand, although the last thing I wanted was to feel his touch. Yet I was too stunned and horrified to do anything but let him pull me from the room, into the hallway, and toward the foyer.

“It’s a dream, right?” I said, more to myself than to Ricky. “Just a terrible dream.”

Yet the waking nightmare continued as a grunt and a gurgle sounded from the billiard room. My mother emerged a few moments later, still holding the now-crimson knife. Blood covered her nightgown and dripped from her hands in large dollops that fell across the foyer floor.

I pulled myself from Ricky’s grasp and ran up the Grand Stairs, wanting nothing more than to be upstairs in bed, fast asleep, waking up to a new day in which none of this had happened. My mother took a few shuffling steps, moving as if in a daze. Perhaps she thought it was a dream as well. A horrible, terrible, blood-drenched dream.

But as my mother climbed the steps to join Ricky on the landing, I saw it was all too real--and that the blood covering her wasn’t just my father’s.

It was also her own.

A tear in the fabric of her nightgown revealed a gushing wound in her stomach. The moment I saw it, I knew my mother had also used the knife on herself.

“Mother!” I cried as I started to run back down the stairs.

Ricky, still on the landing, halted me with a gruff “Don’t come any closer, Ginny!”

I stopped halfway to the landing, frozen by confusion and fear. I watched as Ricky approached my mother and took the blood-soaked knife from her hands.

“Please,” my mother whispered to him. “Please put an end to my misery.”

Ricky shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean,” my mother snapped. “You don’t know me. You don’t know how much I’ve suffered. You wouldn’t, of course. You’re just a shiftless, worthless cad who will amount to nothing.”

My mother’s eyes contained a determined spark that worried me. I knew what she was trying to do--and that Ricky was falling for it.

“Don’t talk about me like that,” he said.

“Why?” my mother said. “It’s true, isn’t it? You come from nothing, you’ll live with nothing, and you’ll die with nothing. You’re worthless.”

Ricky stiffened, his body coiled with tension. “I’m not.”

“Then prove it,” my mother said. “Be a man for once and prove you’re not a piece of--”

From the stairs, I screamed as I saw a flash of movement at Ricky’s hand.

The knife.

The rest happened so quickly I can scarcely recall it. A small mercy. What I do remember--the sound of the knife entering my mother’s torso, her collapsing on the landing--is horrible enough.

When it was over, I flew down the stairs to my mother’s side. It was clear she was mortally wounded. Her face had become stark white, and there was blood everywhere. It soaked into my nightgown as I screamed at Ricky to call for help.

“Help us! Please!”

The knife remained in Ricky’s grip. He stared at it in disbelief for a moment before looking directly at me and my dying mother.

“I-I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to--”

“Get out,” I said, my voice a ragged whisper.

“It’s true, Ginny. You have to believe me.”

“Get out!” I said again, this time in a roar borne of pain, anger, and fear.

Ricky dropped the knife and fled out the front door and into the dark night.

A minute after he left, so, too, did my mother. I was holding her hand when I felt the last flicker of her pulse. I kept holding it even as the skin grew cold, not knowing what else to do. My parents were dead. My child was gone. The man I had once loved but didn’t any longer had fled. How is one supposed to carry on when they have nothing left?

The only thing that pulled me away from my mother’s corpse was the knife that killed her. Still on the foyer floor, it caught the light in a way that felt like a taunt.

“Use me,” it seemed to say. “That’s what you need to do now. Here’s your way out.”

I went to it, picked it up, and considered driving it into my heart. I stopped myself before I could do so, worried that once the blade entered my chest, there’d be no heart left for it to pierce.

Instead, I walked out to the terrace, buffeted by the wind and driving rain, and threw the knife into the ocean. Something capable of such violence deserved to be in a place where no one could find it.

Yet I still wanted to end my life. No, that’s not quite it. I felt like I had to end my life. To me, it already seemed over. All those hopes and dreams I’d held close to my heart had gone with everything else. In their place was a dark void from which I never thought I’d escape. My body might have been alive, but my soul was dead.

The quickest and easiest thing to do would have been throwing myself off the terrace. But then I’d be as lost as the knife I’d just tossed into the waves. I wanted to be found, so people would understand the depths of my despair.

I decided to go to the garage, where I knew rope was stored. I grabbed a long loop of it and carried it back inside, to the ballroom. I chose that room because it seemed the most like myself. Lovely, yes, but also empty and neglected.

In the kitchen, I heard Lenora on the phone, frantically calling the police. I should have considered how the night’s events would affect her. They were her parents, too. At least my mother was. And I was her sister. Yet I selfishly never stopped to think if she would mourn them or me. The same went for Archie, who I knew would miss me deeply.

All thoughts were pushed out of my head as I stood on a chair and tossed the rope until it was looped several times around one of the chandelier’s arms. I then knotted it around my neck the best I could.

After a tug to make sure the rope wouldn’t unravel from the chandelier, I closed my eyes, took what I thought would be my last breath, and stepped off the chair.

And that’s the full story, Mary.

Not what you expected, is it? It isn’t for me, as well. Now that you have it, do with it what you’d like. Tell the world. Or tell no one.

It’s in your hands now.

My hope, though, is that you’ll share it with someone, that it will spread far and wide, and that word of it will somehow reach my son, wherever he is, and the two of us may be briefly reunited.