Page 104 of The Only One Left

“I’m here,” I say. “Are you okay?”

Lenora drops the call button and taps twice on the bedspread. Her gaze then flicks to the far corner of the room, where someone stands, unnoticed by me until just now.

Archie.

He has the curtains pulled back and is looking out the window toward the terrace. “Looks like it’s down there,” he says.

“What is?”

Archie finally turns to face me. “The damage. We should go see what happened.”

I already know what happened. Hope’s End just got a bit closer to tumbling into the ocean.

“What are you doing in Lenora’s room?” I say.

Archie and I look at each other with wary suspicion. It reminds me of a movie I watched with my mother when she was sick. Two cat burglars who interrupted each other while trying to rob the same mansion are forced to choose if they should work together or alone. They ultimately decide to trust each other. Archie makes a similar decision.

“I was saying goodnight.”

“Since when do you say goodnight to Lenora?”

“Ever since Miss Hope first took ill,” Archie says. “Every night, I make sure to stop by and see how she’s doing.”

“Let’s walk,” I say.

What I really mean is that I want to talk where Lenora can’t hear us. Archie nods and follows me into the hallway, where the tilt of the house is noticeably more pronounced. Just when I had gotten used to it, too.

“Everynight?” I say. “You told me you and Lenora were no longer close.”

“I said it wasn’t like it used to be,” Archie says. “And that’s the truth. It’s evolved over the years. Just because I don’t make a show of it doesn’t mean I don’t care about Miss Hope. We’re both on the same side, Kit. We’re both here to watch over her. We just go about it in different ways.”

“Why haven’t I seen you visit her before?”

“Because it’s kind of our little secret. Something kept just between me and Miss Hope. I’m sure you understand.”

Archie pauses, as if he now wants me to share one of my secrets. I decline. Because that movie about the cat burglars who decided to trust each other? It ends with one betraying the other. I’m not about to let the same thing happen to me.

“How late do you visit?”

“Usually a little after Miss Hope goes to bed and a little before I do the same.”

We descend the service stairs slowly, our shoes crunching over bits of plaster that have fallen from the walls.

“Ever visit her in the middle of the night?”

“No,” Archie says. “An early riser like me can’t afford to stay up that late.”

He sounds honest enough that I almost believe him. Then again, Archie also sounded honest when he lied about knowing Lenora had a baby. Right now, I suspect there’s a seventy-five percent chance he’s telling the truth. Using that math, I conclude that Archie was the gray blur I saw at Lenora’s window my first night here.

I’m less sure about him causing the middle-of-the-night noises in Lenora’s room.

Or the shadow I watched pass the adjoining door.

Or the typewritten message Lenora blamed on Virginia.

“Do you know if anyone else sneaks into Lenora’s room at night on a regular basis?”

“I doubt it,” Archie says with a vagueness that drops the truth-o-meter to fifty percent. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

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