Page 52 of The Only One Left

I absolutely do not think that what I heard was the spirit of Virginia Hope.

But something’s not right at Hope’s End. Obviously. And it might have frightened Mary enough to make her leave in the middle of the night without taking anything with her. I don’t want to stick around and wait to see if I’ll eventually get that desperate. I’d rather leave now, in broad daylight, taking all my belongings with me.

“I don’t like it here,” I finally say. “I told you I wasn’t comfortable working in this house.”

“And I told you there wasn’t a choice,” Mr. Gurlain says.

“But there are other caregivers available. I saw their names on the assignment board. Can’t you send one of them here and put me somewhere else? It doesn’t have to be immediately. I can wait a week or two until another assignment becomes available.”

That last bit is a stretch. I might not have enough money to last me a few weeks. But Mr. Gurlain doesn’t need to know that. He just needs to put me somewhere else—something he doesn’t seem too inclined to do.

“We went over this, Kit,” Mr. Gurlain says with a sigh. “I make—”

“The assignments and the caregivers follow them. Yes, I know. I was just hoping you would consider making a onetime exception.”

“I can’t,” Mr. Gurlain says without giving it a moment of thought. “Again, you’re welcome to leave your assignment. But if you do, it means you’re leaving my employ for good. I’ve already given you a onetimeexception. Most other agencies would have fired you six months ago. Take it or leave it.”

I have no choice but to take it. Yes, I could quit on the spot or, like Mary, leave in the middle of the night, but the only person I’d be hurting is myself. I have next to no money and no job prospects. I’m not even sure I have a house to return to. Quitting would make those problems worse.

In short, I’m stuck at Hope’s End.

“I understand,” I say, talking quickly so Mr. Gurlain can’t tell I’m on the verge of tears. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

Resigned to my fate, I hang up and look around the massive, empty kitchen inside this massive, empty house.

How the hell did I get here?

I think about all the ways my life could have been different—and when everything went wrong. Was it when my mother got sick? Or was it before that? When I got fired from the typing pool and decided to become a caregiver, for instance? Or when, bored by school, I realized I’d never amount to very much and decided not to try? Maybe I was set on this path the first time I heard the chant about Lenora.

At seventeen, Lenora Hope...

There’s one blueberry muffin left over from breakfast, sitting in a basket on the counter. I grab it, taking a bite as I move through the dining room and out onto the terrace. Outside is brisk but bright—the perfect weather for clearing my mind. A necessity after my call with Mr. Gurlain. The sun, wind, and salty air combine to calm me down, make me start thinking rationally again.

Now that it’s clear I’m stuck here, I need to focus on how to get myself unstuck.

The answer is obvious: do my job.

Collect a paycheck, save enough to get as far away from here as possible, start over.

It also means I need to follow through on my threat to Lenora if she didn’t tell me who was in her room.

No more typing.

No more story.

I tell myself it’s probably all lies anyway. If Lenora can’t be honest with me about who’s been creeping around her room, then she’s certainly not going to tell me the truth about the night her family was murdered. It all leaves me feeling duped, not to mention stupid, for ever trusting her to be honest.

I decide the next thing to do is figure out what’s been causing the noises in Lenora’s room. There has to be a logical explanation for them. Same with the shadow that slid past the door and the blur I saw at the window.

Since Archie, Mrs. Baker, and even Lenora suggested the wind, that makes it the likeliest culprit. They know Hope’s End better than I do. Similarly, the blur at the window could have been a trick of the moonlight on the glass. As for the shadow at the door, it might have been caused by clouds scudding in front of the moon, momentarily blocking its light. A plane or large bird could have done the same thing. Considering the sad state of the house, it’s even more likely that a loose shutter or a broken drainpipe was the cause.

I turn around and face the back of the mansion, its three formidable stories looming over me. Taking care not to lose my balance, I lean against the railing and scan the exterior. Nothing appears to be out of place around Lenora’s windows. There’s certainly no shutter swinging in the breeze or slanted drainpipe bobbing from the roofline.

But there are plenty of birds. Seagulls whirl overhead before diving to the water, lured by sand crabs left exposed by low tide. I rotate and look down at the strip of sand between the water and base of the cliff. Smooth waves calmly collapse against the shore, pushing foamy water around the rocks jutting from the sand.

I lean forward and look closer, realizing I’m mistaken.

Those aren’t rocks rising out of the wet sand.

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