Page 67 of The Only One Left

“If she intended to kill herself, why would she take a suitcase with her?”

“I have no idea,” Detective Vick says.

“Because she wasn’t planning to leave,” I say. “That’s why everything else she owned is still here. Mary intended to come back.”

“I suppose you also have a theory about what was inside this alleged suitcase.”

“The truth about the Hope family murders.”

The sudden squeak of bedsprings tells me the detective just sat up. I finally have his undivided attention.

“I think Mary came here with the intention of finding out what really happened that night,” I say. “And she did. Because Lenora told her.”

“Let me guess,” Detective Vick wearily says. “She typed it.”

“Yes.”

“Kit, we already—”

I cut him off, unwilling to give him yet another chance to call me a liar. “I know you think I’m making this up, but Lenoracantype. I have an entire stack of pages I can show you. All typed by Lenora. And if you still don’t believe me, there’s photographic proof. Jessie has a picture of Mary and Lenora typing together. They were doing it in secret. With Mary’s help, Lenora wrote about everything that happened the night her family was killed. When they finished, I think Mary planned to go public with it. She took what Lenora typed, put it in her suitcase, and left. But someone at Hope’s End knew what she had planned and stopped her before she could do it.”

“By pushing her to her death?”

“Yes.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“Because they didn’t want the truth to get out.”

There’s silence on Detective Vick’s end. Either he’s thinking over what I’ve said or is on the verge of hanging up. It turns out to be the former, although from his tone, the latter still feels like an option.

“This all sounds pretty outlandish, Kit.”

“I’m not lying,” I say.

“I didn’t say you were. I think you sincerely believe it’s what happened.”

“But you don’t.” Pain throbs at my temples. A headache’s brewing, no doubt caused by lack of sleep and an abundance of frustration. “What part don’t you believe?”

“All of it,” Detective Vick replies. “First of all, do you know how hard it is to shove someone over a railing?”

“Not this railing,” I say, remembering the way it hit the small of my back, sending me off-balance enough to make me fear I was about to flip over it. “It’s short.”

“Duly noted. But you also said Mary put everything she and Lenora typed into this suitcase. Where do you think she was taking it?”

“You, most likely.” A wild guess based on my own instincts. Lenora had just told her everything about the town’s most infamous crime. I haven’t given any thought about what I’ll do when Lenora finishes telling me what happened. But my gut tells me I’d take it to the police. “Mary had the truth about that night.”

“And that’s the first of many holes in this theory of yours,” Detective Vick says. “Mary’s time of death was around two a.m. Do you really think she’d be going to the police at that hour?”

I look to the kitchen window. Outside, there’s just enough moonlight to make out the railing running the length of the terrace. I imagine Mary there, bathed in a similar glow, flipping over the railing and vanishing out of sight.

“How do you know when she died?”

“Because it was low tide,” Vick says. “Mary disappeared on Monday night. Low tide that day was shortly after two a.m. If there had been any water there, her body would have been swept out to sea. Instead, Mary hit the exposed beach and died upon impact. When the tide came in, she got buried in sand.”

I get another image of Mary. One I don’t need to imagine because I saw it. Her corpse mostly covered by sand and seafoam. I close my eyes and turn away from the kitchen window.

“But there’s a suitcase missing from her belongings,” I say.

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