Page 75 of The Only One Left

Carter and I take a few cautious steps toward it, both of us testing the ground, fearful the entire lawn might fall away beneath our feet. Which it very well could. We stop when we can just see over the edge. Far below, chunks of fallen earth sit surrounded by foamy waves.

“Welp,” Carter says. “That’s not good.”

TWENTY-FOUR

For the second day in a row, I skip Lenora’s exercises and take her straight to the typewriter. Even though I know it’s bordering on dereliction of duty, I’m too impatient.

On a normal night—not that any night at Hope’s End can be described as normal—I would have shaken Lenora awake after leaving Carter’s cottage, carried the typewriter to the bed, and demanded the truth about the baby. But the night before was particularly abnormal.

After the partial collapse of the cliff outside the cottage, Carter wisely decided to move into the main house until the damage could be assessed. Not that it’s any safer in here. While helping Carter carry some of his belongings to an empty bedroom on the third floor, I spotted a new crack at the service stairs and a broken tile on the kitchen floor. Bad omens all.

Jessie sidled up to me while I examined the stairwell walls and whispered, “What were you and Carter up to?”

“Just talking,” I said.

She winked. “Sure. Right. Totally.”

“Wewere.”

“Did you find out anything else about Mary?”

I stopped on the landing and studied her. Dressed in a pink sleepshirt and missing her makeup and jewelry, she looked like a complete stranger. Which she technically was.

“No,” I said before continuing on.

I wanted to trust Jessie. I really did. Of everyone at Hope’s End, she seemed the least likely to have a reason for wanting Mary dead and the most likely to be an ally to me. But since I’d already ruled out Carter as a suspect, I couldn’t risk doing it for anyone else. Even Jessie. While I’m not usually a suspicious person, in this case I needed to be. I doubted Mary was suspicious, either, and look at what happened to her.

Carter must have been thinking the same thing when he came to my door while on his way to his temporary room on the third floor. “Are you going to be okay?” he said in a half whisper.

“Yeah,” I replied, even though I knew what he was really asking. Barring the possible but unlikely scenario that someone from town had snuck through the open gate and killed Mary, someone under this roof was a murderer. “I’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t fine.

I ended up spending most of the night wide awake, thinking about Lenora and Carter and the idea that Mary was dead because she knew too much about them both. That led to wondering if I now knew too much. The answer I came up with—a resounding yes—prompted more questions. How much danger was I in? Should I just up and leave in the middle of night like everyone thought Mary had?

With ideas like that clanging through my skull, the fact I managed to fall asleep at all is a minor miracle. When I woke to sunrise piercing my eyes and the mattress slid lower on the bed frame, I realized that I hadn’t heard any mysterious noises coming from Lenora’s room. Either I slept right through them or whoever—whatever?—is causing them decided to take the night off.

Now I stifle a yawn while getting Lenora into typing position. When she’s ready, I kneel beside her and say, “Lenora, I think we should talk about the baby.”

She pretends not to be surprised I know.

But she is.

Her face, as expressive as a silent film star’s, can’t hide such shock. This is especially true of her eyes, which widen at the same time they go slightly dim. An unspoken answer to the biggest question I had: Could Carter have been wrong about Lenora’s pregnancy? Yes, that photograph of her in 1929 is very persuasive, but it doesn’t confirm anything.

“I know you were pregnant,” I say. “And Mary knew, too, didn’t she?”

Lenora’s left hand rises and falls twice against the typewriter. That’s a yes.

“What happened to the baby?”

Lenora lets out a long, sad sigh. Then she types a single word—gone—before letting her hand slide off the typewriter.

“Gone?”

It’s strange how a word so short can contain so many possibilities. Lenora could have had a miscarriage. Or the baby was stillborn. Or left this world shortly after entering it. Or was bundled up and left on the front steps of a church on Christmas morning. That single word—gone—could also mean something happier. The child was born, grew up, left Hope’s End, and now has a family of their own. Although, going by Lenora’s reaction, I don’t think that’s what happened.

“Did the baby die?” I say.

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