Page 81 of The Only One Left

Yet what about that page taken from the typewriter? And the footfalls I keep hearing inside her room? And the blur at the window and the shadow at the door? Someone is causing them—and I don’t believe it’s the ghost of Virginia Hope.

Play.

Which means the only logical source is Lenora, who’s been lying to me. Possibly about everything.

Stop.

Not necessarily. Maybe Lenora has no control over what her body can and cannot do. It sometimes happens in patients with paralysis. Sudden muscle spasms can occur like an electric shock to their system, moving muscles against their will, just like what happened when I checked her reflexes my first night here. Nowthat’ssomething that could have caused her to shut off the Walkman.

My finger’s still on the stop button when I hear a noise.

A heavy thud.

Lenora, I think when I hear it a second time.She’s moving around. Again.

I hurry through the adjoining door into Lenora’s room. Inside, it’s as still and silent as a tomb. Outside, waves gently lap at the base of the cliff. Lenora appears to be asleep. Eyes closed, flat on her back, blanket to her chin. I tiptoe to her bedside and listen to the steady sound of her breathing.

All is well.

Except for more noise. Footsteps this time, shushing over the carpet in the hallway. I go to Lenora’s bedroom door, open it a crack, and see Mrs. Baker passing by. A white-robed blur holding a—

Is that a shotgun?

My unspoken question gets an immediate answer when Mrs. Baker halts and does a half-turn in my direction. Clutched in her armsisa shotgun, its double barrel propped against her right shoulder.

“They’re outside,” she says.

“Who?”

“Reporters. They’ve been loitering at the gate all day. It’s either them or boys from town who’ve hopped the wall and now they’re prowling the grounds.”

When Mrs. Baker hurries off toward the service stairs, I follow, unsure who’s in bigger danger, us or the trespassers. If they’re teenage boys and anything like the ones I went to school with, then they’re mostly harmless. Mrs. Baker, on the other hand, is armed.

From the kitchen, we move into the hallway, where I glimpse movement through the front-facing windows.

A dark figure, streaking by.

Then another.

And another.

In the foyer, Mrs. Baker throws open the front door and marches outside, shotgun barrel leading the charge. The night is foggy, with mist languidly curling over the lawn. In the haze, two more darkfigures zip by, bringing the number of known trespassers to five. They all carry flashlights, the beams cutting through the dense fog like lasers.

“You’ll leave right now if you know what’s good for you!” Mrs. Baker shouts at them.

The trespassers scatter in all directions, footsteps squishing on the damp lawn and flashlights bobbing in panic. Once a safe distance from the house, one of them stops and turns, backlit by the moon-drenched fog.

“It’s Lenora!” he yells. Then he calls out, “Killer!”

That settles it. They definitely aren’t reporters.

Another one joins him, shouting, “Killer!” before the others also start chiming in. Their voices ring out in the night, echoing through the fog.

“Killer!Killer!”

The trespasser who’d started the chant—the ringleader, apparently—keeps shouting it after the others have stopped, adding one more word to the insult.

“Killer bitch!”

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