Or maybe she was murdered because she knew that story.
After leaving Lenora with the call button, I go to my room and conduct a thorough search. Since all of Mary’s belongings are here, it stands to reason that whatever she and Lenora typed is still in here as well. Where, I have no clue. But I’m determined to find out.
I begin with the dresser, removing Mary’s clothes until every drawer is empty. I even check behind the dresser and beneath it. There’s nothing.
Next is the bed, both under it and between the mattress and the box spring. The only item of interest is my lockbox. I open it with the key from the nightstand and check its contents. A stack of typewritten pages and six bottles of pills.
After that, I do a scan of the bookshelf, thinking the pages could be tucked among all the books Mary had left behind, and check the bathroom for potential hiding spots. Both yield no results.
The last place I look is the closet, since I did a thorough inspection of it the night I arrived. Nevertheless, I check Mary’s medical bag, root through her coat pockets, and check the box on the floor that had once held books but now holds nothing.
I stand, wiping the front of my uniform, and stare at the patch of clean floor next to the box. Unlike my uniform, it’s free of dust, as if something had sat there until very recently. I noticed it my first night here but gave it little thought. Now, though, I can’t help but wonder what used to be there—and when it was removed.
I take a closer look. The dust-free area is rectangular, which would suggest a second box if not for the rounded corners.
That means it was something else.
Like a suitcase.
Mary was a caregiver. She knew the score. A box and suitcase are all we need.
With adrenaline buzzing through me, I grab my suitcase and bring it to the closet. With a nervous breath, I place it over the clean patch. It’s like the uniform—not an exact fit, but close enough.
As I lift the suitcase from the closet, I notice something that amps up my adrenaline level from a buzz to a roar.
On each end of the handle is a metal ring attaching it to the suitcase itself.
Each ring is about the same shape and size of the bent piece of metal I found on the terrace.
Everything goes sideways, as if Hope’s End is finally, inexorably tipping into the ocean. But it’s only me, shell-shocked by the realization that Mary took a suitcase with her when she left.
Inside that suitcase might have been the typewritten truth about Lenora and the night her family died.
Now, like Mary, it’s gone.
I stagger into the hallway and down the service stairs. The crack in the stairwell, I notice, has gotten larger. It now runs the entire height of the wall, with a second, smaller crack branching out of it. Another crack has formed on the opposite wall. At this rate, the whole stairwell will soon be webbed with them. I shudder, thinking of spiders and flies and sticky strands of cobwebs clinging to my skin.
In the kitchen, I head straight to the phone and dial the number printed on the card Detective Vick gave me. The phone rings six times before he answers with a groggy “Hello?”
“It’s Kit McDeere.”
“Kit.” There’s a rustle as the detective no doubt checks the clock on his nightstand. I do the same with the kitchen clock. Just before midnight. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” I say, my bluntness making it clear I don’t care. “But I thought you’d like to know that Mary Milton didn’t jump.”
“What do you think happened to her?” Detective Vick says after a disconcerted pause.
I pause myself, trying to collect my thoughts. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, let alone about to say it. Yet I do, the words tumbling out with unforced urgency.
“She was pushed.”
TWENTY-TWO
Here’s a question I’m sure I’ll regret,” Detective Vick says. “But why do you think Mary Milton was pushed?”
“There was a suitcase in her room.”
“And?”
“Now it’s gone.”
“And?”
“Mary took it with her.”
Detective Vick sighs. “You have exactly one minute to explain.”
I waste not a second trying to get him to believe the unbelievable. A tall order for someone so skeptical. Yet I do my best, telling him about the bare patch in the closet, how I think it was created by a suitcase recently removed from the bedroom, and why I suspect Mary left the house with it the night she died.
“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 Lenora can type. 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.
“There very well could be,” Detective Vick says. “But a week passed between Mary’s death and your arrival. During that time, anyone could have taken it from the room. Why are you so certain Mary had it with her?”
“I found a piece of it on the terrace.”
“You did?”
Detective Vick’s tone changes from dismissive to interested in a snap. I allow myself a smile, even though he can’t see it. It feels warranted. A small moment of triumph.
“A metal hook that attaches the handle to the suitcase. It was bent and lying on the ground, making me think the handle broke when someone snatched the suitcase from Mary.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Detective Vick says. “Do you still have it?”