“Thought I’d give it a shot,” he says, flashing that horny grin I’ve seen dozens of times since May. “I should go anyway. Take care of yourself, Kit. If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Kenny gives me a playful wink before sprinting to the wall at the end of the lawn and scaling it with zero effort. Then, with a corny salute, he turns and hops off the wall, vanishing from view.
Turning around, I take in the entirety of Hope’s End. From the vantage point of the lawn, it looks enormous, forbidding. It’s easy to forget that when you’re on the inside, navigating its bloodstained stairs and tilted halls. Lenora’s the same way. I remember the fear I felt when stepping into her room for the first time. Her reputation preceded her. Now that I’ve gotten to know her, that reputation has, if not faded, at least been made more benign by familiarity.
Not anymore, thanks to Kenny.
Now my gut tells me I was wrong about initially thinking there are only four people at Hope’s End who could have shoved Mary off the terrace. There’s someone else.
A fifth, highly unlikely suspect.
But now a suspect all the same.
Lenora.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Back in the house, I find Mrs. Baker still in the foyer and Jessie on the Grand Stairs, obliviously standing on the bloodstains in the carpet. Her eyes widen at the sight of the shotgun in Mrs. Baker’s hands. “What’s going on?” she says.
“Trespassers,” Mrs. Baker replies before moving down the hall toward the kitchen.
“I took care of them,” I say.
Jessie lets out a relieved huff. “What did they want?”
“Nothing. Just some kids messing around.”
Although, in Kenny’s case, no longer a kid. And his warning still reverberates through my thoughts. Yes, Lenora’s the one who typed her story, but maybe she regretted telling Mary so much. Or had second thoughts. Or didn’t think Mary would tell anyone else and felt the need to act when she realized that was the plan. I even consider the bruise on Lenora’s arm, now all but healed. Could Mary have drawn blood against her will? Is that why she took it from Lenora’s working left arm instead of her nonworking right? So Lenora had no way to fight the needle’s approach?
That idea runs counter to the theory that Lenora, of all people, killed Mary. Could she push someone if she only has the use of one arm? If so, how could she do it when she can’t even walk?
The answer, of course, is that she’s just pretending she can’t.
I’ve experienced too much to keep me from outright dismissing the idea that Lenora is faking it. First, there’s the Walkman and the unlikelihood that it turned off by itself. Then there are the noises coming from Lenora’s room almost nightly. Creaks and footsteps and rustling. Connected to them are the shadow passing the adjoining door and the gray blur I saw at the window. Until I learn what caused some, if not all, of those things, Lenora must remain a suspect.
Upstairs, I peek into her room. Despite the ruckus outside, Lenora’s still asleep. Or at least pretending to be.
Just like she might be pretending that she’s incapable of doing more than just move her left hand.
Much more.
Like talking.
And walking.
And shoving.
The only way to find out is to catch her in the act. If it even is an act. Someone else could be causing the noise and movement in her room each night. If so, I want to know who it is—and why.
I cross Lenora’s room and enter mine through the adjoining door. Instead of closing it, I prop the door open with a stack of paperbacks from the bookshelf. I change out of my uniform, crawl into bed, and pick up a book I’d pulled at random from the shelf. Scruples by Judith Krantz. Next to it is a thermos I filled with leftover coffee from this morning. It’s cold and bitter, which is exactly what I need. If someone walks around Lenora’s room tonight, I plan on being awake to notice them.
I position myself at a slight angle on the bed, making sure the open doorway remains in my line of sight at all times. Then I settle in for a night of no sleep. Fueled by bad coffee and an okay book, I remain awake for hours.
Long enough to finish a hundred pages of the Judith Krantz.
Long enough to then count the waves as they crash against the base of the cliff.
Long enough to give up after tallying two hundred of them.
And long enough to see my mother creep into the room through the adjoining door.
In silence, she crosses to the foot of my bed, swaying on legs whittled thin by disease. Her teeth clatter, sounding again like the struck keys of a typewriter. She raises a bony arm and points at me as her lower jaw drops open.
Then she screams.
I bolt upright in bed, my eyes still closed and my ears still ringing with the noise my mother made in the nightmare. Not a scream, but a buzz. A loud, steady one that I continue to hear even though I’m now awake.
I open my eyes to a bedroom glowing red and Lenora’s alarm buzzing on the nightstand. I look to the adjoining door.
It’s closed.
I jump out of bed, fling it open, rush into Lenora’s room. She’s awake in bed with the call button smashed under the palm of her left hand. Her mouth droops open, releasing a gurgling moan of pure terror. Her eyes are saucer-wide as she stares at something on the other side of the room.
The typewriter.
A fresh page sits in the carriage, filled with a single sentence typed over and over and over.
It’s all your fault
It’s all your fault
It’s all your fault
It’s all your fault
It’s all your fault
It’s all your fault
I rip the page from the typewriter and turn to Lenora. “Let me guess. Your sister?”
Lenora taps twice.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Which one of you did this?” I hold up the sheet of paper so everyone can see what’s been typed on it. “I know it was someone in this house.”
All of us are crammed into Lenora’s bedroom. Every single person living and working at Hope’s End. Carter and Jessie share the divan. Archie sits on the edge of Lenora’s bed. And Mrs. Baker stands in the doorway, arms crossed and eyeglasses on so she can get a better view of what she probably thinks is a mental breakdown.
I deserve more credit than that. If I was truly hysterical, I wouldn’t have waited until after breakfast to demand everyone gather in Lenora’s room. I would have done it at four in the morning, right after I spotted the page.
“Who does Miss Hope say did it?” Mrs. Baker says.
“Her sister.”
Mrs. Baker’s eyes grow large behind her cat’s-eye frames. Archie coughs, probably trying to suppress a laugh. Carter and Jessie look worried.
Or weirded out.
Or both.
As for Lenora, she simply sits by the window in her wheelchair, observing the proceedings with keen fascination. From the Mona Lisa smile on her face, I assume she’s enjoying it. She likely hasn’t had this many visitors in decades.
“That’s impossible,” Mrs. Baker says.
“I know it is,” I say. “Which means one of you snuck into this room and did it.”
“Why would one of us do that?” This comes from Jessie, who asks while twisting one of the many bracelets around her wrist.
“I don’t know,” I say, when in truth I think I do. Whoever did it is likely trying to scare Lenora to keep her from telling me as much as she told Mary.
Because the mystery typist is also the person who killed her.
The very idea makes me short of breath.
I am in a room with a killer.
It doesn’t matter that the gate was open the night Mary was killed or that, as Kenny and his friends proved, it’s so easy to hop the wall. The typed page in my hand leaves me convinced this was an inside job.
I look from person to person, studying their facial expressions and body language, searching for signs of a tell. Jessie’s bracelet twirling, for instance, could be a nervous tic. The same with Mrs. Baker’s eyeglasses, which she’s lowered but I’m sure will raise to her face again before speaking. As for Archie, he’s harder to read. So quiet and still. Other than that single cough, he’s done nothing to bring attention to himself. Maybe that’s his tell.
“I have a question,” Mrs. Baker says as she puts on her glasses just like I predicted she would. “How was Miss Hope able to tell you she thought her sister did it?”
“She tapped yes.”
“So you specifically asked if it was her sister?”
“That’s a weird thing to do,” Archie says, finally piping up.
“Indeed,” Mrs. Baker says. “I can only assume you did it because you went through all of our names with Miss Hope and was told no.”
“That part doesn’t matter,” I say. “What’s important is that she said it was Virginia. Which we all know isn’t the case.”
“Why does she think that?” Jessie says.