“A copy of Mary Milton’s suicide note,” Detective Vick says. “I told you we found it with her body.”
I scan the page a second, third, fourth time, hoping each pass will produce a different meaning. But it all reads the same every damn time.
im sorry im not the person you thought i was
“Mary—” I stop, unnerved by the way my voice sounds. Like I’m underwater. Like I’m a thousand miles away. “Mary didn’t write this.”
“Of course she did,” Detective Vick says. “Who else could it be?”
Rather than answer, I struggle to jam the key into the ignition and struggle even more to pull out of the parking spot. Then I drive off, leaving Detective Vick standing in exhaust fumes, still ignorant to the fact that what he found with Mary’s body wasn’t a suicide note.
It’s something else.
Typed by someone else.
And I think I know exactly what it means.
THIRTY-SIX
Because I didn’t want to use the intercom to be let in upon my return, I never closed the front gate to Hope’s End behind me when I left. It’s still open, thank God, letting me steer the car right past it. I stop long enough to smack the button embedded in the interior wall to finally close the gate behind me. Then it’s back to the car, where I speed to the front door, cut the engine, and hurry inside. The house is unnervingly quiet as I sweep down the hallway, coming to a stop at the family portraits on the wall.
Pausing a moment at the painting of Lenora, I take in her pert nose, ripe lips, green eyes. Despite the many years between them, the girl in the portrait is unmistakably the woman I’ve been caring for.
I head to the first portrait in the row and use my car key to jab the silk crepe covering it. Once I’ve made a hole big enough to poke a finger through, I start clawing at the fabric. The silk crepe makes a tearing sound—slick, almost wet. I wonder if the knife blade sliding across Winston Hope’s throat made a similar noise.
That’s who’s underneath the fabric. Winston Hope himself, looking like every other captain of industry from that period. Ruddy and smug and pudgy from too much food, too much wine, too much everything. Men like him gobbled up all they could, leaving nothing for everyone else.
Staring at the greedy visage of Winston Hope, I can tell he had no idea what fate had in store for him. He probably thought he’d live forever. Instead, he ended up dead in the room just across the hall, slumped over a pool table, his blood seeping into the green felt.
I move on to the next portrait, repeating my steps. Jab, poke, claw, tear. The black fabric pulls away to reveal Evangeline Hope. She truly was beautiful. Lenora hadn’t lied about that. Alabaster skin. Golden hair. Slim, elegant frame draped in an equally slim and elegant gown. But for all the ethereal beauty on display, there’s something not right about Mrs. Hope’s appearance. She’s disconcertingly pale, making her seem delicate and fragile. I look at her and am reminded of a daylily on the cusp of wilting.
Unlike her husband, Evangeline Hope looks very much like she knew what was coming.
There’s only one portrait left.
Virginia.
I jab and poke. I claw and tear. I keep ripping until I see a young woman who bears some of the features of her mother and absolutely none of her father. She’s beautiful, too, in a slightly haughty way. In the painting, her smile comes off as forced, almost cruel. Then there are her eyes, which are colored an icy blue. Staring at them makes me recall what Berniece Mayhew said about Ricardo being a goner once Lenora batted her big eyes at him.
Her big, blue eyes.
Both my heart and mind race as I rush into the library, zeroing in on the fireplace mantel, where those three unsettling urns sit.
Father, mother, daughter.
With trembling hands, I reach out and lift the lid from the urn on the left.
Inside is a pile of dull gray powder that brings to mind something the priest said during my mother’s funeral.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Both are present and accounted for inside the urn, shifting like sand as I set it back on the mantel and replace the lid.
I grab the second urn, lift the lid, take a peek at more ashes.
Then it’s on to the third urn, where my movements seem to slow like a bad memory. Seconds stretch to minutes as my fingers touch the lid, lift it, set it aside on the mantel. My senses work overtime when I grasp the urn.
I feel the porcelain cold against my palm.
I see the dust motes drifting through the stale air.
I smell the yellowed pages of books that haven’t been opened for decades.
I taste something metallic on my tongue. Fear, I realize, of what will happen when I look inside the urn.
Then I do look, and my gasp is loud enough to echo off the library bookshelves.
Because what I see is . . . nothing.
No ashes. No dust.
The urn is completely empty.
I should have known the night would end in disaster. I should have sensed it in the stormy air. All day, while pretending to be bedridden, I’d heard the thunder rumbling over the ocean like the cannon fire of an approaching horde.
A battle was coming.
And there would be casualties.
But I ignored the signs, too preoccupied with getting away to notice them. Our plan, such as it was, involved me gathering as much of my things as possible after everyone in the house had gone to bed. While I did that, Ricky would sneak into the garage and steal the keys to one of my father’s Packards. At ten p.m., if all went well, he’d be pulling up to the front door just as I slipped out with my suitcase. Then we’d drive away and never look back.
At the time, I thought it would work.
All the servants had been given their biweekly night off, which is what made Ricky think the plan was possible. Because my mother remained in a round-the-clock laudanum haze, there’d be no one else but my sister and father around to catch us.
I never expected one of them would.
At quarter to nine, I slid out of bed and quickly changed clothes. I had no idea what the rest of the night had in store, but I secretly hoped it involved a trip to a justice of the peace. I loved the idea of Ricky and me getting married before the baby was born. The last thing I wanted was for our child to be considered a bastard. If marriage was in store for me that night, I needed to wear the prettiest thing I owned--the pink satin dress I’d worn for my birthday portrait. It barely fit, even though it’d been let out multiple times since then, and did nothing to disguise my pregnant state.
After squeezing into the dress, I tossed my suitcase onto the bed and flung it open. I then went to the armoire, grabbing as many dresses as my arms could hold. When I turned back to the suitcase, I found my sister in the doorway. She stood with her hands behind her back, holding something she didn’t want me to see.
“What are you doing?” she said, looking delighted to have caught me up and about.
“Leaving.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here.”
My sister’s eyes gleamed. “You’re running away with him, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said as I dropped the dresses I’d been holding into my suitcase. Without them to cover me, my sister could now see what I’d been hiding for months. The gleam in her eyes was quickly replaced by shock.
“Dear God,” she said, her mouth agape. “What have you done?”
I returned to the armoire and grabbed another armful of dresses. “Now do you understand why I’m leaving?”
What I needed from my sister at that moment was for her to help me, comfort me, support me. That’s what sisters are supposed to do for each other. Instead, mine simply said, “Father will never allow it.”
The mention of my father stopped me dead.
“Please don’t tell him,” I said. “Please just let me leave. You hate me, after all. Won’t that make your life easier, being the only child?”
“Not when the family’s name is ruined.” My sister stood perfectly erect, her chin raised, smug in her superiority. She thought herself better than me in every way, and no longer made any attempt to hide it. “It’s not just you who’ll be affected. All of us will pay a price. Think of your reputation. Think of mine!”
“You expect me to stay here, loveless and miserable, for the rest of my life, just to preserve your precious reputation?”
“No,” my sister said. “Yours should be concern enough. If you leave, you’ll be throwing your life away.”
“Or gaining a new one,” I was quick to reply.
“Either way, I can’t let you do it.”
“Go ahead then,” I said. “Tell him. It won’t keep me from leaving.”
“Then I think it’s time for one of our old games,” my sister said. “You remember how to play it, don’t you?”
My sister removed her hand from behind her back, revealing what she’d been holding all this time.
A key.
To my bedroom door.