“I’m going to get you out of here.”
I set the corkscrew on Virginia’s nightstand and fetch her wheelchair from the corner. While it would be quicker to lift her out of bed and carry her down the stairs, I know my limitations. Wheeling her down the Grand Stairs the same way I did during our ill-fated trip outside is the only option.
Lifting her by the underarms, I manage to get her out of bed and halfway to the wheelchair before I hear a noise in the hallway. Virginia hears it, too, and flashes a startled, stricken look. We both recognize the sound.
Footsteps.
Coming up the service stairs.
Slowly.
Uncertainly.
The moment I hear them, I know they belong to my father.
For a second, I’m frozen. I don’t know what to do. Even if I get Virginia into the wheelchair before my father enters the room, he’ll surely spot us as I try to wheel her out. But staying where we are is also a bad idea. Holding Virginia upright, I can’t do anything to protect her or me. Her life is literally in my hands.
Virginia nods toward the far corner of the room, in a pitch-black space between the wall and the divan. Although barely enough space for Virginia to fit, it might be enough to hide her if my father merely peeks into the room and moves on. Also, with his footsteps getting louder on the creaking service stairs, it’s our only option.
I drag Virginia to the space by the wall and drop her into it. Then I sprint for my own hiding place—my bedroom. There I huddle in a shadow-filled corner, hoping it, too, is enough to keep me hidden. Through the open doorway, I can see Virginia on the floor next to the divan. Also in shadow, but not very hidden. Not very hidden at all.
I hear a noise from the hall, just beyond my bedroom door.
My father, passing on his way to Virginia’s room.
Of course he knows where it’s located.
He’s been here before.
When he eventually does enter her room, I have to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. All this time I’d secretly hoped I was wrong, that it wasn’t him, that despite Mary’s suitcase and those typed pages, it couldn’t possibly be true.
But his presence erases all doubt.
My father finds Virginia immediately. It’s not hard. Her legs, incapable of moving on their own, jut from the dark corner into which she’d been dropped.
“Hey, Ginny,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”
His voice is calm, warm, flirting with amusement. The voice of a man seeing a long-lost love. Under different circumstances, it could almost be considered romantic. Right now, though, it’s chilling.
“Let’s get you off the floor,” he says.
My father bends down, lifts Virginia into his arms, and carries her to the bed. He did the same thing for my mother in her waning days, gently moving her from the living room sofa to their bedroom. Watching him do it now with Virginia cracks my heart wide open. Making it worse is the knowledge that such tenderness comes from a man also capable of horrible deeds.
“You still know how to surprise a fella, Ginny,” he says as he places her on the bed. “I’ll give you that.”
My father eases himself onto the edge of the bed and, to my surprise, takes Virginia’s hand in his.
Her right.
I hold my breath, waiting for him to tell me he knows I’m here and that I should emerge from the dark. Instead, he talks only to Virginia.
“All those years I thought you were dead. Hung with a rope. Isn’t that how it goes? Now, unlike everyone else, I knew Lenora didn’t do it. I knew you’d done it to yourself. Either way, you were dead all the same. That’s why I never left town. I never felt the need to hide. I certainly didn’t think I had to worry about you telling anyone what really happened. So I stayed. Started my own business. Met a wonderful woman. Had a daughter.”
My blood runs cold as he says it.
He knows I’m here.
Now he’s reminding me whose side I’m supposed to be on.
“I felt bad about what happened,” he tells Virginia. “For what it’s worth, I did love you. At least, I thought I did. And I intended to do right by you. But we were so young, and I was so scared. When your father told me the baby was gone and offered me that money, all I felt was relief. At last, there was a way out of the situation, even though I knew it would hurt you. And I do think about him sometimes. Our son. I think about him and hope he’s happy. I don’t think that would have happened if we’d stayed together. It wouldn’t have lasted, Ginny. We were too different.”
My father gives Virginia’s hand a gentle squeeze, as if to drive the point home.
“As for your mother, I didn’t mean to hurt her, Ginny. I swear. But something in me just snapped and I couldn’t control it. I’ve thought about that night a lot. Not a day goes by when I don’t regret what I did. But I learned to live with it. And I knew that, as big of a mistake as it was, I wouldn’t be punished for it. Then that nurse of yours came to the house asking if I’d agree to a blood test.”
Somehow I manage to keep from gasping. It sits, bubble-like, at the back of my throat. I swallow it down as the realization that prompted it settles over me.
Mary had been to our house.
That’s where she went that Sunday night. Not to the lab, but to see my father.
While I was there.
She was the woman I’d heard talking to my father. Not a girlfriend he didn’t want to tell me about. But Mary, bearing an even bigger secret. When I heard him sneak out the next night, he was actually on his way here.
“She told me she knew that I’d worked at Hope’s End when I was sixteen,” my father continues. “She knew I’d had a relationship with Virginia Hope and that I was the father of her child, who was taken away but might have had a kid of his own who now wanted to know who his real grandparents were. That’s when I realized you were still alive. The only person she could have learned all that from is you. God, you should have seen her. So smug. Acted like she was so smart. Yet she didn’t know half of it.”
“But I know all of it.”
Unlike the gasp, I can’t keep myself from saying it. I know too much to stay hidden and have heard too much to remain silent. Stepping from my room into Virginia’s, I see my father’s hands move to her neck and give a little squeeze.
“Stop right there, Kit-Kat,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you. And I think you know that. But I will hurt her if you come any closer.”
The sight of his hands—so large and so strong—around Virginia’s throat stops me cold. But I don’t show fear. You can sense fear. He taught me that.
“No one else needs to get hurt, Dad,” I say. “You can end this.”
My father turns to me, revealing the same look I saw the morning that article about me appeared in the newspaper. Hurt and betrayal and shame. “I’m not sure I can, Kit-Kat. I’m in too deep now.”
“Why did you kill Mary? If she didn’t know everything, why kill her?”
“Because she knew enough. Not the part about the murders. If she did, she didn’t mention it.” My father turns back to Virginia. “You finished the rest of the story when she came back after asking me to take a blood test. I know because I read about it later. All those pages you typed? I read them all. You really are a good writer, Ginny. You had promise. But you shouldn’t have told her everything. You shouldn’t have told her my goddamn name. But even before that, I knew she was a liability. So I said I’d do her stupid little blood test. But not at the house. Not with my daughter around. I told her I’d come here, to Hope’s End, late the next night and that she should leave the gate open. Then I waited in the same spot I first met you, Ginny. When I saw Mary hurrying across the terrace with that suitcase, I did what I had to do.”
“And now?” I say. “What do you plan to do now?”
“I don’t know,” my father says, even as his hands tighten around Virginia’s neck. “I honestly don’t.”
“Then stop, Dad. Please.”
“I can’t.” My father begins to squeeze her throat. “I can’t risk her telling anyone else.”
“She won’t,” I say. “She can’t.”
My father ignores me.
“I’m sorry, Ginny,” he whispers as Virginia’s eyes bulge and wet, choking sounds push out of her throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“Dad, stop!”
I throw myself at him, trying to get him to stop. Even at age seventy, he’s strong enough to shove me away with one arm. I stagger backward into Virginia’s wheelchair, both of us toppling. Sprawled on the floor, I see my father return both hands to Virginia’s neck.
Tightening.
Squeezing.
Then I notice Virginia’s hands.
The right one sits on the bed, immobile.
The left one holds the corkscrew, which she grabbed from the nightstand.
With as much strength as she can muster, Virginia swings it toward my father, the corkscrew slicing the air before jabbing directly into the side of his stomach.