Page 126 of The Only One Left

According to Lenora, he never did.

“Miss Baker eventually came into the room and began packing up her things,” she says. “When I asked what she was doing, she said, ‘Leaving, of course. With the child.’ ”

Lenora registers my surprise and shakes her head.

“It’s not what you think. For all her faults, Miss Baker was a good woman. She convinced my father to do what he always did—use money to make the problem go away. In exchange for some money and one of his Packards, she’d take custody of the baby. Her plan was to be a temporary mother to him until he and Virginia could be reunited. I agreed to help as long as my father never learned of my involvement. Then she drove off in the night, taking the baby with her.”

“Do you know where she went?”

Lenora nods. “Canada.”

I spare a thought for Carter, who was mistaken about his true heritage. There’s no way Virginia’s baby is the same one left on that church doorstep on Christmas morning. He’s no more related to the Hope family than I am.

At the same time, it appears to exonerate Lenora, the person I thought was responsible. Since Carter isn’t related to Virginia, he’ll inherit nothing. There was no reason for Lenora to keep him and Mary from finding that out.

“Miss Baker wrote to me a few weeks after the murders,” Lenora says. “She’d heard what happened and said that, under the circumstances, it would be best if she continued to raise the child as her own. I didn’t protest.”

I stare at her, shocked. “But he was your nephew.”

“What do you think I should have done?”

“Kept him!” I cry. “Raised him. Loved him. And you damn well should have let Virginia love him.”

“And what kind of life would that have been? For both Virginia and the child? She couldn’t hold him, let alone feed him. She couldn’t talk to him or play with him or do anything for him.”

“You would have figured out a way.”

“How?” Lenora says. “I was seventeen. I knew nothing about taking care of a baby.”

“That’s still no reason to keep your sister and her child apart!” Anger churns in my chest, crashing inside me like the waves smashing against the cliff directly below us. “How could you be so cruel?”

“Cruel?” Lenora says. “It’s quite the opposite, I assure you. Keeping that child away from this family was the ultimate act of kindness. Because of me and Miss Baker, that child grew up never knowing that his real mother was a murderer.”

“And you’re punishing Virginia because of that fact.”

“She deserves punishment! After what she did, a price needed to be paid. But I’m protecting her, too. I always have. Think about what would happen to a woman in her condition if the police learned what she’d done.”

I shake my head. That’s not a good enough reason. Especially when, other than trying to hang herself, there’s nothing to suggest Virginia killed her parents.

“Why are you so certain she did it? What about Ricardo Mayhew?”

“What about him?”

“He and Virginia were having an affair,” I say. “He was the baby’s father. And Berniece Mayhew followed him here that night.”

Lenora laughs. The last reaction I’d expected. There’s nothing remotely funny about the fact that she’s blamed her sister for murders she might not have committed. Yet Lenora keeps laughing, a low chuckle that’s more disbelieving than amused.

“That’s impossible,” she says.

“Why?”

I hear footsteps on the service stairs. A second later, Archie emerges into the kitchen. I have no idea how long he’s been there or how muchhe’s heard. All I know is it was long enough for him to answer my question.

“Because Ricardo was with me that night.”

It takes me a second to understand what he’s getting at. When I do, all I can say is, “Oh. The two of you were—”

“Lovers,” Archie says, sparing me from having to say it.

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