Page 132 of The Only One Left

I have no idea what we’ll do. Figure something out. I picture Ricardo Mayhew saying the same thing to Archie fifty-four years ago, urging the man he loved to escape Hope’s End.

Archie stayed.

Carter doesn’t.

Without a word, he opens the passenger door and hops in. I hit the gas pedal, and together we pass through the gate, leaving Hope’s End behind.

FORTY-ONE

Let me get this straight,” Carter says. “Mrs. Baker is actually Lenora Hope. And Lenora is really Virginia Hope. And she’s the one who killed her parents?”

“Correct.”

We’ve been on the road for ten minutes, during which time I managed to tell him all that I’ve learned during this long, surreal night. Still, I get why he’s confused. It’s a lot to take in, especially when it means he came to Hope’s End for nothing.

“And I’m not related to any of them,” Carter says with a sigh, resigned to the fact that his birth family remains a mystery.

“I’m sorry. I know how much you wanted to know.”

“I thought Ididknow.” Carter stares out the window, watching the scrubby pines of the Cliffs zip past as we descend into town. “The timeline seemed to fit perfectly.”

What neither of us counted on was the possibility of a premature birth, which I learned during my health aide training is more common in teenage mothers. As a result, Virginia likely has a child living somewhere in Canada, oblivious to who his mother is or what she’s done, and Carter, who knows both of those things, still has no idea who his real grandmother could be.

And Mary is dead because of it—a horrible truth temporarily forgotten in a night filled with them.

“I can’t stop thinking about Mary,” I say. “How she was killed for no reason whatsoever.”

Carter looks away from the window long enough to say, “You still think she was pushed?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know anymore.” He sighs again. “I’m not Lenora’s—sorry, Virginia’s—grandson. So there’d be no reason for someone to kill her because of that.”

“But she knew all the other secrets about that place,” I say. “Lenora’s true identity. Virginia’s guilt. The fact that both have been lying about it for decades. Someone felt the need to stop her before she could reveal it all.”

“So that leaves either Archie or Lenora.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I don’t think so.”

Both Lenora and Archie laid bare all their secrets tonight. Yes, I’d forced Lenora’s hand when I told her I knew she wasn’t really Mrs. Baker. But both were forthcoming after that. They did what Virginia had promised to do my first night at Hope’s End—tell me everything.

What they didn’t do was swear me to secrecy or threaten me in any way. If one of them was so concerned about Mary knowing the truth that they felt the need to murder her, then why am I still alive?

Because I’m not a threat to them.

I doubt Mary was, either.

But she was to someone.

My left hand slips off the steering wheel, leaving a smear of blood, sticky and hot. Using my right hand to steer, I glance at the wound. It’s still bleeding and probably infected, but I’ll survive.

That gate, however, should be melted into scrap metal.

I wipe my hand on the skirt of my uniform, not caring about the stain it will leave. I’ll never be wearing it again. In fact, I won’t even bea caregiver again once Mr. Gurlain finds out I quit, fleeing Hope’s End without even closing the damn gate behind me.

Another thought occurs to me, about another time the gate was left open.

“Hey, Carter,” I say. “When did you say you found the gate open?”

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