Page 85 of The Only One Left

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 Lisasmile 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.”

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