Page 53 of The Only One Left
They’re something else.
A hand.
A foot.
A head.
Humped beneath the sand is the corpse they’re attached to.
And even before I begin to scream, I know with dreadful certainty that I’m looking at the body of Mary Milton.
EIGHTEEN
I’m in the sunroom, although there’s no sun to be found. Outside, the sky is streaked with dark clouds that rolled in not long after I found Mary’s body. It makes everything gray and oppressive, as if the gathering storm is pressing against the house, trying to force its way in. Joining me in this gloom is the last person I want to see.
Detective Vick.
He sits in the same dusty love seat Mrs. Baker occupied the day I arrived, looking rumpled and not pleased to be here. Or with me. The feeling is mutual. I tense up in his presence. An ingrained reaction. The result is a clash of emotions—disbelief, sorrow, and bone-deep unease that Detective Vick has come not to ask about Mary but to finally arrest me.
“Well, Kit,” he says, “I sure am surprised to see you.”
I yank the hem of my uniform, trying to tug it an inch or so closer to my knees. I’m cold, thanks to a chill that’s clung to me since the moment I realized I was looking at Mary Milton’s corpse. It’s shock, I know, exacerbated by the fact that I’m talking to the man who wanted to throw me in jail.
“Surprised I’m at Hope’s End?” I say. “Or surprised I’m still allowed to work after you accused me of murder?”
The detective sighs. “This doesn’t need to be contentious, Kit. I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”
“You didn’t seem too interested in that the last time we talked.”
“I’ll let that slide,” Detective Vick says. “You’re understandably distressed.”
I am. I’m afraid to even blink out of fear the image of Mary’s corpse poking from the sand will be projected onto the backs of my eyelids. Making it worse is the realization that I spotted her body last night, after I almost tumbled over the terrace railing.
I looked down and saw dark objects in the sand that I thought were rocks but now know was Mary. And I can’t stop thinking about how long she’d been there—and how, had I understood what I was looking at, I could have at least spared her a few more hours of indignity. Knowing that I didn’t leaves me so sad and guilty I can barely catch my breath.
But I refuse to let Detective Vick see any of that. I’ll sprint from this room and never come back before that happens.
“Just ask me your questions,” I say.
“What’s your job here at Hope’s End?”
Even though my uniform and history should give it away, I provide an answer. “I’m a caregiver.”
“And who is it you care for?”
I hesitate, not wanting to tell him because I know the kind of reaction it’ll bring. An ironic smirk, probably. Detective Vick might even make a crack about the appropriateness of a killer caring for a killer.
“Lenora Hope,” I finally say.
To the detective’s credit, there’s no smirk. But I do notice the slight lift of his brows, indicating surprise.
“How long have you been caring for her?”
“This is my third day.”
The detective’s brows rise again, higher this time, as he says, “Quite an eventful first week on the job.”
The understatement of the year, considering everything else I’ve experienced since arriving at Hope’s End.
