The Only One Left

by Riley Sager

Instead, the snow globe topples from her hand and rolls across the mattress. Then it hits the floor and shatters.

What did u think would happen?!

And for letting that paranoia destroy what’s likely the last treasured possession she had.

I CANT… CRINGE

Archie and Carter in dark suits, Jessie going against the grain in a white wrap dress,

Sus from Jessie

At one point I misstep and knock into the cracked wall, jostling loose a chunk of plaster that falls onto the staircase. I crunch over it on my way to the bottom.

This will come back

Lenora’s there. Not on the grass, where I’d left her, but right there on the terrace, sitting in her wheelchair and staring at the sea. “How did you—” My voice leaves me when I see them. Mrs. Baker and Archie, Carter and Jessie.

I knew she was there for too long

“You?” I said. “Yes,” Miss Baker replied with a weary huff. “Me.”

The mistress!

All that’s left to be done is take the lockbox out from under the bed, collect grooming products from the bathroom, and change out of my uniform and into the clothes I wore when I arrived.

I bet the notes r under th lockbox

Inside are Lenora’s pills—and nothing else. The pages we’d typed—all of them—are gone.

Plot twist

What I don’t understand is why Mrs. Baker is paying all that money for a nursing home when Lenora’s right here, being cared for by me, Mary, a long line of other nurses.

Is Virginia still alive

“I’m here,” I say. “Are you okay?” Lenora drops the call button and taps twice on the bedspread. Her gaze then flicks to the far corner of the room, where someone stands, unnoticed by me until just now. Archie.

SUS

one of them is at Ocean View.” “Who?” “Berniece Mayhew.”

Virginia was taken upstairs.” “Also dead,” I say. Detective Vick shakes his head. “Not for another six months.”

“Mary—” I stop, unnerved by the way my voice sounds. Like I’m underwater. Like I’m a thousand miles away. “Mary didn’t write this.”

Finally i knew was Lenora, she always says this

Pausing a moment at the painting of Lenora, I take in her pert nose, ripe lips, green eyes. Despite the many years between them, the girl in the portrait is unmistakably the woman I’ve been caring for.

Then there are her eyes, which are colored an icy blue. Staring at them makes me recall what Berniece Mayhew said about Ricardo being a goner once Lenora batted her big eyes at him. Her big, blue eyes.

Because what I see is … nothing. No ashes. No dust. The urn is completely empty.

So is Lenora actually Virginia? Im so confused

Terrified, I pounded on the door, calling for my sister. “Please!” I screamed. “Please, Lenora!”

WOAH

“Is everything all right with Miss Hope?” “Yes, Lenora,” I say. “Virginia is fine.” The corkscrew goes still. Just for a moment. Then she yanks, uncorking the bottle with a whisper-like pop.

Oh my GOSH this is why she wanted her to be called ms hope

Mrs. Baker, she of the unknown first name, is indeed the infamous Lenora Hope.

“Faking my sister’s death or forcing her to assume my identity?”

Then I departed for Europe on my doctor’s orders. Right before I left, though, I made sure to become Mrs. Baker. And Virginia—” I exhale, astonished not just by the craftiness of her plan but by its cruelty. “Became Lenora Hope,” I say.

Where is ms baker?

All those photographs I found in her bedroom were snapshots of that other life. The one Virginia had dreamed about. And the one Lenora stole from her.

“Me,” Lenora says, punctuating the word with a sip of wine and a hard swallow. “My father. The real Miss Baker. After what we did, the only surprise is that she didn’t kill us all.”

As my sister was about to put my son into my arms, he said, “Lenora, take the baby into the other room.”

The last thing I heard was Miss Baker saying, “I swear to you, he won’t take that child from you forever.” She was lying. I never saw her--or my child--again.

“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.”

Not Archie. Not Lenora. And certainly not Virginia. Yet despite now knowing all their tragic tales, one question remains unanswered. “Then who was Ricky?”

“The murders still could have been committed by someone other than Virginia, right?”

Once the typing started, the opposite ended up happening. I began to assume she was innocent and became hell-bent on being proven correct. It turns out I was only fooling myself into believing what I wanted to be the truth, even though deep down I knew it wasn’t.

Surely this isn’t it

The truth will set me free—even if it might also send me to prison.

Because I’m not a threat to them. I doubt Mary was, either. But she was to someone.

…carter?

Someone like Mary. Coming back from the lab on Monday night. With the results of a blood analysis performed on a sample she brought there the night before.

When she was pushed off the terrace, Mary wasn’t leaving with a suitcase that contained a bunch of pages typed by Virginia and a sample of blood about to be tested. She was coming back with the results.

Peeking through the doorway, I spot a suitcase on the bed. One that doesn’t belong to him.

Only confusion as I zero in on the suitcase’s lid. My hand shakes so hard I can barely lift it open. When I do, I see a test tube with blood inside it and a stack of typewritten pages.

The dd?!

Because I know what my father did to get this suitcase. And I know why. All my life I’d only heard him referred to as Pat. But his real name is Patrick. Patrick McDeere. It didn’t occur to me that the second half of his name could also be turned into a different nickname. Ricky.

They only became aware of my presence once I said, “Where’s my baby?”

So this is kitts half sibling omg

And spring she did. Toward my father. Knife in hand. Not stopping until the blade was deep in his side.

A tear in the fabric of her nightgown revealed a gushing wound in her stomach. The moment I saw it, I knew my mother had also used the knife on herself.

From the stairs, I screamed as I saw a flash of movement at Ricky’s hand. The knife. The rest happened so quickly I can scarcely recall it. A small mercy. What I do remember--the sound of the knife entering my mother’s torso, her collapsing on the landing--is horrible enough.

Ok and Patrick has the nerve to judge kitt ?

My parents were dead. My child was gone. The man I had once loved but didn’t any longer had fled. How is one supposed to carry on when they have nothing left?

I grabbed a long loop of it and carried it back inside, to the ballroom. I chose that room because it seemed the most like myself. Lovely, yes, but also empty and neglected.

On the phone, I gave away that Virginia was alive, accidentally leading him right to her.

Now I understand why Virginia had been so reluctant to reveal all of it. She didn’t want to be the one to tell me who my father was. And what he’d done.

That’s the hardest part to contend with—the fact that he’s still capable of murder.

I can’t bear the thought of taking the Grand Stairs, with their bloodstains that my father caused.

She knows I’m talking about Ricky. She’s known since our first meeting, when she barely registered my presence until I told her my full name.

Then that nurse of yours came to the house asking if I’d agree to a blood test.”

The left one holds the corkscrew, which she grabbed from the nightstand.

He knew I hadn’t given my mother those pills. Because he’s the one who did it.

No.