The Only One Left

by Riley Sager

You want to know if I’m as evil as everyone says I am. The answer is no. And yes.

Mr. Gurlain chose me because Lenora Hope is the one patient nobody—not even the police—will mind if I kill.

“You’re never alone when there’s a book nearby,” she used to say. “Never ever.”

It might have only been sex, and it might have only been Kenny, but at least it was something and he was someone. Now there’s nothing and no one.

“Here, we give young women accused of terrible deeds the benefit of the doubt.”

It doesn’t matter that I lied to Mrs. Baker. Not just about my previous patient.

Because of the slight tilt of the house, the view seems extra vertiginous.

A peculiar trait among most self-important men is the need to try to hide their self-importance.

Wealthy we were. Happy? Not so much.

Whenever I got that way, the only cure was to be outside.

That by reading, whole worlds could be explored without ever leaving home.

“That’s the biggest thing we have in common,” I finally say. “That everyone thinks I also killed my mother.”

Only later did I realize all men were alike. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor, fat or thin, old or young. Their needs were so basic it was laughable.

For all her talk of manners and propriety, Miss Baker was nothing but a high-class whore.

“I refuse to have another bastard in this family,” my father said. “Says a man who’s likely fathered several,” Miss Baker shot back.

I suspected I was dying of heartbreak. I hoped so. Death seemed a better option than this unfathomable grief.