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“The day Mary died.”
“I meant the day. What day of the week?”
“Monday.”
“And what time?”
“Midmorning. Why?”
Because Carter said he assumed it was left open after the groceries were delivered. But Archie told me those arrive on Tuesdays. A fact confirmed by all those receipts I found under Lenora’s bed.
That means the gate had been opened for a different reason.
Not to let someone enter and leave, but to let someone leave and come back undetected. I did it myself earlier tonight. Opening the gate when I left for Ocean View Retirement Home and leaving it like that so I wouldn’t need to call the main house to be let back in.
Since the gate was open Monday morning, it’s possible it had been like that since the night before.
“The lab already had your blood sample, right?” I say.
“Yeah. I got it drawn the week before. All they needed was Virginia’s blood.”
“Which Mary was supposed to get Monday night for you to bring to the lab the next day.”
“Which never happened,” Carter reminds me.
We’ve entered town, the streets I’ve known my entire life lit by the dull glow of streetlights. We pass Ocean View, where Berniece Mayhew is likely watching TV this very minute, and then Gurlain Home Health Aides. I make a right, heading to my father’s house two blocks away. Even though I should be thinking about what I’m going to tell him when I get there, my mind is preoccupied with something else.
“How long does it take to get a blood sample analyzed?”
“About a day,” Carter says.
“So if you took a sample to the lab on, say, a Sunday night, they’d have the results Monday night?”
“I guess so.” Carter eyes me from the passenger seat. “Why are you so focused on that?”
Because it seems to be exactly what happened. Someone left Hope’s End on Sunday night, leaving the gate open so they could return without anyone realizing they were gone. Carter noticed the open gate on Monday morning. He then left it open overnight because he intended to leave for the lab early Tuesday. During that time, someone could have left and returned once again.
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.
I slam the brakes, and the car comes to a screeching stop in the middle of the street. Carter looks at me, one hand braced against the dashboard and his body still thrust forward from the sudden stop. “What are you doing?”
“It was you,” I say.
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.
“You knew Virginia wasn’t your grandmother,” I say. “Mary drew her blood and took it to the lab a day early. Because your bloodwork was already done, they could tell pretty quickly if it was a match. It wasn’t. And when Mary told you the results, you—”
“Killed her?” Carter says. “Why would I do that?”
Because he wanted Hope’s End. He changed where he worked, where he lived, his entire life. All because of the possibility he might be related to the infamous Lenora Hope and could one day inheriteverything she owned. When Mary told him that wasn’t the case, he did whatever he could to hide that fact.
“You did it,” I say. “You killed Mary.”