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The last place I look is the closet, since I did a thorough inspection of it the night I arrived. Nevertheless, I check Mary’s medical bag, root through her coat pockets, and check the box on the floor that had once held books but now holds nothing.
I stand, wiping the front of my uniform, and stare at the patch of clean floor next to the box. Unlike my uniform, it’s free of dust, as if something had sat there until very recently. I noticed it my first night here but gave it little thought. Now, though, I can’t help but wonder what used to be there—and when it was removed.
I take a closer look. The dust-free area is rectangular, which would suggest a second box if not for the rounded corners.
That means it was something else.
Like a suitcase.
Mary was a caregiver. She knew the score. A box and suitcase are all we need.
With adrenaline buzzing through me, I grab my suitcase and bring it to the closet. With a nervous breath, I place it over the clean patch. It’s like the uniform—not an exact fit, but close enough.
As I lift the suitcase from the closet, I notice something that amps up my adrenaline level from a buzz to a roar.
On each end of the handle is a metal ring attaching it to the suitcase itself.
Each ring is about the same shape and size of the bent piece of metal I found on the terrace.
Everything goes sideways, as if Hope’s End is finally, inexorably tipping into the ocean. But it’s only me, shell-shocked by the realization that Mary took a suitcase with her when she left.
Inside that suitcase might have been the typewritten truth about Lenora and the night her family died.
Now, like Mary, it’s gone.
I stagger into the hallway and down the service stairs. The crack in the stairwell, I notice, has gotten larger. It now runs the entire height of the wall, with a second, smaller crack branching out of it. Another crack has formed on the opposite wall. At this rate, the whole stairwell will soon be webbed with them. I shudder, thinking of spiders and flies and sticky strands of cobwebs clinging to my skin.
In the kitchen, I head straight to the phone and dial the number printed on the card Detective Vick gave me. The phone rings six times before he answers with a groggy “Hello?”
“It’s Kit McDeere.”
“Kit.” There’s a rustle as the detective no doubt checks the clock on his nightstand. I do the same with the kitchen clock. Just before midnight. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” I say, my bluntness making it clear I don’t care. “But I thought you’d like to know that Mary Milton didn’t jump.”
“What do you think happened to her?” Detective Vick says after a disconcerted pause.
I pause myself, trying to collect my thoughts. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, let alone about to say it. Yet I do, the words tumbling out with unforced urgency.
“She was pushed.”
TWENTY-TWO
Here’s a question I’m sure I’ll regret,” Detective Vick says. “But why do you think Mary Milton was pushed?”
“There was a suitcase in her room.”
“And?”
“Now it’s gone.”
“And?”
“Mary took it with her.”
Detective Vick sighs. “You have exactly one minute to explain.”
I waste not a second trying to get him to believe the unbelievable. A tall order for someone so skeptical. Yet I do my best, telling him about the bare patch in the closet, how I think it was created by a suitcase recently removed from the bedroom, and why I suspect Mary left the house with it the night she died.