The Only One Left


 
 
 
 
 ALSO BY RILEY SAGER Final Girls The Last Time I Lied Lock Every Door Home Before Dark Survive the Night The House Across the Lake An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © 2023 by Todd Ritter Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. DUTTON and the D colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Interior images: Damask wallpaper © Graphic design; blood on wall © IS MODE / shutterstock.com library of congress cataloging-in-publication data has been applied for. ISBN 9780593183229 (hardcover) ISBN 9780593474471 (export) ISBN 9780593183236 (ebook) Cover design by Kaitlin Kall Cliff image by Nicol Grespi/EyeEm/Getty; house ©Imogen Seed/Millennium Images, UK book design by George Towne, adapted for ebook by Molly Jeszke This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. pid_prh_6.0_143818110_c0_r0 Contents Cover Also by Riley Sager Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Acknowledgments About the Author _143818110_ To my family We’re at the typewriter again, Lenora in her wheelchair and me standing beside her as I place her left hand atop the keys. A fresh page sits in the carriage, replacing the one from last night. Now faceup on the desk, it serves as a partial transcript of our conversation. i want to tell you everything things ive never told anyone else yes about that night because i trust you But I don’t trust Lenora. Not entirely. She’s capable of so little yet accused of so much, and I remain torn between wanting to protect her and the urge to suspect her. But if she wants to tell me what happened, I’m willing to listen. Even though I suspect most of it will be lies. Or, worse, the complete, terrifying truth. The fingers of Lenora’s left hand drum against the keys. She’s eager to begin. I take a deep breath, nod, and help her type the first sentence. The thing I remember most The thing I remember most--the thing I still have nightmares about--is when it was all but over. I remember the roar of the wind as I stepped onto the terrace. It blew off the ocean in howling gusts that scraped over the cliff before slamming directly into me. Rocked onto my heels, I felt like I was being shoved by an invisible, immovable crowd back toward the mansion. The last place I wanted to be. With a grunt, I regained my footing and started to make my way across the terrace, which was slick from rainfall. It was pouring, the raindrops so cold that each one felt like a needle prick. Very quickly I found myself snapped out of the daze I’d been in. Suddenly alert, I began to notice things. My nightgown, stained red. My hands, warm and sticky with blood. The knife, still in my grip. It, too, had been bloody but was now quickly being cleaned by the cold rain. I kept pushing through the wind that pushed back, gasping at each sharp drop of rain. In front of me was the ocean, whipped into a frenzy by the storm, its waves smashing against the cliff base fifty feet below. Only the squat marble railing running the length of the terrace separated me from the dark chasm of the sea. When I reached the railing, I made a crazed, strange, strangled sound. Half laugh, half sob. The life I’d had mere hours ago was now gone forever. As were my parents. Yet at that moment, leaning against the terrace railing with the knife in my hand, the rough wind on my face, and the frigid rain pummeling my blood-soaked body, I only felt relief. I knew I would soon be free of everything. I turned back toward the mansion. Every window in every room was lit. As ablaze as the candles that had graced my tiered birthday cake eight months earlier. It looked pretty lit up like that. Elegant. All that money glistening behind immaculate panes of glass. But I knew that looks could be deceiving. And that even prisons could appear lovely if lit the right way. Inside, my sister screamed. Horrified cries that rose and fell like a siren. The kind of screams you hear when something absolutely terrible has happened. Which it had. I looked down at the knife, still clenched in my hand and now clean as a whistle. I knew I could use it again. One last slice. One final stab. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I tossed the knife over the railing and watched it disappear into the crashing waves far below. As my sister continued to scream, I left the terrace and went to the garage to fetch some rope. That’s my memory--and what I was dreaming about when I woke you. I got so scared because it felt like it was happening all over again. But that’s not what you’re most curious about, is it? You want to know if I’m as evil