The Only One Left
by Riley Sager
Contents
Chapter Thirty-Four
Overview
Kit secretly visits Ocean View and gets Berniece Mayhew to break decades of silence about the night of the Hope murders. Berniece admits she blackmailed Lenora over Lenora's affair with Ricardo and claims she saw Lenora bloody and armed during the killings, then concludes Lenora used Ricardo as an accomplice before killing him too.
The chapter sharply darkens Lenora's role, turning Kit's suspicions toward the possibility that Lenora was not covering for a killer but was one. It also confirms how hush money and corruption sustained the cover-up for years, before Detective Vick catches Kit trespassing and cuts off the interview.
Summary
Kit drives to Ocean View Retirement Home to confront Berniece Mayhew before anyone at Hope's End notices she is gone. Posing as an insurance-company nurse, Kit talks her way past the receptionist and into Berniece's room, then drops the pretense and says she works for Lenora Hope. When Kit mentions Mary Milton's suspicious death and asks whether the long payments to Berniece were hush money for an affair or for what Berniece witnessed in 1929, Berniece finally agrees to talk.
Berniece says Lenora was having an affair with Berniece's husband, Ricardo Mayhew, and that Berniece tried to profit from it by threatening to expose them. On the night staff had been given off, Berniece pretended to go into town, then stayed behind to catch Ricardo and Lenora together. She saw Ricardo head toward the garage as a decoy, realized he was trying to mislead her, and entered the house through the kitchen intending to confront the Hopes and demand money.
Inside, Berniece says Lenora suddenly ran into the kitchen looking frightened, with blood on her hands. A woman screamed upstairs, and Lenora grabbed a knife from the counter and ordered Berniece to leave immediately. Berniece obeyed because she was terrified, and afterward she convinced herself that if she had stayed, Lenora might have killed her too. Berniece also says she later concluded that Ricardo had helped Lenora murder the family because he vanished that night and never returned.
Berniece goes further, claiming Lenora manipulated Ricardo into helping her and then killed him as well, pushing him from the terrace into the ocean. Kit is shaken because this version of events makes Lenora not merely an accomplice but an active killer. Kit doubts parts of Berniece's story, yet Berniece's account fits the Hope family's pattern of corruption and cover-ups that Kit has already uncovered.
Berniece then explains how the hush money became permanent. After the murders, Archie delivered Berniece a thousand-dollar check from Lenora when the staff was dismissed, and Berniece demanded the same payment every month in exchange for keeping quiet about seeing Lenora with a knife. Kit tells Berniece the arrangement is ending and threatens to go to the police, but the Ocean View receptionist has already verified Kit's lie and summoned Detective Vick. Detective Vick removes Kit for trespassing while Berniece smugly sends a message to Lenora: she will see her in hell.
Who Appears
- Kit McDeereSneaks into Ocean View, questions Berniece, and hears a version of events that deepens suspicion of Lenora.
- Berniece MayhewFormer staff member who admits blackmailing Lenora and describes seeing Lenora bloody on the murder night.
- Lenora HopeAccused by Berniece of having an affair, wielding a knife, killing her family, and later killing Ricardo.
- Ricardo MayhewBerniece's husband and Lenora's lover, whom Berniece believes helped kill the Hopes before Lenora killed him.
- Detective VickArrives at Ocean View after Kit's deception is exposed and removes her for trespassing.
- Ocean View receptionistInitially lets Kit in, then checks the insurance story, discovers the lie, and calls for intervention.
- ArchieRecalled as the young staffer who delivered Lenora's first hush-money check to Berniece after the murders.