At dawn, Kit, Mrs. Baker, Carter, Jessie, and Archie inspect the terrace and see that the overnight shift has badly split the marble and deepened the crack running toward the empty pool. Carter says the cliff cannot be repaired and that Hope's End will eventually fall into the sea, while Mrs. Baker insists on trying to save the house. Kit worries most about Lenora, who would not be able to escape easily if the structure gives way again.

After Archie and Jessie go inside, Carter and Kit talk alone. Kit tells Carter about searching Mrs. Baker's room and finding years of monthly checks to Ocean View. Carter realizes the money may be paying for Berniece Mayhew, Ricardo Mayhew's wife, who is still alive and living there. That discovery makes Kit suspect Berniece knows something important about the night of the Hope murders.

Kit then looks for a new way to communicate with Lenora now that Mrs. Baker has destroyed the typewriter. She goes to Jessie's room to borrow the Ouija board and finds Jessie packing to leave Hope's End because she believes the house is no longer safe. Before Kit leaves, Jessie hugs her, urges her to get Lenora out, and gives Kit the final cassette of the book she had been recording for Lenora.

Back in Lenora's room, Kit places Lenora's hand on the planchette and uses the Ouija board as a letter board. Lenora confirms she knew Berniece only a little and considered her nasty. Lenora also reveals that Mrs. Baker has been paying Berniece since 1929 because Berniece knows about that night, and then spells out the crucial fact that Berniece was at Hope's End during the murders.

Lenora's written account then explains what Berniece knew. In October 1929, Lenora's pregnancy had become too visible to hide, so Miss Baker helped her pretend to be bedridden. Isolated in her room and increasingly worried because Ricky had stopped checking on her, Lenora secretly arranged a midnight meeting with him. On her way out, Berniece confronted her in the kitchen, exposed the affair, insulted Lenora and her family, and demanded fifty thousand dollars to keep silent. Terrified, Lenora ran to Ricky, told him Berniece was blackmailing them, and Ricky answered with the plan that would change everything: they should run away the following night.