After leaving the dining room, Kit tries to reconstruct how Mrs. Baker might have killed Mary. Kit reasons that Mrs. Baker likely learned Lenora was secretly telling Mary the truth, may also have discovered Carter and Mary’s paternity plan, and could have confronted Mary when Mary left Hope’s End with the suitcase containing Lenora’s pages and blood sample. Kit admits the theory is partly speculation, but concludes that whoever took the suitcase is probably Mary’s killer and that Mrs. Baker is the most obvious suspect.

Driven by that suspicion, Kit slips into Mrs. Baker’s bedroom and searches for the missing suitcase or surviving evidence. She finds old photographs revealing that Mrs. Baker once had a glamorous life and a fiancé she seems to have loved, which makes Kit wonder how much Mrs. Baker has sacrificed and how far she would go to regain security. More importantly, Kit discovers receipts and forged checks signed in Lenora’s name, including monthly payments to Ocean View Retirement Home that have continued for years for reasons Kit cannot explain.

When Kit hears footsteps in the hall, she hides inside the armoire just before Mrs. Baker enters. Mrs. Baker, apparently drunk, plays music and puts on lipstick, but then notices something in the mirror and approaches the armoire with sudden sobriety, clearly on the verge of catching Kit. Before Mrs. Baker can open the doors, Hope’s End lurches violently with a groan, crack, and series of impacts, interrupting the confrontation and sending Mrs. Baker into the hall to investigate.

Kit rushes to Lenora’s room and finds Lenora alarmed but safe. Archie is already there at the window, saying the damage appears to be on the terrace. Suspicious of Archie’s presence, Kit leads him into the hall and presses him about his claim that he and Lenora are no longer close. Archie admits that he quietly visits Lenora every night and calls it a private ritual between them, but Kit remains wary because Archie has lied before.

As they go downstairs through halls littered with fallen plaster, Kit questions Archie about strange nighttime events and the possibility that Virginia’s presence is real. Archie avoids specifics, then finally admits that something of Virginia remains at Hope’s End, saying the past is always present there, though he resists calling it a haunting. Outside, Kit, Archie, Mrs. Baker, Carter, and Jessie find fallen roof tiles, a collapsed chimney, and a fault line split across the terrace. The new crack suggests that the cliff is failing and that Hope’s End itself may be close to collapsing into the sea.