by Riley Sager
Like I used to be. Just a day or two ago.
I envy her ignorance. I wish I could go back to that blissful state.
But there’s no coming back from what I know.
I keep pacing from one wall to another, confronted by faces in the wallpaper no matter which direction I turn.
Those faces.
They know what Nick is.
They knew it all along.
A serial killer.
I know how improbable that sounds. I know it’s crazy. That I’m even considering the idea terrifies me.
Yet a pattern has emerged. Of girls coming here. All of them desperate and broke and without family. Then they disappear without warning or explanation. It’s a scenario that’s been played out at least three times.
I know what I need to do—call the police.
And say what?
I have no proof that Nick did anything to Ingrid, Erica, or Megan. Even though I’m certain he has Ingrid’s cell phone, it doesn’t mean the police will think he’s guilty of anything. And there’s no one else who can help me convince them. There were no other witnesses to the conversation Ingrid and I had in the park. No one but her knows the nickname she bestowed upon me that day.
But staying here could be a point of no return. The beginning of my end. My mother swallowing the last of those pills. My father striking a match outside the bedroom door. Jane climbing into that Volkswagen Beetle.
I’ll leave and go to Chloe’s. Back to her couch. To a place where I’ll be safe.
I grab my phone and text Chloe.
I need to get out of here.
I pause, breathe, type more.
I think I’m in danger.
I put down the phone, resume pacing, return to the phone five minutes later. Chloe hasn’t read my text yet. So I call her, reaching her voicemail. It isn’t until I hear her outgoing message that I remember she’s out of town. Off to the Vermont wilderness with Paul. And me without a key to her apartment, which I returned the morning I left for the Bartholomew.
So Chloe’s out.
That leaves no one.
Literally no one else I can turn to.
Loneliness settles over me like a shroud. I’m shocked by how isolated I am. No family. No Andrew. No co-workers who’d be willing to help me out in a pinch.
But I’m wrong.
I have Dylan.
I call him next, again getting only voicemail. I consider leaving a message but decide against it. I’ll sound crazy. No matter how hard I try, it’ll seep through. It’s better to say nothing than to risk sounding insane.
Not getting a message might entice him to call back.
A crazy one would do the opposite.
My only choice now is to grab my things, go to a hotel, and spend the weekend there until Chloe returns.
It’s a good plan. A smart one. But then it all falls apart as soon as I check my bank balance and am reminded of the five hundred dollars I spent to unlock Erica’s phone.
The twenty-seven dollars left in my account won’t get me a night anywhere. Even if I did find a motel that cheap somewhere in Jersey, all my credit cards are maxed and frozen. I have no way of getting any spending cash, nothing left for food or an emergency.
Nothing can happen until I get paid for a week of apartment sitting. One thousand dollars. Scheduled to be hand-delivered by Charlie two days from now.
There’s no other way around it.
In order to leave, I need to stay.
I look across the hall to the foyer and the front door. The deadbolt and chain are in place, right where I left them after Nick departed. They’re going to stay that way.
I move into the kitchen, drop to my hands and knees, open the cupboard beneath the sink. There, sitting innocuously between dishwasher soap and trash bags, is the shoe box Ingrid left behind.
I carry the box back to the sitting room and place it on the coffee table. Lifting the lid, I see the Glock and magazine exactly the way I left them. I remove both, surprised by how easy it is to slide the ammo clip into the gun itself. The two connect with a click that makes me feel, if not strong, then at least ready.
For what, I have no idea.
With nothing else to do but wait, I take a seat on the crimson sofa and, gun in my lap, stare again at the wallpaper.
It stares back.
Hundreds of eyes and noses and gaping mouths.
Earlier, I had thought those open mouths meant they were talking or laughing or singing.
But now I know better.
Now I know what they’re really doing is screaming.
NOW
Dr. Wagner gives me a look that’s one part shock, two parts disbelief. “That’s an alarming accusation.”
“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you believe it happened,” Dr. Wagner says. “That doesn’t mean it’s real.”
“I’m not making it up. Why would I do that? I’m not crazy.” There’s a feverishness to my words. A simmering hysteria that’s crept in despite my best efforts. “You have to believe me. At least three people have been murdered there.”
“I read the news,” the doctor says. “There haven’t been any murders at the Bartholomew. Not for a very long time.”
“That you know of. These didn’t look like murders.”
Dr. Wagner runs a hand through his leonine hair. “As a physician, I can assure you it’s very difficult to disguise murder.”
“He’s a very smart person,” I say.
Bernard, the nurse with the kind eyes, pokes his head into the room.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I saw this and thought Jules might like to have it in the room with her.”
He holds up a red picture frame, the glass spiderwebbed with cracks. One shard has fallen out, the space gaping like a missing tooth. Behind the skein of cracks is a photograph of three people.
My father. My mother. Jane.
I was carrying it when I ran from the Bartholomew. The only possession I thought worth saving.
“Where did you find it?”
“It was with your clothes,” Bernard says. “One of the medics gathered it up at the scene.”
That frame wasn’t the only thing I was carrying. I had something else with me.
“Where’s my phone?” I ask.
“There was no phone,” Bernard says. “Just your clothes and that picture.”
“But it was in my pocket.”
“I’m sorry. If it was there, no one found it.”
Worry expands in my chest. Like a ball of dough. Rising. Growing. Filling me up.
Nick has my phone.
Which means he can find all the information on it and delete it. Not only that, he can read my texts, see who I’ve contacted, learn what I’ve told them.
There are others.
People who now know what I know.
Including, I realize with a rib-shuddering gasp, Chloe.
I think of those texts I sent Chloe and how much they’ve put her in jeopardy.
I need to get out of here. I think I’m in danger.
Now our roles are reversed. Now it’s Chloe who’s in danger. When Nick can’t find me, he’ll go looking for Chloe. Maybe he’ll pretend to be me, just like he pretended to be Ingrid. He’ll lure her in. And God knows what will happen to her when he does.
“Chloe,” I say. “I need to warn Chloe.”
I try to slide out of bed, the pain in my body rumbling awake. It’s so bad that I double over and gasp for breath. It’s hard to take in air, thanks to the damn neck brace. I tear it off and drop it on the floor.
“Honey, you need to get back in bed,” Bernard says. “You’re in no condition to be walking around.”
“No!” My voice—alarmingly crazed, even to me—rings off the white walls. Gone is any pretense of calmness. I’m now panic personified. “I need to talk to Chloe! He’ll be looking for her!”
“You can’t leave this bed. Not like this.”
Bernard swoops toward me
, his hands on my shoulders, pushing me back into bed. I try to fight him off, my legs kicking, arms flailing. The IV needle in the back of my hand feels like a jellyfish sting. When I flail again, the IV tube goes taut. The metal stand by the bed tilts, falls, clatters against the floor.
The nurse’s eyes darken into something distinctly unkind. “You need to calm down,” he says.
“She’s in danger!” I’m still kicking, still writhing. Bernard pins me against the bed, where I thrash beneath his weight. “You have to believe me! Please!”
I feel a pinch on my upper left arm, there and gone in an instant. Looking to the other side of the bed, I see Dr. Wagner with a syringe and the needle that’s just been plunged into my flesh.
“This will help you rest,” he says.
I now know for certain he doesn’t believe me. Worse, he thinks I’m crazy.
Once again, I’m on my own.
“Help Chloe.”
My voice has gone quiet. The sedative kicking in. My head lolls onto the pillow. When Bernard backs away from me, I realize I can no longer move my limbs.
I make one last plaintive whisper before the sedative fully takes hold.
“Please.”
I sink against the bed like someone plunging into a warm pool, descending deeper and deeper until I’m so far gone I wonder if I’ll ever emerge.
ONE DAY EARLIER
37
My family is dancing across Bow Bridge. I sit in my usual spot next to George. Watching them. Wishing I could dance with them. Wishing I was as far away from this place as possible.
The park is silent except for the sound of my family’s shoes beating against the bridge floor as they twirl across it in single file. My father is first. My mother’s in the middle. Jane takes up the rear.
As they dance, I notice that their heads are lit from within by tiny, flickering flames. Like jack-o-lanterns. Tongues of fire lick from their mouths and leap in their eyes. Yet they can still see me. Every so often, they look up at me with those fiery eyes and wave. I try to wave back, but something’s in my hands. I haven’t noticed it until now. I’ve been too distracted by my parents and sister and the flames. But now the thing in my hands takes precedence over the carnival far below.
It’s heavy, slightly wet, hot like the lit matches I sometimes hold to my palm.
I look down.
Sitting within my cupped hands is a human heart.
Shiny with blood.
Still beating.
I wake up screaming. The sound blasts from my lungs, the sound reverberating off the walls. I clamp a hand over my mouth, just in case another scream is on its way. But then I remember the dream, gasp, and pull my hand away, checking it for blood and slime that aren’t really there.
I look from my hand to my surroundings. I’m in the sitting room, sprawled across the crimson couch. The faces in the wallpaper are still staring, still screaming. The grandfather clock ticks its way toward nine a.m., the sound filling the otherwise silent room.
When I sit up, something slides from my lap onto the floor.
The gun.
I slept with it all night. Apparently, that’s my life now. Sleeping in my clothes on a thousand-dollar sofa while cradling a loaded gun. I suppose I should be frightened by what I’ve become. But there are more pressing things to be afraid of.
The gun goes back into the shoe box, which is in turn put back in its hiding place under the sink. Like a fickle lover, I no longer want to look at it now that I’ve held it all night.
Back in the sitting room, I grab my phone, desperately hoping to see that Chloe or Dylan called me during the night. They haven’t. All I see are the texts I had sent Chloe.
I need to get out of here.
I think I’m in danger.
The fact that Nick has Ingrid’s phone can mean only one thing: he also killed her. A horrible thought. With it comes gut-squeezing grief that makes me want to lie down on the floor and never get up again.
I resist because I’m in the same situation she was. A person who might know too much. A person at risk. The only question now is how much Ingrid knew about Nick.
Erica told her something. Of that I’m sure. She shared her suspicion that something was amiss at the Bartholomew, and Ingrid started digging around. The voicemail Ingrid left confirms it.
I grab Erica’s phone from the coffee table, where it’s sat all night, and replay the voicemail.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what you told me yesterday, so I did a little digging. And you’re right. There’s something deeply weird going on here. I still don’t exactly know what it is, but I’m starting to get really freaked out. Call me.
I close my eyes, trying to form a timeline of events. Erica vanished the night of October fourth. Ingrid left this message the day before. If what she said in her voicemail is correct, then Erica had revealed her concerns about the Bartholomew the day before that, on October second.
Quickly, I scroll through Erica’s texts, checking to see if I missed something she had sent to Ingrid on that date. There’s nothing. I return to the call log, doing the same for her outgoing calls.
And that’s when I see that Erica had missed another call from Ingrid.
The time was shortly after noon.
The date was October second.
Ingrid had even left another voicemail.
Hey, it’s Ingrid. I just got the message you sent down the dumbwaiter. Which is super cool, by the way. It’s, like, old-timey email. Anyway, I got it and I’m confused. Am I supposed to know who Marjorie Milton is?
I stop the message, play it again, listen intently.
Am I supposed to know who Marjorie Milton is?
I play it a third time, Ingrid’s voice sparking a memory. I know that name. It was read rather than heard. In fact, I saw it in print inside this very apartment.
I cross into the study, where I fling open the bottom desk drawer. Inside is the stack of magazines I found on my first day here. All those copies of The New Yorker, each marked with an address and a name.
Marjorie Milton.
The former owner of 12A.
Why Erica would feel the need to tell Ingrid about her is a mystery. Marjorie Milton is dead. And I’m pretty sure neither Ingrid nor Erica ever met the woman. Both arrived long after her demise.
I’m on the move again, winding up the stairs to the bedroom window where both George and my laptop sit. I flip it open and Google Marjorie’s name. Dozens of results appear.
I click on the most recent article, dated a week ago.
CHAIRWOMAN RETURNS
TO GUGGENHEIM GALA
The article itself is pure society-page fluff. A museum fund-raiser held last week in which businessmen and their trophy wives spent more per plate than what most people make in a year. The only item of note is a mention that the event’s longtime coordinator was back after serious health issues forced her to miss last year’s gala.
It includes a photo of a seventy-something woman wearing a black gown and a proud, patrician smile. The caption below the picture gives her name.
Marjorie Milton.
I check the article’s date again, making sure it is indeed from last week.
It is.
Which means only one thing.
Marjorie Milton, the woman whose death opened a spot in the Bartholomew for at least two apartment sitters, is alive.
38
I look at my watch and sigh.
Seven minutes past two.
I’ve entered the third hour of sitting on the same bench just outside Central Park. I’m hungry, tired, and in dire need of a bathroom. Yet sitting here is preferable to being back at the Bartholomew. At this point, anything is.
The park itself is behind me. In front of me, directly across the street, is the apartment building where Marjorie Milton currently resides.
Like much of what I know about Mrs. Milton, I found her address online. It turns out that in Manhattan even the filthy rich are sometimes listed in the
White Pages.
Other things I’ve learned: That her friends call her Margie. That she’s the daughter of an oil executive and the widow of a venture capitalist. That she has two sons who, no surprise, grew up to become an oil executive and a venture capitalist. That she has a Yorkie named Princess Diana. That in addition to chairing pricey museum fund-raisers, she also gives generously to children’s hospitals, animal welfare groups, and the New-York Historical Society.
The biggest thing I learned, though, is that Marjorie Milton is alive and well and has been since 1943.
Some of this information, such as where she lives, was discovered before I left the Bartholomew. But most was gleaned while I was on the bench, the hours ticking by as I searched the internet from my phone.
I’m here in the hope that Marjorie will eventually come outside to take Princess Diana for a walk. According to a Vanity Fair piece about her that ran three years ago, it’s one of her favorite things to do.
Once she does, I’ll be able to ask not only why she left the Bartholomew, located a mere ten blocks south of her current address, but why the people still living there claim that she’s dead.
While I wait, I continually check my phone for responses from Chloe and Dylan that have yet to arrive. Finally, at half past two, a wisp of a woman in brown slacks and a teal jacket emerges with a leashed Yorkie by her side.
Marjorie.
I’ve now seen enough photos of her to know.
I leap from the bench and hurry across the street, approaching Mrs. Milton as soon as Princess Diana stops to pee in the topiary by the neighboring building’s front door. When I get a few steps behind her, I say, “Excuse me.”
She stops and turns my way. “Yes?”
“You’re Marjorie Milton, right?”
“I am,” she says as Princess Diana tugs at the leash, eager to mark the next topiary. “Do we know each other?”
“No, but I live at the Bartholomew.”
Marjorie looks me up and down, clearly pegging me as an apartment sitter and not a permanent resident. My clothes are the same ones I’ve been wearing since yesterday, and it shows. I haven’t showered. I haven’t put on makeup. Before leaving to stake out her building, I did the bare minimum. Comb through my hair, brush across my teeth.