by Riley Sager
I glance outside, where fog is quickly settling over the city. The mist skims low across Central Park, making the treetops appear to float like clouds. It’s beautiful, in a melancholy way. A view few people can afford. Those who can pay millions for the privilege.
Ingrid had this exact same view, yet she was getting paid for it. Which poses a bigger question: Why did she suddenly abandon the prospect of free rent and twelve thousand dollars? Although she had reservations about the Bartholomew, Ingrid also made it clear that, just like me, she had no money and nowhere else to go. But when she left the Bartholomew, she also left behind an additional ten thousand dollars. Short of a dire emergency, I can’t fathom turning down that much cash.
Something about Ingrid’s situation had suddenly changed. Quite literally overnight.
I dig my phone from my jacket pocket. Still no word from Ingrid. When I scroll through the texts I sent her, I see that she hasn’t read a single one.
Rather than text again, I decide to call, tapping her all-caps name and listening as the call goes straight to voicemail.
“Hi there! Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep, and I’ll call back as soon as I can.” A pause. “Oh, this is Ingrid, by the way. In case you didn’t already know that.”
At last, a beep arrives.
“Hey, Ingrid,” I say, trying to keep my tone pitched somewhere between casual and concerned. “It’s Jules. From the Bartholomew. Leslie just told me you moved out during the night. Is, um, everything okay? Call or text to let me know.”
I end the call and stare at the phone, unsure of what to do next.
Nothing.
That’s what Chloe would say. She’d tell me that Ingrid’s a stranger. That her business is her own. That I need to focus on getting a job, getting some money saved up, getting my life back in order.
She’d be right on all counts.
I do need to find a job. And earn money. And start rebuilding my existence piece by piece.
Yet that acorn of worry I felt earlier is now a full-fledged sapling, with leaf-studded branches stretching into my limbs. Making it grow is the weirdness of last night. That noise that sounded like a scream. Ingrid’s unnatural calm. The way she tried to downplay my concern.
I’m fine. Really.
I wasn’t convinced last night, and I’m definitely not convinced now. The only thing that will assuage my worry is hearing from Ingrid herself. But in order to do that, I need to first find out where she went.
When Jane went missing, the police gave us a list of steps we needed to follow to make it easier to locate her. Not that it did any good. I’m hoping I have more luck now as I go over those same steps in an attempt to find Ingrid.
Step one: Assess the situation.
Simple. Ingrid left in the middle of the night without telling anyone.
Step two: Think of reasons she might have left.
I’d like to think she left for a positive reason. Something happy. She suddenly found a job or won the lottery or was swept off her feet by one of the buskers in Central Park. But it’s not in my nature to be optimistic. Not anymore.
Step three: Think of places she might have gone.
A nonstarter. She could have gone literally anywhere.
Step four: Think of people she might have contacted since going missing.
This one’s more doable, thanks to social media. If Ingrid is as much of an oversharer online as she is in real life, all it will take to ease my mind is one status update saying she’s back in Boston or got a bartending gig in Alaska. Anything but the unknown will suffice.
I grab my laptop and start searching for Ingrid’s social media accounts, beginning with Facebook. That turns out to be more difficult than I expect. I haven’t used it in so long that it takes me several minutes and two wrong guesses before I remember my password.
When I finally log in, the first thing I see is my outdated profile pic. A vacation photo. Andrew and me at Disney World. We stand on Main Street, my arm around his waist and his over my shoulder while Cinderella’s castle rises behind us.
The picture startles me, mostly because the original was among the photos I set on fire before I moved out. Seeing it again feels like spotting a ghost. It was the only vacation the two of us took together, and even then we couldn’t really afford it. But at the time I thought it would be worth the expense. We look happy in the photo. We were happy. At least I was. But maybe Andrew was already thinking about finding someone else to screw. Perhaps he already had and I was just blissfully ignorant.
I delete the image and replace it with a blank avatar. That seems like a more appropriate reflection of my current state.
Once that’s out of the way, I do a search for Ingrid Gallagher, trying to remember all the places she told me she’s lived in the past two years. I narrow the search to New York, Seattle, and Boston, finding two Ingrid Gallaghers. Neither is the Ingrid I’m looking for.
I move on to Twitter, with similar results. Lots of Ingrid Gallaghers. None resemble the one I know.
Next up is Instagram, which I open using the app on my phone.
At last, success.
Ingrid Gallagher has an account.
Her hair is all blue in her profile picture. A too-bright shade that reminds me of cotton candy.
But then I see the photos she’s posted and my heart sinks. They’re a generic lot. Dimly lit food pictures and oddly angled selfies. The most recent picture is a selfie Ingrid took in Central Park, a bit of the Bartholomew visible over her left shoulder.
It was taken two days ago, probably around the same time I was getting a tour of 12A. Maybe Ingrid was one of the people I spotted in the park during that first, flushed look out the sitting room window. There’s even a chance I’m visible in the photo—a dim figure gazing out a twelfth-floor window of the Bartholomew.
Ingrid kept the caption simple—three heart emojis, pink and throbbing.
The photo received fifteen likes and one comment from someone named Zeke, who wrote, cant believe ur back in NYC and havent hit me up.
Although Ingrid never responded, it’s heartening to see she knows at least one other person in the city. Maybe she’s with him now. I take a closer look at Zeke’s profile picture. The Neff cap, scraggly beard, and scuffed skateboard raised conspicuously into the frame tell me all I need to know about the guy.
That impression is reinforced when I click on his own photo gallery. Most of the pictures are selfies. Him shirtless in the bathroom mirror. Him shirtless at Jones Beach. Him shirtless on the street, his jeans slung low enough to show off his boxer shorts. He even took a shirtless picture this morning, snapped in bed as a woman slept next to him. All that can be seen of her is a patch of bare shoulder and long hair spread over the pillowcase.
Blond. No trace of blue. Definitely not Ingrid.
Still, I send Zeke a message just in case she decided to, in his words, hit him up.
Hi. I’m a neighbor of Ingrid’s. I’m trying to get in touch with her. Have you heard from her recently? If not, do you have any idea where she might be? I’m worried about her.
I leave my name. I leave my number. I ask him to call.
After that, it’s back to Ingrid’s Instagram account, where I hope her older pictures might offer clues about where she could have gone. The photo before the park selfie is a close-up of her fingernails, which had been painted bright green. It was taken five days ago. The caption quotes Sally Bowles from Cabaret.
“If I should paint my fingernails green, and it just so happens I do paint them green, well, if anyone should ask me why, I say: ‘I think it’s pretty!’”
Seven likes. No responses.
It’s the picture before it that truly grabs my attention. Taken eight days ago, it’s another close-up of Ingrid’s hand. The fingernails are light pink this time. The color of
a ripe peach. Her hand rests atop a book. Jutting from its top is the red tassel of a bookmark. Glimpsed in the spaces between her spread fingers is a familiar image—George perched at the corner of the Bartholomew. In addition to that are scraps of a familiar font spelling out an equally familiar title.
Heart of a Dreamer.
The caption Ingrid included is even more surprising.
I met the author!
I’ve also met the author, and she wasn’t too happy about it. Still, this photo seems to suggest that Greta and Ingrid were, if not friends, then at least acquaintances. Which means there’s a small chance she might know where Ingrid went.
With a sigh, I grab the last bottle of wine Chloe gave me, leave the apartment, and make my way down the hall to the stairwell.
I’m going to risk breaking another Bartholomew rule and see Greta Manville, no matter how much it’s sure to annoy her.
14
My initial knock on the door to 10A is so tentative I can barely hear it over the sound of my thudding heart. So I rap again, using more force. Behind the door, footsteps creak over the floorboards and someone shouts, “I fucking heard you the first time.”
When the door finally opens, it’s only a crack. Greta Manville peers through it with eyes narrowed to slits. “You again,” she says.
I raise the wine bottle. “I brought you something.”
The door opens wide enough for me to see her outfit of black slacks and a gray sweater. On her feet are pink slippers. The left one taps with impatience as she eyes the bottle.
“It’s an apology gift,” I say. “For bothering you in the lobby yesterday. And right now. And for any future times I might do it.”
Greta takes the bottle and checks the label. It must be a decent vintage, because she doesn’t grimace. I’ll need to thank Chloe for not giving me our usual Two-Buck Chuck as a going-away present. Especially now that Greta has drifted away from the door, leaving it open still wider. I pause on the threshold, moving only after her voice drifts out the gaping door.
“You can come in, or you can leave. It makes no difference to me.”
I decide to enter, the movement prompting a nod from Greta. She turns and moves wordlessly down the hall. I follow, sneaking glances at the apartment’s layout, which is far different from mine. The rooms here are smaller, but there are more of them. A backward look down the hall reveals several doors leading to what I assume are an office, a bedroom, maybe a library.
Although, quite honestly, the entire apartment could be considered a library. Books are everywhere. Filling the shelves of the room opposite the door. Sitting on end tables. Rising from the floor in tilted, towering stacks. There’s even a book in the kitchen—a Margaret Atwood paperback splayed facedown on the counter.
“Who are you again?” Greta says as she retrieves a corkscrew from a drawer in the kitchen’s marble-topped island. “There are so many of you apartment sitters coming and going that I can’t keep track.”
“Jules,” I say.
“That’s right. Jules. And my book is your favorite and so on and so forth.”
Greta caps the comment with a mighty pull of the cork. She then fetches a single wineglass, filling it halfway before handing it to me.
“Cheers,” she says.
“You’re not having any?”
“Sadly, I’m not allowed. Doctor’s orders.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have,” Greta says. “Now quit apologizing and drink.”
I take an obligatory sip, mindful about not drinking too much too fast. It could easily happen, considering how anxious I am about talking too much, asking too many questions, annoying Greta more than I already have. I take another sip, this time to calm my nerves.
“Tell me, Jules,” Greta says, “why did you really stop by?”
I look up from my glass. “Do I need an ulterior motive?”
“Not necessarily. But I suspect you have one. In my experience, people don’t arrive bearing gifts unless they want something. A signed copy of their favorite book, for instance.”
“I didn’t bring my copy.”
“A missed opportunity there, wouldn’t you say?”
“But you’re right. I came here for a reason.” I pause to fortify myself with more wine. “I came here to ask you about Ingrid Gallagher.”
“Who?” Greta asks.
“She’s an apartment sitter. In the unit above you. She left last night. In the middle of the night, actually. And no one knows where she went. And since she mentioned on Instagram that she met you, I thought that, possibly, the two of you were friends and you might know.”
Greta gives me a tilted-head gaze, curiosity brightening her blue eyes. “My dear, I didn’t understand a single word you just said.”
“So you don’t know Ingrid?”
“Are you referring to that girl with the ghastly colored hair?”
“Yes.”
“I met her twice,” Greta says. “Which doesn’t qualify as knowing someone. Leslie first introduced us as I was passing through the lobby. And by introduce, I mean accost. I think our Mrs. Evelyn was trying to impress the girl into staying here.”
“When was this?”
“Two weeks ago or so, I believe.”
This likely would have been during Ingrid’s interview tour. The dates match how long she told me she’d been here.
“When was the second time?”
“Two days ago. She came by to see me.” Greta gestures to the open bottle on the counter. “Without wine. So you have her beat in that respect.”
“What was her ulterior motive?”
“Now you’re catching on,” Greta says with an approving nod. “She wanted to ask me about the Bartholomew, seeing how I wrote a book about it. She was curious about some of the things that have happened here.”
I lean forward, my elbows on the island counter. “What kind of things?”
“The building’s allegedly sordid past. I told her it was ancient history and that if she was looking for gossip, she should try the internet. I don’t use it myself, but I hear it’s rife with that sort of thing.”
“That was it?” I say.
“A two-minute conversation at best.”
“And you haven’t talked to her since?”
“I have not.”
“Are you sure?”
Just like that, Greta’s expression darkens again. Her bright-eyed curiosity was like a single ray of sunlight peeking through two storm clouds—fleeting and misleading.
“I’m old, dear,” she says. “Not senile.”
Chastened, I return to my wine. Murmuring into the glass, I say, “I didn’t mean to imply that. I’m just trying to find her.”
“She’s missing?”
“Maybe.” Again, the vagueness of my reply infuriates me. I try to rectify that by adding, “I’ve been trying to reach her all day. She hasn’t responded. And the way she left, well, it concerns me.”
“Why?” Greta says. “She’s free to come and go as she pleases, isn’t she? Just like you are. You’re apartment sitters. Not prisoners.”
“It’s just— You didn’t hear anything unusual last night, did you? Like a strange noise coming from the apartment above you?”
“What kind of noise are you referring to?”
A scream. That’s what I’m referring to. I don’t specifically say it because I want Greta to mention it unprompted. If she does, then I’ll know it wasn’t just me. That the scream really happened.
“Anything out of the ordinary,” I say.
“I didn’t,” Greta replies. “Although I suspect you heard something.”
“I thought I did.”
“But now?”
“Now I think I imagined it.”
Only I don’t know if th
at’s possible. Sure, people can hear things that aren’t really there, especially the first night in a new place. Footsteps on the stairs. Raps on the window. I heard something myself when I woke up—that slithery non-noise. But people don’t imagine random, solitary screams.
“I was awake most of the night,” Greta says. “Insomnia. The older I get, the less sleep I require. A blessing and a curse, if you ask me. So if there had been a strange noise coming from upstairs, I would have heard it. As for your friend—”
She slaps her palm against the countertop, the motion sudden, unsettling.
I set down my glass. “Mrs. Manville?”
Greta closes her eyes as her face, already pale, turns ashen. Her whole body tilts. First slowly, then gaining steam until she’s leaning at a precarious angle. I rush to her side, keeping her upright while searching for a chair. I find one near the door to the dining room and gently guide her into it.
The movement jostles her back into consciousness. Her head snaps to attention, and life returns to her eyes. She clamps a hand around my wrist, the knuckles knobby with age, purple veins visible beneath tissue-paper skin.
“Dear me,” she says, slightly dazed. “Well, that was embarrassing.”
I hover over her, not sure what else to do. My body’s gained a tremor that runs from head to heel. “Do you need a doctor? I can fetch Dr. Nick.”
“I’m not in that dire of shape,” she says. “Really, it’s nothing. I sometimes get spells.”
“Fainting spells?”
“I call them sudden sleeps, because that’s what they feel like. An instant slipping away. But then I roar back to life and it’s like nothing’s happened. Never get old, Jules. It’s horrible. No one tells you that until it’s too fucking late.”
That’s when I know it’s okay to stop hovering. She’s back to her normal, ornery self. Still trembling, I return to the kitchen counter and my glass of wine. No sip this time. I gulp.
“If you’d like, you may ask me one question about that book,” Greta says. “You’ve earned it.”