by Riley Sager
Erica never called back, which means she either talked to Ingrid in person or thought returning the call wasn’t important. I suspect it was the former. Ingrid’s message sounds too worried to ignore. Which makes me wonder about not just what Erica told her but what Ingrid discovered afterward. Unfortunately, neither of them is around to provide an answer.
I put down Erica’s phone and pick up my own. I then text Ingrid, even though I already know she’s not going to respond. I do it out of desperation, on the unlikely chance that, of the dozens of texts I’ve sent in the past few days, this will finally be the one she sees and replies to.
If you’re out there and can see this, PLEASE respond. I need to talk to you about the Bartholomew and Erica and what you know about both. It’s important.
I set my phone facedown on the coffee table, lean back on the crimson sofa, and stare at the wall. Unlike Greta, I can’t choose what I see in the patterned wallpaper. They’re faces, whether I like it or not.
Right now, they watch me passively, their dark mouths dropped open, as if they’re trying to talk, laugh, or sing. Shifting nervously in their gaze, I close my eyes. Silly, I know. Just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean they can’t see me.
My eyes snap open when my phone buzzes on the coffee table.
A text has arrived.
I pick it up, shock turning my body cold when I see who it’s from.
Ingrid.
Hi, Jules. Please don’t be worried. I’m fine.
Relief rushes through me. It starts at my hands and feet before coursing into my limbs, warm and glorious.
I was wrong. About everything. Ingrid isn’t dead or kidnapped. And if there’s a logical explanation for her absence, then there are possibly ones for what happened to Erica and Megan.
What I need to know now, though, is what that explanation is.
I send three texts in response, my still-warm fingers flying over the screen.
Where are you?
Are you OK?
What is going on?
A minute passes with no response. After two more go by, I start to pace back and forth across the sitting room. I occupy myself by counting my steps. I get to sixty-seven before three blue dots appear on the phone’s screen, rippling like a tiny wave. Ingrid typing her reply.
In Pennsylvania. A friend hooked me up with a waitressing job.
I’ve been worried, I write. Why didn’t you call or text back?
This time, a reply comes immediately.
I left my phone on the bus. It took days to get it back.
I wait for more, expecting a flurry of texts as exuberantly descriptive as the way Ingrid talked. But when her response arrives, it’s the opposite. Staid, almost dull.
Sorry for any confusion.
Why did you leave without telling me?
I didn’t have time, Ingrid texts back. Short notice.
But that makes no sense. I was at Ingrid’s door literally minutes before she left. All she did was simply confirm our plans to meet in the park.
Then it hits me—this isn’t Ingrid.
All the relief I felt minutes ago is gone, replaced with a sharp-edged chill that sends pinpricks of dread across my skin.
I’m communicating with the person who made Ingrid disappear.
My first thought is to call the police and let them sort everything out. But Dylan and I have both already gone to the police, with disappointing results. In order for them to get involved, I need more than a hunch that this isn’t Ingrid.
I need proof.
Call me, I type.
The reply is instantaneous. Can’t.
Why not?
Too noisy here.
I need to be careful. My suspicion is starting to show. Rather than reply, I grip the phone, my thumbs poised just above the screen. I need to think of a way to get whoever this is to definitively reveal they’re not Ingrid—without realizing they’re doing it.
What’s my nickname? I finally type.
On the screen, the blue dots appear, disappear, then appear again. Ingrid-but-not-Ingrid is thinking. I watch the dots come and go while hoping against hope that when an answer does appear, it will be the correct one.
Juju.
The nickname Ingrid gave me in the park that day.
I want this to be the truth instead of the dreadful-but-likely scenario that’s been in my thoughts ever since talking to Dylan.
The answer finally arrives, announcing itself with a buzz.
Trick question. You don’t have a nickname. Jules is your real name.
I yelp and throw the phone. A quick, frantic toss. Like a firecracker. The phone hits the floor and does a single flip before landing facedown on the sitting room carpet. I collapse onto the crimson sofa, my heart dripping like hot candle wax into the pit of my stomach.
There’s only one person who knows that.
And it’s definitely not Ingrid.
It’s Nick.
35
My phone buzzes again, the sound muted by the carpet.
I stay where I am. I don’t need to see this new text to know the truth. I have my memory.
Me sitting in Nick’s kitchen, my wounded arm freshly clean, him making small talk, asking me if Jules was a nickname.
Most people think it’s short for Julia or Julianne, but Jules is my given name.
Other than Chloe and Andrew, he’s the only person in recent memory who’s been told the story behind my name. How stupid I was, basking in Nick’s attention, enjoying that zap of attraction when he looked into my eyes.
The phone buzzes again.
This time I move, approaching it with caution. Like it’s something that can sting. Rather than pick it up, I flip the phone onto its back and read the texts I’ve missed.
Jules?
You still there?
I’m still staring at the words when there’s a knock on the door. A single, startling rap that makes me look up from the phone and gasp.
A second knock arrives. As nerve-jangling as the first.
Nick’s voice follows. “Jules? Are you home?”
It’s him.
Just on the other side of the door.
Almost as if he’s been summoned by my suspicion.
I don’t answer the door.
I can’t.
Nor can I say anything. A single tremulous word from me will tip him off that I know. About everything.
I turn and face the door, noting the way it’s framed by the sitting room archway. A door within a door.
Then I see the chain dangling from the doorframe.
Just below it is the deadbolt, also in an unlocked position.
In the center of the doorknob itself, the latch lies flat.
The door is completely unlocked.
I leap to my feet and rush toward the foyer, trying to make as little noise as possible. If I don’t answer, maybe Nick will go away.
Instead, he knocks again. I’m in the foyer now, inching closer to the door. The sound—so loud, so close—prompts a startled huff.
I press my back against the door, hoping Nick can’t sense my presence. I can certainly feel his. A disturbance of air mere inches away.
Nick could charge right in if he wanted to. One twist of the doorknob is all it would take.
Luckily, he only talks.
“Jules,” he says. “If you’re there and can hear me, I just want to apologize for this morning. I shouldn’t have brushed off your concern about not being in your apartment all night. It was cavalier of me.”
With my left hand, I reach out to touch the doorknob, my fingers sliding over the unlocked latch at its center.
“Anyway, I also want you to know that I had a really great time last night. It was amazing. All of it.”
I grasp the latch between my thumb and forefinger.
Holding my breath, I turn it upward, my left arm twisting at an odd angle. Pain pinches my knuckles.
Then my wrist.
Then my elbow.
I keep turning the latch, millimeter by millimeter.
“As for what happened, well, I don’t want you to think I usually move so fast. I was—”
The lock slides into place with a noticeable click.
Nick hears it and stops, waiting for me to make another sound.
Beside me, the doorknob turns.
He’s testing the lock, moving the knob back and forth.
After another breathless second, he resumes talking.
“I was caught up in the moment. I think we both were. Not that I regret it. I don’t. It’s just, I want you to know I’m not that kind of guy.”
Nick departs. I hear his footsteps retreating. Still, I remain at the door, not moving, afraid he’ll suddenly return.
But I heard what he had to say.
He isn’t that kind of guy.
I believe him.
He’s someone else entirely.
36
I pace the sitting room, crossing back and forth in front of the windows. Outside, night settles over Central Park with silent swiftness, coating it in darkness. Bow Bridge has become a pale strip over black water. A single person strolls across it, oblivious to the fact that she’s being watched.
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 recorded greeting 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 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.
A few days ago, 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 p
ocket.”
“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 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.