Page 39

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 fromCabaret.
“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.