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“It was intense,” I say. “And scary. And I can’t say I slept very well, but I’m fine. This was nothing like what happened at my house. How did you find out about it?”
“The newspaper,” Chloe says. “Your picture’s on the front page.”
I groan. “How bad do I look?”
“Like the chimney sweep fromMary Poppins.” I hear the tap of fingers on a computer keyboard, followed by a mouse click. “I just sent you something.”
My phone buzzes with an email alert. I open it to see the cover of one of the city’s daily tabloids. Filling two-thirds of the front page is a photograph of the Bartholomew’s front door, taken just as I emerged with Greta and Rufus. What a strange sight we are. Me still wearing the rumpled jeans and blouse I’d worn all day, and Greta in her nightgown. Both of our faces have been darkened by smoke. By that point Greta had lowered the bandanna, revealing a swath of white skin from nose to chin. Then there’s Rufus, sporting a collar that might be studded with real diamonds. We look like extras from three different movies.
“Who’s the woman with the bandanna?” Chloe asks.
“That would be Greta Manville.”
“The woman who wroteHeart of a Dreamer? You, like, adore that book.”
“I do.”
“Is that her dog?”
“That’s Rufus,” I say. “He belongs to Marianne Duncan.”
“From that soap opera?”
“The very one.”
“What a strange alternate universe you’ve stumbled into,” Chloe says.
I glance again at the image on my phone, rolling my eyes at the awful headline the tabloid came up with.
GARGOYLE CHAR-BROIL: BLAZE AT THE BARTHOLOMEW
“Wasn’t there anything else to put on the front page? You know, like real news.”
“Thisisnews,” Chloe says. “Remember, Jules, most New Yorkers see the Bartholomew as the closest thing to heaven on earth.”
I move from the kitchen to the sitting room, where I’m greeted by the faces in the wallpaper. A whole army of dark eyes and open mouths. I instantly turn away.
“Trust me, this place is far from perfect.”
“So you read that article I sent you,” Chloe says. “That’s some scary shit, right?”
“It’s more than the article that’s bothering me.”
Concern sneaks into Chloe’s voice. “Did something else happen?”
“Yes,” I say. “Maybe.”
I tell her about meeting Ingrid, our plan to hang out each day, the scream from 11A and Ingrid’s insistence it was nothing. I finish with how Ingrid is now gone and not answering her phone and my suspicions that someone caused her to flee.
Left out are all the worrisome parts, specifically the note and the gun. Hearing about those would prompt Chloe to come to the Bartholomew and drag me from 12A. Which I can’t afford to do. Receiving my latest unemployment check has left me with slightly more than five hundred dollars in my account. Definitely not enough to help me get back on my feet.
“You need to stop looking for her,” Chloe says, just like I knew she would. “Whatever her reason was for leaving, it’s none of your business.”
“I think she might be in some kind of trouble.”
“Jules, listen to me. If this Ingrid person wanted your help, she would have called you by now. Clearly, she wants to be left alone.”
“There’s no one else looking for her,” I say. “If I vanished, you’d look for me. I don’t think Ingrid has a Chloe in her life. She has no one.”