Lock Every Door(77)

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 didn’t. All I see are the texts I 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 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 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.