The Paris Apartment(93)

I turn around, slowly.

Sophie Meunier stands there. Behind her: Nick. And even though I’m reeling from everything that’s just happened, I’m still able to make out that there’s a big difference in their expressions. Sophie’s face is an intense, terrifying mask. But Nick’s, as he looks at Ben, shows surprise, horror, confusion. In fact, Nick looks—and this is the only way I can think to describe it—as though he has seen a ghost.





Nick





Second floor



I feel dread creeping through me as I take in the scene in the attic. I ran up here when I heard the screaming, after dragging Antoine, semi-conscious, to the sofa in my apartment.

He’s here. Ben is here. He doesn’t look well, but he is sitting up. And he is alive.

This can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not possible.

Ben is dead. He’s been dead since Friday night. My one-time friend, my old university mate, the guy I fell for on that warm summer night in Amsterdam over a decade ago and have been thinking about ever since.

He died and it was my fault and in the days since I have been trying to live with the guilt and the grief of it: walking around feeling only barely alive myself.

I look to my stepmother, expecting to see my own shock reflected in her expression. It isn’t there. This doesn’t seem to have come as a surprise to her. She knows. It’s the only explanation. Why else would she be so calm?

Finally I manage to speak. “What is this?” I ask, voice hoarse. “What is this? What the fuck is happening?” I point to Ben. “This isn’t possible. He’s dead.”

You see, I know it for a fact. I had plenty of time to take it all in: the unspeakable horror of that lifeless shape in its makeshift shroud. The undeniable fact of it. Of the blood, too, spilled across the floorboards and soaked into the towels: far more blood than anyone could lose and live. But it’s more than that. Three nights ago, Antoine and I carried his body down the stairs and dug a shallow trench and buried him in the courtyard garden.





Mimi





Fourth floor



It has all gone so quiet now, after the scream up above. What is going on? What has she found?

This is the part I remember. After this there is nothing, until the blood.

It was late and I was tired from all the thoughts whirring around my brain, but couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had read. What I saw. Ben—and my mother. I’d destroyed my paintings of him. But it didn’t feel like enough. I could see him over there in his apartment, working away at his computer. But it was all different now. I knew what he was writing about and the thought of it made me feel sick, all over again. I could never un-know it. Even if I tried not to believe it. But I think I do. I think I do believe it. The hushed tones everyone uses when they talk about Papa’s business. Things I’ve heard Antoine say. It was all beginning to make a horrible kind of sense.

Ben came to the window and looked out. I ducked out of sight, so he wouldn’t spot me. Then I went back to watching.

He moved back to his desk, looking at his phone, holding it to his ear. But then he looked up. Turned his head. He began to stand. The door was opening. Someone was stepping into the room.

Oh—merde.

Putain de merde.

What was he doing there?

It was Papa.

He wasn’t meant to be home.

When did he get back? And what was he doing in Ben’s apartment?

Papa had something in his hands. I recognized it: it was the magnum of wine he had given Ben as a present only a few weeks earlier.

He was going to—

I couldn’t bear to keep looking. But at the same time I couldn’t look away. I watched as Ben crumpled to his knees. As Papa raised the bottle again and again. I watched as Ben staggered backward, as he collapsed onto the floor, as blood began to soak into the front of his pale T-shirt, turning the whole thing red. And I knew it was all my fault.

Ben crawled toward the window. I watched as he raised his hand, hit his palm against the glass. And then he mouthed a word: Help.

I saw my father raise the bottle again. And I knew what was going to happen. He was going to kill him.

I had to do something. I loved him. Ben had betrayed me. He had destroyed my whole world. But I loved him.

I reached for the nearest thing at hand. And then I ran down the stairs so quickly it felt as though my feet weren’t even touching the ground. The door to Ben’s apartment was open and Papa was standing over him and I just had to make him stop—I had to make him stop and at the same time maybe there was a little voice inside me saying: he’s not really your papa, this man. And he’s not a good man. He’s done some terrible things. And now he’s about to become a killer too.

Ben was on the ground and his eyes were closed. And then I was behind Papa—he hadn’t seen me, hadn’t heard me creep into the room—and I had my canvas cutting knife in my hand and it’s small but the blade is sharp, so very sharp, and I raised it above my head . . .

And then nothing.

And then the blood.

Later, I thought I heard the sound of voices in the courtyard. I heard the scrape of shovels. It didn’t make any sense. Maman likes to garden, but it was dark, nighttime. Why was she doing it now? It couldn’t be real: it had to be a dream. Or some kind of nightmare.