Jess

Jess

“Please Jess,” Nick says in a reasonable tone. “Just hear me out. I’ll come down there and we can chat.”

For a moment I think: just because they’re a family, it doesn’t mean they’re all responsible for what’s happened here. I remember how Nick briefly referred to his father as “a bit of a cunt”: clearly they don’t all see eye to eye. Maybe I’ve jumped to conclusions—maybe she really did fall. An old woman, frail, slipping on the stairs late at night . . . no one to hear her because it’s late. And maybe the front gate is locked because it’s late, too—

No. I’m not going to take my chances. I turn to look back at the concierge, slumped on the floor and grimacing in pain. And as I do, I see the door to the first-floor apartment opening. I watch as Antoine steps out onto the landing to stand next to his brother—the two of them so much more alike than I had realized. He smiles down at me, a horrible grin.

“Hello, little girl,” he says.

Where to run? The front gate is locked. I refuse to be the girl in the horror film who flees into the basement. Both brothers are advancing toward me down the stairs now. I don’t have any time to think. Instinctively I step into the lift. I press the button for the third floor.

The lift clanks upward, the mechanism grinding. I can hear Nick running up the stairs below: through the metal grille I can see the top of his head. He’s chasing me. The gloves are off now.

Finally I reach the third floor. The lift clanks into place agonizingly slowly. I open the metal gate and dash across the landing, shove the keys into the door to Ben’s apartment and fling it open, slam it shut behind me, lock the door, my chest heaving.

I try to think, panic making me stupid, just when I need my thoughts to be as clear as possible. The back staircase: I could try and use that. But the sofa’s in the way. I run to it, start trying to tug it away from the door.

Then I hear the unmistakable sound of a key beginning to turn in the lock. I back away. He has a key. Of course he has a key. Could I pull something in front of the door? No: there’s no time.

Nick starts advancing toward me across the room. The cat, seeing him, streaks past and jumps up onto the kitchen counter to his right, mewing at him—perhaps hoping to be fed. Traitor.

“Come on, Jess,” Nick says, coaxingly, still that chillingly reasonable tone. “Just, just stay where you are—”

This new menace in Nick is so much more frightening than if he hadn’t worn that nice-guy mask before. I mean, his brother’s violence has always seemed to simmer just beneath the surface. But Nick—this new Nick—he’s an unknown quantity.

“So what?” I ask him. “So you can do the same thing to me that you’ve done to Ben?”

“I didn’t do anything—”

There’s a strange emphasis on the way he says this. A stress on the “I”: “I didn’t.”

“Are you saying someone else did? One of the others?” He doesn’t answer. Keep him talking, I tell myself, play for time. “I thought you wanted to help me, Nick,” I say.

He looks pained now. “I did want to, Jess. And it’s all my fault. I set this whole thing in motion. I invited him here . . . I should have known. He went digging into stuff he shouldn’t have . . . fuck—” He rubs at his face with his hands and when he takes them away I see that his eyes are rimmed with red. “It’s my fault . . . and I’m sorry—”

I feel a coldness creeping through me. “What have you done to Ben, Nick?” I meant it to sound tough, authoritative. But my voice comes out with a tremor.

“I haven’t . . . I didn’t . . . I haven’t done anything.” Again that emphasis: “I didn’t, I haven’t.”

The only way out is past Nick, through that front door. Just by the door is the kitchen area. The utensil pot’s right there; inside it is that razor-sharp Japanese knife. If I can just keep him talking, somehow grab the knife—

“Come on, Jess.” He takes another step toward me.

And suddenly there’s a streak of movement, a flash of black and white. The cat has leapt from the kitchen counter onto Nick’s shoulders—the same way it greeted me the very first time I entered this apartment. Nick swears, puts his hands up to tear the animal away. I sprint forward, yank the knife out of the pot. Then I lunge past him for the door, wrench it open, and slam it behind me.

“Hello little girl.”

I turn: fuck—Antoine stands there, he must have been waiting in the shadows. I lunge the knife toward him, slashing so violently at the air with the blade that he staggers backward and falls down the flight of stairs, collapsing in a heap on the next landing. I peer at him through the gloom, my chest burning. I think I hear a groan but he’s not moving.

Nick will be out any moment. There’s only one way to go.

Up.

I’m clearly outnumbered here, one of me: four of them. But perhaps there’s somewhere I can hide, to try and buy some time.

Come on, Jess. Think. You’ve always been good at thinking yourself out of a tight spot.