tilted view of the Bartholomew itself. I look to the northern corner where George sits, stoic as ever, even as flames start to leap in the window just behind his wings. I’m about to give him a whispered goodbye when I notice movement on the other side of the roof.
A dark figure emerges from the smoke, stumbling toward the roof’s edge.
Even though he’s so high up and the heat of the fire causes the air around him to shimmer, I can tell it’s Nick. He has a towel pressed to his stomach. When a smoke-filled breeze kicks up, the towel flutters, flashing bits of red.
Two more people join him on the roof. Cops. Although their guns are drawn, they show no signs of using them. Nick has no place to run.
Still, he continues to stagger along the roof. The smoke pouring from 12A has gotten thicker, darker. It blows across him in malevolent strands, bringing him in and out of my vision.
When the smoke clears, I see that he’s reached the edge of the roof. Even though he must be aware of the cops following his path, he ignores them. Instead, he looks outward, surveying the park and the city beyond it.
Then, like his great-grandfather before him, Nicholas Bartholomew jumps.
SIX MONTHS LATER
56
Lo mein or fried rice?” Chloe says as she holds up two identical cardboard containers of Chinese food.
I shrug. “You pick. I’m fine with either.”
The two of us are in her apartment, which has, for the time being, become my apartment. After I was released from the hospital, Chloe handed me the keys and moved in with Paul.
“But what about rent?” I had asked.
“I’ve got it covered for now,” she said. “Pay me what you can when you can. After what you went through, I refuse to make you sleep on the couch.”
Yet the couch is where I am at the moment, sitting next to Chloe as we open our takeout containers. Lunch instead of dinner. Joining us this afternoon is Ingrid, fresh from her new job at a midtown Sephora. Although she’s dressed in black, her nails are a vivid purple. The bad bus station dye job is long gone, replaced with a relatively demure strawberry blond with a few pink streaks that frame her face.
“Rice for me, please,” she says. “I mean, I like the taste of lo mein better, but the texture’s so icky. It reminds me of worms.”
Chloe grits her teeth and hands her the container. If they gave out Nobel Prizes for patience, she’d certainly be in contention for one. She’s been a saint since the moment I was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. I haven’t heard her complain once.
Not about the reporters who spent a full week camped outside the building.
Not about the nightmares that sometimes leave me so shaken that I call her in the wee hours of the morning.
Not about Rufus, who yaps at her every time she enters the apartment.
And certainly not about Ingrid, who’s here more often than not, even though she now shares an apartment with Bobbie in Queens. Chloe knows that Ingrid and I are now bound together by what happened. I’ve got Ingrid’s back. She’s got mine. As for Chloe, she looks out for us both.
The two of them first met while I was being held against my will in the Bartholomew. When I never came back to the shelter, Ingrid went to the police, claiming I was taken by a coven living at the Bartholomew. They didn’t believe her.
The police didn’t think anything was amiss until Chloe, returning from Vermont early after eventually receiving the texts I had sent, also contacted them. A friendly cop put the two of them in touch. After Chloe went to the Bartholomew and was told by Leslie Evelyn that I had moved out in the middle of the night, the police got a search warrant. They were on their way to the building just as I was setting fire to 12A.
The fire ended up doing less damage than I intended. Yes, 12A was burnt beyond repair, but the blaze in the basement was contained by the dumpster. Still, it was enough damage to make me worry that I could face criminal charges. The detective working the case remains doubtful that will happen. I was in shock, fearing for my life, and not in my right mind.
I’ll agree the first two are true. As for the third claim, I knew exactly what I was doing.
“Even