Page 126 of The New Couple in 5B

“Rosie.” It’s Ella. “You’re distraught. You’ve been through so much. The loss of Ivan, finding Dana’s body, Xavier, your miscarriages. Just come inside and we’ll call your doctor, talk this all through.”

If they need my signature on that paper, they won’t get it.

I decide that I’ll jump myself before I give it to them. But then what? What story will they write about me? Will they say I was prone to depression, unstable? People would believe that I killed myself. And will they somehow get the apartment anyway?

“The truth is, dear, that our artist friend Anna is also an accomplished forger. Your signature will be easy for her to copy. We’d like your signature. Should there be scrutiny, it would be best to have it. But we don’t need it.”

So then, whatdothey want from me? It dawns on me then that Chad must be dead. They got his signature and he’s gone. The thought opens a black hole of despair inside me. I don’t want to live this life without him. I choke back sobs.

Olivia, too. Like Dana, Xavier, Betty.

Because of the apartment? Because of the Windermere?

Maybe I’m the only one left. It feels like it, like I am the only one left in the world.

I stay quiet, shaking. What else is possible? What is left for me to do now? I ask a god I don’t even believe in. Not surprisingly, there’s no answer.

I hear a muffled cry. A note that sounds familiar.

“But if you do sign,” Ella says. “We’ll let your little sister and her baby go home.”

My blood runs cold, and it takes everything I have to stay silent.

They’re lying. Sarah left, hours ago. She’s long gone, heading back to her country life, rightly giving up on her sister who is never coming home.

“She never left the building, Ms. Lowan,” says Abi, reading my thoughts. “We took her as she tried to leave. She’s well, I assure you. For now.”

There’s a shuffle and a murmur. I rise from my hiding place, keeping the knife behind my back. It’s not just Abi and Ella. Charles is there, too, holding Sarah. Her mouth is gagged, and arms bound behind her back. Her face is streaked with tears as she struggles. She’s such a tiny woman, like a child next to Charles, who towers over her as he holds her tight.

“Let her go,” I say, voice strained with anger and fear.

My whole body is shivering, weak from whatever they gave me, cold, terrified. The palm that holds the knife is clammy and shaking.

“We’ll happily release her,” says Ella, level, unruffled as ever. “She’ll go back to her life because she wants to save her baby, and we all heard over the intercom how badly you have treated your family. So why would she care what happens to you after we release her? All you have to do is sign.”

Right.

All I have to do is sign—and die.

forty-two

The world is fading. I don’t have much time, I think, before I pass out again. I can feel the drug—whatever it was—still pulsing through my veins, making things foggy and vague.

And isn’t there some kind of relief in that thought? That it’s over, that I’ve lost? After all the fighting and hustling and reaching for this brass ring, and all the blood and grasping after things just out of reach, that you’re just falling and falling, the ground rising up fast to greet you. We never belonged here. We were never going to stay at the Windermere.

Chad and Olivia are probably already gone.

I look at the ledge and remember Xavier’s choice. It’s tempting. If Chad’s gone, what’s left? Or maybe it wasn’t a choice, and he was pushed.

“What’s it going to be, lovey? We don’t have all night,” says Ella with an annoyed sigh.

My sister makes some kind of panicked noise, and we lock eyes. I feel the jolt of our connection.

Maybe I can broker my sister’s safety, send her and her baby home. At least my life can be worth that much.

“Okay,” I say finally. “I’ll sign.”

Sarah starts to scream behind her gag and struggles against Charles, who holds her firm, his face blank and impassive like he couldn’t care less about any of it.

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