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Summary
Jess, Jess, Nick, Jess, Jess, Mimi, Sophie, Jess, Sophie, Jess, Concierge, Jess
Jess
Jess reassures herself that the blood on the cat’s paws must have come from a captured mouse and that Ben will return the next morning with a good excuse for being out of the apartment. Unable to find anywhere else to sleep, she lies down on Ben’s bed, where she finds a pair of lacy women’s underwear.
Jess
Jess wakes up around 5 AM to the sound of a man shouting. She looks through the window into the courtyard where she sees the tall man arguing with a young woman. He approaches the woman threateningly and throws her suitcase onto the ground. The woman scrambles to pick up the contents of the suitcase after it bursts open upon impact, and the man returns to the building after glancing at Jess, who has been watching from Ben’s window. Feeling sympathy for the young woman, Jess takes Ben’s keys and goes out into the courtyard, where she helps her recover her belongings and shut the suitcase. The woman angrily tells Jess that she was only ever married to the tall man, whose name is Antoine, for his money, and that she enjoyed flirting with another person in front of him just to antagonize him. When Jess asks about Ben, the woman is evasive. After the woman leaves in a taxi, Jess returns to the building, where she sees an old woman. Jess attempts to talk to her, but she silently shakes her head before returning to her apartment.
Nick
Around 5 AM, in his apartment on the second floor, Nick exercises intensely on a stationary bike until he almost passes out. He is attempting to distract himself and push all thoughts away, though he doesn’t clarify what exactly it is he wants to avoid thinking about. He hears the fight between Antoine and the woman in the courtyard and gives up on going to sleep. Looking out the window, he sees an unfamiliar young woman, Jess, though he feels that he recognizes something about her. As she walks back into the building, Nick realizes that she must be the half-sister who Ben previously mentioned.
Jess
The next morning, Jess wakes up after a restless night. She has had a recurring dream in which Ben tells her not to open a door but she does so anyway, and is confronted with a horrible sight, which Jess does not describe. Looking around the apartment, she notes its antique features and compares it to a museum. She listens to the last voice message that she received from Ben and realizes that the message ends mid-sentence, as if he were distracted or cut off. Noticing a chemical smell in the apartment, she realizes that bleach has been poured over a section of the floor by the doorway. Further, she finds something in the gap between the floorboards: a necklace with a St. Christopher medallion, identical to the one she wears, both gifts from their mother.
Jess
With mounting anxiety, Jess struggles to account for what she has found, especially because Ben never takes his necklace off. She considers going to the police but ultimately decides against this plan, as she has had negative experiences with the police in the past and does not have any solid evidence that Ben has been the victim of foul play. Hungry, she takes Ben’s keys and goes to a nearby bakery, where she stands in line behind a wealthy 50-year-old woman with a sharp black bob. The woman drops a note on the ground, and when Jess bends down to pick it up, she snatches it rudely out of her hand. After ordering two croissants, Jess returns to the apartment where she sees a young woman dressed in black watching her from a balcony.
Mimi
Mimi, the young woman on the balcony, realizes nervously that Jess is looking at her. She reflects upon when Ben first arrived at the building three months earlier. She and her housemate, Camille, were sitting on the balcony when Ben was dropped off by an Uber. Camille notes that he is very handsome, and while Mimi responds dismissively, she too is immediately attracted to him. In the present, Mimi hears a knock at the door and realizes that it’s the young woman she saw in the courtyard, Jess. Looking at Jess, she immediately sees the resemblance to Ben. When Jess asks about Ben, Mimi claims that she hasn’t seen him for a week, though Camille points out that she saw him the previous day. Mimi pretends to have merely forgotten and quickly shuts the door on Jess before throwing up.
Sophie
Sophie finds Jess looking around the penthouse floor of the apartment and realizes, to her surprise, that she is the young woman who picked up the note when she dropped it in the bakery. When Jess inquires about Ben, Sophie responds evasively. She thinks back upon the first time she met Ben three months earlier. He arrived at the apartment with Nick, who lives in the building, and Sophie immediately took a dislike to the handsome young man, whom she regarded as arrogant despite his attempts to flatter her. Around the same time, she received the first of several blackmail letters, which threatened to reveal her true identity unless she left two thousand euros beneath a loose step by the gate of the apartment. After pawning off some expensive jewelry, Sophie left the money under the step, though a later letter rudely demands that she double the amount. In the present, she brusquely dismisses Jess.
Jess
After returning to Ben’s apartment, she looks at his social media and sees that he has deleted almost all of his profiles, which adds to her anxiety. Unsure of her next step, she finds Theo Mendelson’s business card and leaves him a voicemail. After hearing footsteps that sound as if they are coming from behind her, she notices a barely perceptible line running from the ceiling to the floor behind the sofa and realizes that there is a hidden door.
Sophie
Sophie reflects upon the blackmail letters she has received. Despite her anxieties, she sticks to her regular routine in order to ward off suspicion. When she is sure that nobody is around, she goes up the stairs to the old, unused maid’s quarters at the top of the building, which only she has access to. She spends about ten minutes there but, mysteriously, does not describe her actions during that time.
Jess
After moving the couch out of the way, Jess pulls open the door and finds a circular stone staircase going both up and down. She enters the stairway and hears footsteps coming from below her. As she makes her way down the staircase, she observes small cracks in the walls that allow her to see inside the other apartments. She sees that Nick’s apartment on the second floor is almost empty, and she also sees Antoine drinking heavily in his apartment, which is littered with empty bottles of alcohol. She continues going down until she feels that she must be underground. At last, she finds a large, basement-like room that appears to be used as storage. After spotting Ben’s Vespa scooter, the front wheel of which has been violently shredded, she finds a large collection of expensive wine. When she returns to the door that she entered from, she finds that it has been shut and concludes that someone has locked her inside.
Concierge
In her small room, the Concierge hears a knock at the door. At first, she thinks that it must be Ben, who politely introduced himself a few months earlier even though she is only an employee of the building. However, she realizes quickly that it cannot be him, though she doesn’t explain why. She opens the door to Sophie, who requests that the Concierge keep a close eye on Jess and report back to her about what she finds.
Jess
Locked in the large underground room, Jess shouts for help. The door opens and at first she thinks her rescuer is Antoine, but then realizes that he is smaller and has lighter hair. The man introduces himself as Nick, Ben’s college friend. Nick explains that the door must have been jammed, though Jess is doubtful of this.
Analysis:
Though Ben does not appear directly in these chapters, he is nevertheless on everyone’s mind. As Jess inquires about his whereabouts, his neighbors reflect upon their complicated personal histories with him, each offering a very different interpretation of the same chameleon-like man. Mimi, for example, feigns disinterest in Ben, lying to Jess about the last time she saw him. Her narrative, however, reveals that she is deeply attracted to Ben, whom she considers charming, sophisticated, and sensitive. She closely observes him upon their first meeting, appreciatively noting his muscular physique, his English accent, and even the sweat spots around his armpits. These early chapters foreshadow the obsessive tendencies that she will display later in the novel, particularly with regard to men. Sophie, conversely, takes an immediate dislike to Ben, regarding his attempts to charm her as presumptuous. While other characters note that Ben is comfortable in any surroundings, quickly making himself at home, Sophie interprets this casual air as arrogance. The Concierge also alludes to a surprisingly close relationship to Ben, who, unlike his neighbors, tried to get to know her, introducing himself shortly after moving into the building. These very different interpretations of Ben contribute to the mystery of his character.
Even Jess has a complex relationship with her half-brother. As she investigates his disappearance, she realizes just how little she truly knows about Ben. Though she is concerned for his safety, her language suggests that she also envies and resents him and the relatively privileged life that he has lived. After the death of their mother, Ben was adopted by the wealthy Daniels, whom Jess dismissively describes as his “shiny rich new family.” The Daniels only wanted to adopt one child, splitting the siblings and leaving Jess in the foster care system. Though Ben had no choice in the matter, Jess interprets Ben’s adoption by the Daniels as a form of abandonment. To her, Ben received a golden ticket out of the poverty and hardship of their adolescence and never looked back. Other characters corroborate her feeling that Ben wanted to make a clean break with his past, even expressing surprise that Ben has a sister. Sophie, for example, feels that Ben arrived fully formed in the world, with no family whatsoever. While Ben has been able to overcome his difficult childhood with the help of others, Jess feels that she has been left behind, a part of the past that Ben would rather forget.
Regardless of their complicated relationship, Jess is persistent in her attempts to track her brother down, looking for clues, interviewing his neighbors, and acting like a detective. Due to the absence of her father and the death of her murder, Ben is the only person who can offer Jess any sense of family. Though his neighbors suggest that Ben might have just left for a few days, and Jess concedes that this would be typical behavior from him, she cannot shake her deep feeling that something is wrong. Throughout the novel, Jess often relies on instinct, following the advice of her late mother. Though she has scant proof to support her suspicions, and certainly not enough evidence to take to the police, Jess trusts her own gut feelings and pursues her investigation.
