Chapter 86
Clearly Angelo wasn’t as incapacitated as he looked.
He must’ve stopped the elevator on the ground floor, and now he’s climbing back up toward me and cutting off my only escape route.
I turn on the stairs and start back up, even as more figures appear above me on the staircase and start down.
Three of them. Dawn, Jamie, and Dr. Burgess.
Fuck.
There’s only one place left to go. I climb to the second-floor landing and barrel through the door and out to the hallway. If anyone’s been disturbed by the ruckus, they haven’t come out to investigate. The apartment doors remain closed.
I hammer on the first one but have about as much success as I did on the third floor. This time, though, I’m not giving in so easily. I reach down and grab the door handle, but it’s locked. But when I try the second door, it swings open.
From somewhere above me, I hear shouts. The elevator is moving again, too. It clanks and groans, no doubt on its way to the second floor. With nowhere else to go, I step into the apartment and slam the door behind me, then turn and engage the dead bolt.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” I call into the darkness, expecting someone to respond.
When they don’t, I call out again.
Still nothing.
Confused, I fumble around for the light switch and turn it on.
And now I see why no one answered, because the apartment is empty, and unlike my unit on the fourth floor, it looks abandoned.
The walls are covered in peeling floral-patterned wallpaper that hangs in grubby strips.
The plaster has crumbled in places to reveal the wooden laths beneath.
Dust coats the floor, along with the dried husks of dead cockroaches and the shriveled remains of a mouse.
I move into the living room, momentarily forgetting about the psychotic mob who wants me dead in my surprise.
An old-fashioned brass chandelier hangs from the ceiling.
Three of its five bulbs are missing. The walls are in the same sorry state as the foyer.
There are more dead rodents. The only piece of furniture is a sagging couch with a torn seat, covered in a thick layer of dust. Where the kitchen should be is nothing but an empty space with skeletal walls.
The air is stale and tinged with that same acidic burn of urine that I smelled in the hidden corridor above.
And then I understand. Catherine didn’t care if I screamed because there isn’t anyone else in the building to hear it.
The other apartments haven’t been renovated.
Only the ones on the fourth floor, the penthouse, and wherever Angelo and the doctor live.
Everything else has been left to fall into rack and ruin.
The Glendale exists for one reason only.
To lure unsuspecting victims into its embrace.
The voices are closer now. It sounds like they’re in the hallway, right outside the door.
I rush to the sliding doors leading out onto the balcony, because if I can get outside, I might be able to attract the attention of someone down on the street. But when I tug, they won’t open. Then I see the screws driven through the frame and into the wall, preventing the doors from moving.
A loud thud reverberates through the apartment.
I swivel around as a second thud shakes the front door.
Someone is trying to smash their way in.
I look around frantically for a weapon, something with which to defend myself, but all I see are rotting chunks of plaster and a smashed light bulb on the floor that must have come from the chandelier.
If only I still had the gun. But it wouldn’t do me any good, anyway.
The pistol wasn’t loaded. Was it just for show, a way to keep me passive, or did they give Jennifer a weapon with no bullets because they suspected that she was having second thoughts about committing murder and they didn’t want to risk her letting me escape with it? Which was exactly what she did.
Another thud, followed by a snap of splintering wood, and the door flies open. It slams back against the wall so hard that more plaster tumbles down. Jamie appears, with Dawn right behind. They advance into the room.
“There’s nowhere left for you to go,” he says. “It’s time to finish this.”
I have no intention of giving up without a fight.
I turn and run in the only direction left open to me—the bedroom.
The room is empty. Even the closet doors are gone, leaving an open space with a wooden closet bar that’s come loose at one end and now hangs down.
It’s no gun, but it’s better than nothing.
I grab the bar and wrench it from the wall, then turn to face the door as Dawn and Jamie rush in.