Chapter One: Elly

CHAPTER ONE ELLY

Elly Parker strode through the crowds in New York’s Grand Central Station and thought about all that she had lost. The painted heavens on the ceiling above shone down on the crowds, but not on Elly.

She was twenty-seven years old.

Two weeks ago, she had everything.

Perfect husband. Perfect apartment. Perfect friends and the perfect job.

And everyone knew it.

She put “journalist and social-media influencer” on her tax return. She wrote lifestyle pieces for high-end magazines, but most of her income came via social media—YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Her channels were filled with creative and highly produced videos of her amazing apartment, her fits, her makeup demonstrations—her life.

Because there was another reason Elly was so popular. Her series of videos on random acts of kindness. That is what set her apart. Her account wasn’t just about her; it was about spreading a little love in the big city. Sometimes that was buying a meal for someone living on the street, or giving a bigger tip to a waiter, or walking her elderly neighbor’s dog, or even something as small as holding the door open for someone. These she captured and shared on her socials in the hope that it inspired others to do the same.

It worked.

#RAK regularly trended across social media.

Not only did Elly have the life she had always wanted—she had the life that her five million followers wanted too. None of this had been given to Elly. She had worked hard to win every single one of those followers. They loved her because she never took anything for granted. She had her first-ever video pinned to her profile. It showed a much younger Elly taking thirty bucks to her nearest CVS and buying everything from the makeup counter that a young woman needs to create a great evening look. That video was a reminder—to her followers and to Elly—of how far she had come in six years, and that she was still that young woman who was excited and grateful for every break she got, every lipstick that she received in the mail, and every set of eyeballs on her channels. People loved Elly because she was just like anyone else who had a dream, except Elly’s dream had come true, and she was going to share it with everyone—with grace, a smile, and heartfelt humility.

The problem with sharing your perfect life with millions of people is that millions of people are watching when it falls apart.

Two weeks ago Elly’s life exploded. And the world watched. She had taken down the video soon after it had happened, but by then it was too late. People had clipped it and were posting it all over TikTok, Instagram, YouTube—everywhere.

Elly’s phone buzzed in her coat pocket. As she reached for it, she checked the time on the gold clock in the station. Almost noon. Her appointment with her agent, Giselle, wasn’t until two o’clock. Elly wanted to ride the train uptown, find a Starbucks, and relax for an hour, gather her thoughts before her meeting. Giselle was fielding interview requests from The New Yorker, Vogue, Rolling Stone, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. Elly was a star in the making. She had opportunities in broadcast television, in publishing and journalism. She was set to be one of the few social media stars to jump into the mainstream legacy media. Not that Elly felt like being in the world, not even outside. Apart from the meeting with her agent every Tuesday and Thursday, Elly hadn’t left the hotel. The same hotel she’d booked into the day she found James and Harriet together. She’d hastily stuffed a bag with essentials and retreated to the anonymity of the American hotel experience. She felt exposed. Too much attention for her to deal with right now. She hadn’t posted anything online in two weeks.

Since that live video, everyone wanted her story. Everyone wanted Elly.

Except one person.

Her husband.

As she looked at the ornate celestial ceiling in Grand Central, she thought how different her life would now be if she had ignored the noise coming from her bedroom during her live video. Her friendship groups were all shared by James and Harriet, and she didn’t want to speak to her friends because she knew whatever she said would get back to James and Harriet. Her agent, Giselle, was a shoulder to cry on—for now. But she knew sooner or later she was going to have to deal with her problems. If Giselle had her way, Elly would do that on Morning Joe.

Elly’s boots found the stairs down into the bowels of the city to the subway. She broke left, headed downtown. Her hair, tied up at the base of her neck, bobbed with her movement. A navy beret helped disguise her general appearance. She didn’t want attention.

She was moving forward. In every way.

She had no choice. She knew that now. The world had shared the pain of her betrayal, and Elly had tried to be strong.

But she wasn’t. Not really.

She could not be in that apartment. It was the scene of their betrayal. She had checked into a hotel, to get away from everyone and everything. Hotels are not real life. They have dry cleaning on demand, food twenty-four hours a day, and, worst of all, a minibar. Except this was a really good hotel, and they had full bottles of wine in the fridge. Last night, after she had opened a second bottle of wine, Elly sent James a text message.

A single word.

Hello

No response.

She waited for a half hour. Had another glass of chardonnay, then called him.

He didn’t answer.

She called him again.

He didn’t pick up.

Over the course of consuming the rest of the bottle, she had called him another six times.

It hadn’t helped that James was now one of the most hated figures on social media. Elly’s TikTok had seen to that. He’d deleted his Instagram along with the rest of his social media. It didn’t stop the hate. Tens of thousands of people pouring abuse onto his name, contacting his friends, his family, his employers. In the two weeks since that live video outing James and Harriet, they had both suffered. Harriet got dropped by her modeling agency, and James was fired for bringing his firm into disrepute.

Elly didn’t ask for any of that to happen. She knew it could. And she didn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop it.

None of it helped Elly feel better. Revenge was not sweet. It tasted bitter. She still loved him. Now she had to bear the guilt of ruining two lives as well as managing the pain in her own.

Elly took off a brown leather glove, wiped at the tear on her cheek as she turned the corner for the downtown train and tapped her phone on the scanner as she went through the barrier.

A single set of stairs led down to the platform. It was midday. Not too many commuters around, but New York is never quiet. There are always people.

A man stood at the top of the stairs. He had a cast on his left leg from below the knee to the top of his foot and held a crutch in each arm. Even though it was cold, he wore sweatpants with one leg cut away because of the cast, a sweater, and a red jacket. He had a thin face, but he wasn’t struggling to hold his weight on those crutches. Even from a distance, Elly could see he had powerful arms and shoulders. He reminded her of boys she had known on the swim team or gymnastics team in college.

But this was no college boy.

He was older. Ten, maybe fifteen years older than Elly. Yet he didn’t look like most forty-somethings. Not to Elly. He looked… well, Elly thought he looked just great. He wore a blue baseball hat. He leaned down, still holding the crutch with his right hand, and tried to grab something.

Beside him there was a yellow hard-shell luggage case on rollers. He moved forward a little, gripping the handle and the crutch as he shuffled along, but now he had a new problem. He was trying to get down the stairs but couldn’t quite figure out how to carry the case and use the crutches to support his weight on the descent. A woman in a long black coat pushed past him, and he fell against the rail. She hollered an apology as she skipped down the steps. He simply smiled. Didn’t show any anger or irritation, just a polite wave of acknowledgment.

After the last two weeks of carnage, Elly found herself stepping toward the man and saying, “Do you need some help with your case?”

Perhaps because she wanted to help. Perhaps because she missed the warm feeling that came after she had completed one of her daily random acts of kindness. Perhaps because the guy looked quite pathetic and she felt sorry for him.

At first, he was surprised. His mouth opened and moved, but no words and no sound came out. At this point she noticed a scar on his chin, just below his lower lip. Pale and wide. An old wound. Then he smiled and said gratefully, “Thank you. I managed this far holding it with the crutch and dragging it alongside me, but that doesn’t work with stairs. This is so kind.”

“No problem,” said Elly, reaching down. She pressed the button on the extendable handle at the top of the case, pushed it down, took the plastic handle, and picked it up. It wasn’t too heavy, the type of case she liked to use for carry-on baggage when she flew.

A thought occurred to her that two weeks ago, before that viral video, Elly would have asked the man if it was okay for her to take a video for her socials. This would’ve been a good one for her daily random acts of kindness. But not now. Elly didn’t know if she would ever post online again.

She waited a moment until the man got both crutches secure on his arms, lowered them to the first step, and then hopped down. He’d bent the broken leg, using it to help his balance as the rubber feet on the crutches found the next step. The crutches clicked as they took his weight, and he said, “People have been walking past me for the last five minutes. I didn’t know how I was going to get down to the platform. People in this city are so busy they…”

SNAP!

The plastic handle broke off the case.

Not only did it stop the man speaking, but time itself seemed to stop for Elly. She froze. So did the man. They didn’t try to grab the case—no point. Instinctively, Elly’s hand reached for her mouth, and she drew in a fierce gasp.

They watched as it fell, almost in slow motion.

The case hit the steps and bounced into the air, somersaulting and then hitting them again, sending it tumbling down, down, down onto the platform with a dull thunk, and then the case burst open, charging cables, a laptop, underwear, socks—everything spilled out onto the platform.

“Oh my God, oh my God, I’m soooo sorry,” said Elly over and over again, like a breathless mantra as she hustled down the steps.

“It’s okay. It was an accident,” said the man as he slowly and carefully made his way down.

Elly crouched down instinctively and began to gather the man’s items, placing them back into the case. She felt sick and useless as she snatched his Calvin Klein underwear from the dirty platform, folded them, and stuffed them into the open case. This was all so inappropriate that she felt her cheeks burning with the shame of it.

She was out of breath. Her neck flushed red. Her nervous system flooded with the adrenaline that comes with total, immolating embarrassment.

The man reached the platform, and as he tried to bend down to help her retrieve his personal items, he overbalanced and fell, twisting to save his broken leg and landing on his ass.

“Oh. My. God. Are you all right? I’m so sorry! Jesus, what have I done?”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” said the man.

They were both on the ground: Elly on her knees, the man on his ass. People walked past them, their knees, high heels, jeans, and boots marching on either side of them.

Elly and the man made eye contact and they both laughed nervously. It broke the tension, and Elly let out a relieved guffaw of laughter.

“Let me help you up,” she said, getting to her feet. The man got his good foot beneath him, took Elly’s hand for balance, a crutch in the other, and soon was upright. She gave him his other crutch and wiped sweat from her forehead. Everything was back in the case now. Not neatly, but it was there. Elly dropped to a crouch, closed over the lid of the case, and then felt around the edge, looking for the zipper. She found it.

The zipper was already fully closed.

On closer examination, she discovered the fabric part of the case on one side had come away from the seam attaching it to the hard shell. The case would not stay closed.

She lifted it, one hand underneath, the other hand on top, and said, “You don’t have, like, a band or something to hold this together?”

The man shook his head, said, “This has not been my week. I’ll have to go repack, leave some stuff at my apartment, and take my backpack. I’ve just got time to do that and make it to the airport for my flight home.”

She put the case on the floor, rubbed her head.

“I feel terrible, I’m so—”

“It’s not your fault. Honestly, I appreciate you trying to help. I can’t manage the stairs yet. I shattered my ankle at soccer practice and I’m still getting used to these damn things,” he said, holding up one crutch.

Elly felt sick looking at the busted suitcase.

“How are you going to get this case back to your apartment?”

He stared at it, said, “Maybe if I jam it under my arm? That should keep it closed. Could you help me lift it under there?”

Elly sighed, checked her watch. She didn’t have any appointments for hours. This was supposed to be preparation time.

“How far is your apartment?” she asked.

“Just a few blocks over.”

Elly picked up the case, held it closed in her arms, said, “Come on, I’ll help you.”

“No, I couldn’t ask you to—”

“It’s the least I can do. If I don’t help you, then I’ll just feel awful all day,” she said.

By the time the man had made his way back up the steps, he was out of breath.

“Thank you. I actually don’t know how I would make it back without you. I’m Logan,” he said.

“Elly,” she said, and made sure to slow her pace, matching Logan’s unsteady, halted movements with the crutches.

They made it out of the station onto Forty-Second Street, and Logan moved to the crosswalk.

The case wasn’t heavy, even with the contents inside, but it was awkward to hold and walk with the damn thing. She held it tucked underneath her left arm, her fingers just reaching the bottom side. She gripped it tightly and held it closed so it wouldn’t open far enough for his underwear or anything else to fall out. As they crossed the street, her left arm began to tire, and she switched awkwardly, almost spilling the case again in the middle of the crosswalk.

“Jesus, there’s no way you could’ve gotten this thing back to your apartment by yourself,” said Elly.

“I know. I was just too embarrassed to ask for help,” said Logan.

“You don’t get to be embarrassed—you’re injured. I’m fully functional, but it was me who managed to toss your case down the steps hard enough to break it.”

“It was the cheap handle,” said Logan. “You’ve been nothing but kind. No one else stopped to help me.”

“Most people in this city are too busy to help a stranger,” said Elly. “It’s kinda sad. We should help out more.”

They reached the other side of the street and kept going south until they hit Fortieth. A man in a large, filthy coat sat on a cardboard bed on the corner. No way of telling how old he was. Homeless people age faster. The streets of New York are like time machines. One night on a sidewalk feels like a week. A week feels like a year, and it shows on the faces of the homeless, and in their eyes.

Elly slowed, shifted the case under a different arm so she could reach into her pants pocket. She brought out five dollars and handed it to the man. He looked sleepy. He took the money, quizzically at first, then stared up at Elly. He mouthed a thank-you.

Elly and Logan walked on.

“You’re a good person, Elly,” said Logan.

“I try to do one thing every day to help somebody. I haven’t done that in a while. I’m not really that good of a person,” said Elly, thinking about James and Harriet. They had both hurt her deeply. A wound that she would carry on her heart for a long time. Yet they didn’t deserve to have their lives ruined for one mistake.

“You don’t take compliments too easily,” he said, smiling.

“Like I said, I’m not so good. I just try to make up for my mistakes. Makes me feel better.”

“So I’m one of your charity cases? Like that guy on the corner?” he said again, smiling.

“Maybe,” said Elly, “but he’s in better shape than you. How did you say you broke your foot?”

“Ankle, playing soccer. Guy stepped on my foot when I was going for the ball.”

“Ouch.”

“You’re telling me. I’ve got plates and screws and all kinds of stuff in there… Oh, wait, we’re here,” he said, stopping outside an apartment complex.

It was an old building and—from the bags of cement, plaster, buckets, and tools piled up in the lobby—it looked as if it was about to get some much-needed maintenance and repairs. Logan hit the button for the elevator and waited.

It was cold outside but surprisingly warm in the small lobby.

Elly noticed the elevator button hadn’t illuminated after Logan hit it. She wondered if he had not pressed it correctly; he’d still had his arm slung through a crutch at the time. She pressed it firmly. The button didn’t illuminate. Logan leaned toward the elevator doors, rapidly pressed the call button, and listened for a few seconds. Elly couldn’t hear any of the usual noises that elevators make. No mechanical whirr from the jib wheel lowering the counterbalance, no distant rattle of elevator doors closing on an upper floor. Logan leaned back and looked at the LED display fixed on the top of the elevator doors.

“I cannot believe this,” he said. “Yesterday the garbage chute got blocked, today the elevator. I’m sorry: My building is a mess. My ankle is a mess and my life is a mess.”

“It’s okay. What floor are you on?”

“Third?” said Logan, the pitch of that one-word reply rising at the end, changing it into a question instead of a statement.

“Well, I’ve come this far,” said Elly. “No point in leaving you with the case here. Stairs are not your friend. Come on, I’ll race you,” she said.

“No fair,” said Logan, and they both laughed as he pointed Elly in the direction of the stairwell. This was, in so many ways, a pain in the ass for Elly. She hated stairs, but she thought Logan was funny and a little cute in his own way. More than anything else, she was glad for the distraction. This poor guy had busted his ankle, and then Elly had busted his case. For the first time in weeks, she wasn’t thinking about the pain of having been betrayed by the two people in her life whom she had loved and trusted the most; she wasn’t thinking about the millions of people who had watched her walk in on her husband while he was in bed with her best friend; she wasn’t thinking about the tsunami of abuse that followed James and Harriet and how, somehow, Elly bore responsibility for that too.

Logan’s broken ankle, broken case, and shit-out-of-luck life was making her feel better in every way.

It may have been the third floor, which was better than the eighth floor, but it still meant six flights of stairs, which were just as hot as the lobby. The old pipes snaked along the exposed-brick walls and followed the stairs upward like thick iron-and-copper snakes. And, just like snakes, they hissed. Whatever serious problems this building may have had, heating was not one of them. By the time they reached the third floor and the door to Logan’s apartment, both of them were out of breath and covered in sweat.

“Thank God,” said Logan as he put his key in the door and pushed inside.

The apartment was like a lot of spaces in the city for young professionals: small but no doubt ridiculously expensive. A tiny kitchenette on the right. A living space with a tasteful leather couch pointed at a TV, some bookcases, and—two doors beyond, one bathroom and one bedroom, she guessed.

Elly brought the case through to the living space, asked, “Where do you want this?”

“Ahm, just dump it on the floor. I can slide it into the bedroom with my feet,” said Logan, breathing hard from the effort of hopping up the stairs.

He was being mindful that Elly was in a strange place with a strange man, and maybe asking her to step into his bedroom might make her feel uncomfortable. Even though her arms were aching, and she was out of breath and sweating from the stairs, she appreciated the thought.

Logan was all right. Considerate, even.

“It’s okay, honestly. Where’s the bedroom?” she asked, between breaths.

“On the right,” said Logan, who kept back, giving her space, allowing Elly to push open the door. The bedroom had a double bed, white sheets, a built-in closet, and just barely enough floor space to walk around the furniture. She dumped the case on the bed, came out of the bedroom, and opened her coat, flapped it to help her cool off.

“I can’t thank you enough,” said Logan. “There’s some water in the fridge if you’d like some. Help yourself to a carton. I’ll just be a minute or two repacking. I just need to find my backpack…”

He moved into the bedroom and closed the door. Elly checked her watch. She still had a ton of time. No rush. Her lips were dry, and she really did need something cool to drink. She shook her arms, trying to get blood back into her biceps, then opened the refrigerator. While Logan may have seemed like a woke, hip, metrosexual type of New Yorker, he was still a guy, and this was definitely a guy’s fridge.

Some elderly vegetables in a drawer, a jar of mustard, jar of peanut butter, some milk, and half a dozen cartons of water. No plastic bottles: cartons of Icelandic spring water. Obviously, Logan was passionate about the environment too.

Elly exposed her neck to the cool air from the refrigerator, took a carton of water, opened it, and enjoyed a long drink. Still with the door open, the air cooling her skin, she drank most of the carton. Closing the fridge, she looked toward the bedroom. The door wasn’t fully closed, just shut. Elly took the opportunity to take a better look around the apartment.

It all appeared clean and nicely decorated. Neutral colors, two windows on either side of the TV, with a view of the street below, but not much light. A coffee table with some large art books carefully arranged on top. Copies of The New Yorker in a rack on the bookcase. Most of the books were old—the classics, she guessed.

Elly loved books. She took a few minutes to study the racks, noting a couple of titles that were also among her personal favorites.

This Logan guy was really growing on her.

Two bulky garbage bags were piled up behind the door in the short hallway. The only things out of place, really. She remembered him mentioning the garbage chute was blocked, probably the construction workers’ fault, throwing something down there that didn’t belong. She imagined Logan would struggle to get those garbage bags downstairs on his crutches. Poor guy seemed to be having a bad time of it.

Logan was still in the bedroom.

Elly was of two minds. She could leave now and head back to the station, but Logan was probably heading back that way too. And she wanted to make sure he had a backpack and that he could manage. She decided to give it another few minutes, walk back that way with him. There was a charm to his helplessness.

And he was proving to be shelter from the nuclear heat of the explosion that had ripped through Elly’s life these past weeks.

For a moment her mind flashed on the night before, the calls to James that he didn’t pick up. A drunken mistake. Even the thought of it sent waves of loathing through her stomach.

She tried to focus her mind on Logan, and his apartment, and how fate can sometimes lend a helping hand—making sure you meet the right people at just the right time in your life.

But thoughts of her pleasant morning with the man on his crutches didn’t shift the uneasy feeling in her stomach. If anything, she began to feel worse by the second. Her stomach groaned and burbled, and a swell of pain washed her gut. She bent over and took a breath and it passed, but just for a moment. She straightened up and the pain came again. This time her vision washed in a haze that made the titles on the book spines blur.

Vertigo now.

Her head felt far too heavy for her body, and she had to grab the shelves to maintain her balance.

Elly slipped the carton of water into the large pocket of her overcoat so she could use both hands to steady herself.

She needed some air. She thought of going to the window, but the room was suddenly terrifically hot. Sweat dripped onto the hardwood flooring as she turned and took a step toward the door. She took a second, gathered herself, did some breathing exercises she had learned in yoga class, and her head felt a little clearer.

The door. The hallway. The stairs. Air.

In that order.

As soon as Elly let go of the shelves and made for the door, her vision swam, her head spun, and she stumbled. It was as if she were on the deck of a ship being tossed around by waves the size of skyscrapers. More faltering steps couldn’t find her balance, and she fell forward, her hands outstretched to save her. Her left knee took a hit as she went down, and she collided with the garbage bags piled behind the door.

The red bark of agony from her knee somehow cleared her head, and she was able to get onto her side and sit up. She blinked, winced, and held her knee. There would be a hell of a bruise from that fall. But her vertigo had eased. As Elly slowly gathered her feet beneath her and used the wall for balance, she stood up. It was then she noticed the garbage bags had ripped when she landed on top of them.

They were quite firm and unyielding. As if a box was in each bag.

Elly wiped sweat from her eyes, and for a second thought how clumsy she was. Maybe she was just faint from the effort of carrying the case up all those stairs.

Then she saw something through the rip in one of the garbage bags.

Something that stopped her heart.

She leaned over, put her fingers inside the bag, and tore it open. Then did the same to the bag beside it after poking her fingers through the plastic.

Elly froze. Shock rooting her boots to the floor like cement.

There, in the garbage bags…

Two.

Yellow.

Broken.

Suitcases.

The handle hanging limp at the top of each one.

The zippers closed.

The fabric between the zippers and the cases ripped.

Both cases were identical in every way to the case she had just carried up six flights of stairs.

Her gut squeezed.

Saliva filled her mouth, and Elly moved.

Out the front door, not looking back.

Down the first flight of stairs, clinging to the rail with her left hand in case she lost her balance again and tumbled over the side.

Panting.

Heartbeat rattling like a snare.

Her feet matching that fast tempo, adrenaline taking her down those stairs.

As she half stumbled, half bounced down the steps, she realized almost absentmindedly that her stomach and right leg felt wet. She grabbed the carton of water from her coat pocket. It was leaking. She probably hadn’t sealed it again properly.

Another flight down. Quick turn on the landing and down another set of steps. The door to the lobby visible now.

As Elly was almost at the bottom of the stairs, she was about to toss the water but saw, strangely, that it was indeed sealed with the cap.

But her hand was wet.

Elly reached the bottom of the staircase, thumped open the door to the lobby of the building, and ran for the front door.

In the sunlight and the cool air, she felt the pain in her knee and the churning nausea return.

Elly doubled over and vomited violently. The suddenness of the reaction frightened her. She looked at the carton of water again, thinking about taking a drink to wash out her mouth, and then saw where the water was leaking.

A tiny hole in the top of the carton.

The kind that could be made with a pin.

Or the needle from a syringe.

Her vision whirled into a kaleidoscope of colors and random shapes as the carton fell from her hand and the ground came up to meet her. A terrible pain on the side of her head.

Elly used her arms to push herself off the ground and saw the pool of blood where her head had been.

She crawled forward, onto the street.

People passing by.

Knees and shoes and legs all around her, a blur as she crawled toward the curb.

Voices. The sidewalk. And then the blue sky.

Elly saw a face before her eyes. She was lying on her back, and the homeless man she had given some money to was kneeling over her.

He looked concerned, and he was saying something, but Elly couldn’t understand a word. More faces appeared, obscuring the sky above.

Strangers.

Their lips moving. But Elly couldn’t hear anything.

Then black.

And a deeper, darker silence.