I retrieve my phone and text Elise, the only other message in our thread from when I asked her a few weeks ago to bring ingredients to make extra juice for Willa.
Mary: you left your knives, I think.
I send the message, then hear a ping from the living room.
“Elise?” I call, but again there is nothing.
I shuffle to the couch where her purse is laid out on the cushion next to her coat. Right where she always puts it when she comes to cook.
Bathroom, maybe? Or she took a trip to her car?
Sufficiently tense now, I set my shoulders and inch back into the kitchen. The security alarm isn’t usually armed when Elise is here, but Jean would call if someone was coming up. For as startling as I thought it was that an elevator opens into our home, the building is quite secure.
It’s probably nothing, but the hair on my neck and arms is standing on end, and until I can confirm all is well, I know I won’t settle.
Starting with the kitchen, I head for the pantry, but my foot catches on something, nearly tripping me. I realize too late that it’s a shoe, a bright pink Ked, and as I catch my balance, I see Elise laid out on the ground unconscious. There’s no blood, but when I shake her, she doesn’t rouse.
I press my fingers to her neck where she does have a pulse, and then sigh, relieved that our private chef didn’tdiewhile I was upstairs taking an uncharacteristic nap.
An ambulance seems dramatic, so I text Maxim to send his doctor to help me with her. I reach for a fresh towel to put under her head, but while I’m doing this, I spot movement in my periphery. It’s slight, but I watch the unmistakable toe of a black shoe as it slowly slides out of sight.
As casually as I can muster, I stand and take a step back, holding my phone to my ear. Maxim picks up on the first ring.
“What happened?”
“Hi, yes, my name is Mary Orlov.” I try to put on my most polite voice, like I’m talking to a stranger who I need to help me. “I’m at the Glastonbury. Penthouse apartment. My chef is passed out cold in the kitchen, and I don’t really know what happened, but I’m really worried about her. Can you please send an ambulance?”
Maxim is quiet on the other side of the line.
When he speaks, his tone is lethal. “Is someone there?”
“Yeah,” I say while I untie her knife sleeve. I pull out one of the big ones and creep back toward the wall with the pantry. “I just came downstairs and found her like this. Please send someone as soon as you can.”
“Marianna, you need to get out of there. Can you make it to the elevator or the stairs?”
I flicker my eyes in that direction. I would have to turn my back to the pantry to get there, and I don’t know for certain that there’s no one in the entryway or front room. Maxim curses and says some feverish demands in Russian on the other side of the line.
“Thanks so much, I’ll stay right here with her.” I lower the phone to the counter, though I can still hear Maxim’s frantic speaking on the line. I won’t hang up, because if it seems like I’m about to be overpowered, I will goTakenon their asses and call out every defining detail I can.
When I turn the corner, I pounce. I have surprise on my side, but the intruder has about a hundred pounds and ten inches to his advantage. He’s dressed in a blue jumpsuit, like the ones I’ve seen the window-washers wear.
He lunges for me, and yelps when I land a slice to his bicep with the knife. He grabs my wrist, holding tight enough to make me drop the knife between us, but I take the opportunity to punch him with my other arm, my palm colliding with his nose to sickening effect as the cartilage breaks.
“FUCK,” the man yells, but only attacks with a faster fury, grabbing for me as I retreat into the kitchen for another weapon. There’s an empty cast iron pan on the stove and I test the weight in my palm, flipping it once before swinging up and bringing it down on the man’s head.
Between the broken nose and the thunk I just gave him, he stumbles. I’m about to take the opportunity to knock himout when another man rushes into the kitchen in a matching uniform.
The second man dives for me, and I just barely slip past his grubby paws, dropping the pan with a clatter as I slide over the kitchen island. Maxim would tell me to run, but then these men would be in our house where they coulddoanything,hideanything—maybe they already have—and they’d be alone with Elise. All of this is unacceptable, so I rush to the hall and unstrap a gun from beneath the side table. I’m about to unload a round into the second man’s chest, when he leaps for me, grabbing my wrist and making me shoot upward instead, the bullet landing in the ceiling and raining down drywall dust.
I grapple with him, but the fucker ishuge, and it’s a battle of strength to turn the gun toward me.
I change my footing, twisting and putting my bare feet between his, tripping him enough to break his hold on the gun, but his other hand grabs my bicep hard enough to bruise. I land an elbow hard enough into his chest that his grip loosens enough for me to break free.
I twist and shoot him in the chest twice. He falls like a lead weight in the ocean, choking on his own blood, just in time for his buddy to jump out, broken nose and all, wielding a huge knife.
I dodge the blow he meant for my head, and aim the gun, but slip on Thing 2’s blood, throwing off my balance enough to catch his blade in my forearm.
My arm zings with white hot pain as the gun slides away from me.
