The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

sake: it feels like everyone I meet in here is speaking in riddles—except
     Nick, maybe. I have this sudden, almost violent urge to run up to her and, I don’t know, shake her or something . . . force
     her to tell me what she means. I swallow my frustration.
    When I turn to open the gate I’m sure I can feel her gaze across my shoulder blades, definite as the touch of fingertips.
     And as I step onto the street I can’t help but wonder: was that a warning or a threat?

Concierge
    The Loge
    The gate clangs shut behind the girl. She thinks that she’s staying in a normal apartment building. A place that follows ordinary
     rules. She has no idea what she has got herself into here.
    I think of Madame Meunier’s instructions. I know that I have no option but to obey. I have too much at stake here not to cooperate.
     I will tell her that the girl has just left, as she asked me to do. I will tell her when she comes back, too. Just like the
     obedient member of staff I am. I do not like Madame Meunier, as I have made clear. But we have been forced into an uneasy
     kind of alliance by this girl’s arrival. She has been sneaking around. Asking questions of those that live here. Just like
     he did. I can’t afford to have her drawing attention to this place. He wanted to do that too.
    There are things here that I have to protect, you see. Things that mean I can never leave this job. And up until recently
     I have felt safe here. Because these are people with secrets. I have been too deep into those secrets. I know too much. They
     can’t get rid of me. And I can never be rid of them.
    He was kind, the newcomer. That was all. He noticed me. He greeted me each time he passed in the courtyard, on the staircase. Asked me how I was. Commented on the weather. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it felt like such a long timesince someone had paid any attention to me, let alone shown me kindness. Such a long time since I had even been noticed as a human being. And soon afterward he began asking his questions.
    â€œHow long have you worked here?” he inquired, as I washed the stone floor at the base of the staircase.
    â€œA long time, Monsieur.” I wrung out my mop against the bucket.
    â€œAnd how did you come to work here? Here—let me do that.” He carried the heavy bucket of water across the hallway for me.
    â€œMy daughter came to Paris first. I followed her here.”
    â€œWhat did she come to Paris for?”
    â€œThat was all a very long time ago, Monsieur.”
    â€œI’m still interested, all the same.”
    That made me look at him more closely. Suddenly I felt I had told him enough. This stranger. Was he too kind, too interested? What did he want from me?
    I was very careful with my answer. “It isn’t a very interesting story. Perhaps some other time, Monsieur. I have to get on
     with my work. But thank you, for your help.”
    â€œOf course: don’t let me hold you up.”
    For so many years my insignificance and invisibility have been a mask I can hide behind. And in the process I have avoided
     raking up the past. Raking up the shame. As I say, this job may have its small losses of dignity. But it does not involve
     shame.
    But his interest, his questions: for the first time in a very long time I felt seen. And like a fool, I fell for it.
    And now this girl has followed him here. She needs to be encouraged to leave before she is able to work out that things are
     not what they seem.
    Perhaps I can persuade her to go.

Jess
    It’s strange to be back among people, traffic, noise, after the hush of the building. Disorientating, too, because I still
     don’t really know where I am, how all the roads around here connect to one another. I check the map on my phone quickly, so
     as not to burn too much more data. The café where I’m meeting this Theo guy turns out to be all the way across town on the
     other side of