The Paris Apartment

Jess waits outside Ben’s apartment building on Rue des Amants, annoyed that he’s not picking up his phone. She spots movement nearby, as though someone is crouching by a car, but the movement stops. She admires the beauty of the building’s architecture, surprised that Ben can afford to live there on a journalist’s salary. Anti-climb spikes surround the building, which seems extreme for such a peaceful street. She knocks at the front door, and a light turns on in an overhead apartment. A shadowy figure looks down at her.

From her penthouse suite, a woman named Sophie hears the building’s door knocker below. Her dog, Benoit, barks because the door knocker is seldom used. When she looks down into the street, she sees no one and figures the concierge can deal with whoever is knocking. Sophie appreciates the relative safety of her luxury apartment building because Paris is teeming with danger. She checks herself in the mirror. At 50, she keeps her looks immaculate to continue impressing her husband, Jacques. Lately, though, she hasn’t watched her diet because stress has been keeping her thin—ever since Ben moved into the apartment building.

Jess’s relationship with Ben is important to her, even though it doesn’t seem to matter to him. However, she’s made this impromptu visit because she is unemployed again after leaving her waitressing job in England. She checks her phone to review Ben’s last texts. An unknown number has sent her a message calling her a “bitch” and reminding her that she can’t get away with something she’s done—but the text doesn’t specify what it is. She turns around when she hears footsteps behind her and sees a man take something sharp and metallic out of his pocket.

The building’s concierge observes the security camera’s footage of Jess standing outside and knocking on the door. Though Jess’s facial features are similar to Ben’s and she is visibly desperate to get into the building, the concierge takes security seriously and resents Ben for changing the building.

The man approaching Jess takes out the sharp-looking metallic object from his pocket—it’s not a knife as she feared, but an iPhone. He calls someone on the phone, then calls her a “whore.” As the man enters numbers on the entrance’s keypad, Jess tells him she’s looking for her brother, Benjamin Daniels. He says Ben is no longer in the building, then curses at her. Jess waits until the man is in the building before she enters the code she watched him enter. Jess enters the building.

From her fourth-floor apartment, a young woman named Mimi hears someone below on the street say Ben’s name. After comforting herself with her childhood stuffed animal, she looks out the window and notices the concierge in her loge, always watching. Mimi sees an unfamiliar woman at the building’s entrance, which sets her into a panic. Her roommate, Camille, is back earlier than expected, with no stories of her night out. Mimi is on edge and blames Ben’s appearance for changing everything.

The apartment building’s entrance opens onto a courtyard. Jess looks around for an elevator and sees a door labeled “Cave” (French for cellar). Her curiosity often gets her in trouble, but Jess opens the door anyway, revealing a descending stairway. She closes the door when she hears footsteps, and though she thinks she sees the shadow of a person, the shadow quickly disappears from sight. The antique, rickety lift takes her to the third floor. She finds Ben’s apartment number and knocks, but when no one answers, she uses her earrings to pick the lock. As the door opens, she touches her pendant of St. Christopher, a gift from her mother that comforts her in uncertain situations. Jess tentatively enters the enormous apartment, but something hits her across the shoulders.

The concierge watches Jess enter the building but decides not to confront her. After many years in her job, the concierge believes her power is in watching.

A cat jumps onto Jess’s shoulders and scratches at her head. The apartment feels off-kilter; there is a strange chemical smell, and the suite’s luxurious and old-fashioned character seems at odds with Ben’s usual style. When she searches his jacket pockets and finds his apartment keys and wallet, she wonders why Ben would have left without them. Additionally, Ben’s beloved laptop is gone. She feels that someone is watching her, but only the cat is present, eyes on Jess, licking blood on its paw.

Surmising that the blood on the cat is from some animal it killed in the courtyard, Jess tells herself that there’s been a simple misunderstanding and Ben will be back in the morning. Ben grew up in a wealthy family while Jess was in foster care, so experience has taught her that bad things don’t happen to Ben. She decides to go to sleep and notices a woman’s black panties slip out from his bed.

Jess awakes at 5:00am to the sounds of a man and woman shouting in the courtyard. She peers out the window and makes out a few words in French, such as “police.” When the man reaches a hand up as though to strike the woman, Jess taps against the window to distract him. She ducks when they look up. The man throws a suitcase at the woman’s feet, then looks back at the window to let Jess know he can see her. He leaves, and Jess goes down to the courtyard to check in with the woman.

As she helps the woman pack up the opened suitcase, Jess asks her if she’s seen Ben. The woman looks shocked and mutters a name—Antoine—before leaving for her Uber and saying “good riddance” to the apartment building. Jess asks her to elaborate, but the woman says she wants her alimony and will keep quiet. On her way back in the building, Jess sees the concierge staring at her. Jess approaches her, wanting to ask about Ben, but the woman silently shakes her head and walks away.

Nick works out on his Peloton in his second-floor apartment. He threw himself into the workout to avoid dealing with the routine early-morning argument in the courtyard. Now looking down into the courtyard, he sees a young woman whose gait and mannerisms resemble those of his friend Ben.

Jess takes a nap and has a nightmare. When she awakes, she checks her phone and listens again to Ben’s last voicemail. He tells her to ring him when she arrives, but the message cuts off and there is another sound in the background. As Jess explores the apartment again, she notices a lighter patch in the floor’s wood and remembers the chemical smell from last night—bleach. She sees something between the floorboards and pulls out Ben’s St. Christopher pendant.

Jess considers calling the police but lacks evidence of criminal involvement. Additionally, she has had run-ins with law enforcement before and would rather stay under their radar. She goes out for croissants and encounters a rude woman in line at the bakery. On Jess’s way back into the apartment building, a young woman (Mimi) looks at her through a fourth-floor window. Jess resolves to get that woman to share what she knows.

As Mimi watches Jess, she remembers Ben’s arrival. He seemed effortlessly handsome, and Camille remarked on his attractiveness. Mimi had never had sex, while Camille was sexually liberal in ways that intimidated and impressed Mimi, whose overprotective father was eager to keep her childish. 

Jess knocks on Mimi’s door. Mimi claims not to have seen Ben in a while, but Camille interrupts and reminds her that she saw him yesterday. Camille says Ben would ask her to take care of his cat if he went away—another clue that Ben’s absence was unplanned. Before Jess can ask more questions, Mimi slams the door in her face.

Sophie runs into Jess in the hallway and, embarrassed, recognizes her as the woman from the bakery she was rude to. Jess had picked up a fallen note of Sophie’s, which (in French) threateningly demanded that “next time,” Sophie pay “double” of something. When Jess asks about Ben, Sophie refers her to Ben’s friend Nicholas on the second floor. 

Sophie first met Ben out in the courtyard where she was gardening. She immediately disliked Ben; he was too charming. Two weeks later, she received her first extortion note, demanding €2,000 in exchange for keeping her real identity a secret. She pawned an emerald bracelet for the cash.

Jess entertains the thought that Ben did go away without telling her. She remembers when Ben was adopted into a wealthy family, leaving her behind in foster care and barely keeping in touch.

In Ben’s wallet, Jess earlier found a business card for the Paris editor of the Guardian, Theo Mendelson. Hoping he and Ben were in contact with one another, she sends a message to Theo’s number, introducing herself and her goal of finding Ben. She hears the sound of footsteps behind her, as if someone is walking through the wall. She pushes back the silk wall covering and finds what looks like a door.

Sophie rips up the latest message from her extortionist. She leashes Benoit and enters the stairway in the walls, a remnant of the maids’ quarters from Parisian history.

Jess enters through the door and descends the tight, winding staircase. At each door, she can peek through the cracks into other people’s apartments. She sees Nick’s apartment, then the apartment of Antoine, the man who cursed at her at the building’s entrance. He’s drinking from a Jack Daniels bottle and stares at the door as though he can see Jess through the cracks. She continues through the staircase down toward the basement, where people have left bicycles, wine bottles, and cleaning supplies. She sees a Vespa and tries one of Ben’s keys. The Vespa turns on, which assures Jess that Ben didn’t leave of his own accord. The light turns off, and Jess turns back toward the door she entered through. She left it open, but now it’s closed—and it won’t open when she tries it. Someone has locked her in the basement.