Lock Every Door: A Novel

Jules confronts Marjorie, whose address she found in the White Pages. Marjorie doesn’t want to answer Jules’s questions about the Bartholomew. Jules notices Marjorie’s ouroboros brooch as she’s leaving.

At the library, Jules researches symbology and Satanism. She becomes convinced that the Bartholomew’s residents are a part of a cult that sacrifices young people to conjure Satan.

Jules texts Dylan that she found important information. Bobbie calls to tell her Ingrid is at the shelter, and Jules races to the YMCA. Ingrid is thrilled to see her but begs her to leave the Bartholomew immediately.

Bobbie guards the locker room so Jules and Ingrid can talk in private. Ingrid reveals that she’s been hiding in train stations so the members of the cult, called the Golden Chalice, won’t find her. Jules realizes they’ve been using her to find Ingrid. The friends pool their information and agree about the cult theory. Ingrid confesses that she intentionally collided with Jules when she first moved in. Leslie commissioned Ingrid to cut Jules with a knife because she wanted Jules’s blood. Ingrid didn’t question the setup because she needed the money. The night Ingrid screamed, Nick broke into her apartment and tried to attack her. She fled immediately afterward. Jules starts to panic, realizing the cult will get Dylan next.

Jules repeatedly texts and calls Dylan on her way back to the Bartholomew. He doesn’t respond. She races into the building for her family photograph before leaving for good. In 12A, she grabs the photo, but turns to find Nick in the apartment with her.

Nick informs Jules that Dylan moved out. Jules begs him to let her leave, but Nick has the gun. She flings a cabinet open to block him, dodging into the dumbwaiter and lowering herself down. She races to the elevator and into the lobby while Nick runs down the stairs. Charlie tries to stop her from leaving, but Jules uses the stun gun she took from upstairs to get past. She races outside and gets hit by a car.

Jules wakes in the hospital again. She’s desperate to call Chloe, Ingrid, and the police. She manages to get out of bed despite her pain. In the hall, she realizes that she’s still at the Bartholomew. Nick, Leslie, and Dr. Wagner appear and apprehend her.

Jules dreams about her family and George the gargoyle, who attack her with knives.

Jules wakes up feeling foggy. She panics when Nick enters. He informs her that her surgery was a success; they harvested one of her kidneys.

Jules drifts in and out of consciousness. She can’t tell how much time has passed. Greta visits and thanks her for the kidney, confiding that Ingrid was meant to be the donor, but they used Jules instead. Jules screams when she notices Greta’s ouroboros pin.

Jules wakes up asking for Chloe. Nick, sitting beside her, explains that he and the Bartholomew’s other inhabitants harvest organs from the apartment sitters for illegal transplants, giving temporary tenants’ organs to ailing, wealthy ones. This is in keeping with Dr. Thomas Bartholomew’s belief that the wealthy, “by virtue of their superior breeding” should live longer (329). Nick’s grandfather died by suicide because he feared that his work wasn’t effective and the police might discover the truth. Nick has been devoted to the cause ever since. Jules realizes that Dylan, Erica, and Megan all died during organ harvesting procedures. Nick informs Jules that they’ll take her liver and heart next, as Marianne and Charlie’s daughter both need transplants. Nick gives Jules a cup of pills. She considers whether to take the sedatives, giving up like her parents did.

Jules wakes up, realizing Dylan’s heart now beats inside Mr. Leonard’s chest. Greta visits to check on Jules. Jules says she hopes Greta doesn’t die soon because she wants her to live with her crimes.

Bernard spoon feeds Jules, who goads him, realizing he’s only helping Nick for his family. To silence her, Bernard forces her to take her pills.

Jeannette feeds Jules, spilling food onto the bed. As she struggles to clean up, her lighter falls out of her pocket. Jules takes it.

After Jeannette leaves, Jules lights the room on fire with the lighter. Flames build, and the alarm goes off.

Dr. Wagner and Jeannette race into Jules’s room, too distracted by the fire to notice Jules slip out the door.

Jules moves as fast as she can through the Bartholomew’s halls, ducking into Greta’s apartment when she hears Leslie approach. Greta doesn’t give her away.

Jules slips into Nick’s apartment and grabs a knife. Nick appears, pointing the gun at her. She reconciles herself with dying but realizes the gun isn’t loaded. She holds the knife to her throat, threatening to kill herself and ruin Nick’s transplant plans. When he lunges forward, she stabs him in the stomach and flees.

Jules lights more fires on her way out of the building, including both Erica’s and her own copy of Heart of a Dreamer. In the lobby, she begs Charlie to end his involvement with Nick. She joins the crowd on the street outside. Everyone watches as Nick jumps off the Bartholomew’s roof.

Jules and Chloe have dinner at Chloe’s apartment, where Jules moved after her release from the hospital. When Chloe moved in with her boyfriend shortly thereafter, she let Jules stay, covering the rent until Jules recovered. A GoFundMe page helped Jules reestablish herself. Jules and Ingrid, who now lives with Bobbie, stayed close since the events at the Bartholomew.

The police investigation confirmed Jules’s theories and Nick’s admissions. The participants are being charged, but Greta has disappeared. Jules returns to the Upper West Side to watch the Bartholomew be demolished. Just before the wrecking ball hits, Jules starts crying for her parents, her sister, and herself.