Lock Every Door

by Riley Sager

was the Manhattan version of a palace, inhabited by the city’s elite.

“What’s your name?” “Jules.” I stop, irritated

“You were hit by a car,

“Please,” I beg. “Please don’t send me back there.”

the need for an apartment sitter and

But the main reason for the building’s fame are its gargoyles. The classic

Jane

Our residents tend to be quietly wealthy. They like their privacy. A good

The twelfth floor is special.”

Outside is one of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen. Central Park.

Heart of a Dreamer. This is the exact view Ginny had from her apartment in the book.

“Another rule at the Bartholomew is that no unit can stay empty for more than a month.

Every so often, life offers you a reset button. When it does, you need to press it as hard as you can.

Each room brings a new question, just like in a game of Clue. All that’s missing

Dr. Nick will fix you right up.”

“Accident in the lobby,” Leslie tells him. “Do you

This apartment has been in my family for decades. I inherited it after my parents died five years ago.

keys end up hitting the edge of the table before clattering onto a heating vent in the foyer floor. An antique

wonder if losing keys is also against the rules. Probably.

Charlie follows with the other. Inside are replacements of every item damaged in my collision with Ingrid. New economy-size

“Just perform a good deed for someone else,” he says. “That’ll be payment enough.”

The dumbwaiter on the move. I lift the cupboard door as it rises into view. Inside is another poem.

know this poem. It was read at my parents’ funeral.

see that in her hands are two hot dogs, one of which she holds out to me.

see nothing of myself in her. And then it hits me: I see Jane.

watched from the store’s front window as a black Volkswagen Beetle pulled up to the curb. Jane, who had been waiting beneath the pharmacy’s blue-and-white-striped awning, hopped inside.

Whoever was behind the wheel was a stranger to everyone but Jane.

In my mind, Jane had joined my parents in the grave.

something about the place seems . . . off.

know the owner jumped from the roof.”

“Erica was one of us—an apartment sitter,” Ingrid

But I don’t move my hand. Not yet.

sounds, I realize, like a scream rising up the dumbwaiter shaft from the apartment below.

Ingrid had screamed. In my mind,

“It sounded like you screamed,” I finally say. “I

can’t shake the feeling that Ingrid was lying.

vaguely remember being told I was hit by a car, which I guess

witness said he saw you burst out of the Bartholomew and run right into oncoming traffic. He said you

The stone of his wing is cold against my back as he pushes me right off the roof. Soon I’m falling,

“That’s correct,” Leslie says with certainty. “Ingrid is gone.”

“Jane is gone.”

Instead, she just slipped out in the middle of the night.”

“The building’s allegedly sordid past. I told her it was ancient history and that if she was looking for gossip, she should try the internet.

“This place isn’t kind to gentle souls. It chews them up and spits them out.”

Bartholomew was haunted by its history.

“My number,” I say with a coy smile, “is 12A.”

many forms, including murder, suicide, and, in its first notable tragedy, plague.

12A was originally servants’ quarters, some of those flu victims could have slept in this very room. Maybe all of them. Maybe they even died here.

flu deaths were caused by poor ventilation in the servants’ quarters.

incident that he leapt from the roof of the structure that bore his name. The ghastly