Lock Every Door(82)

“Or we could go to the police,” I suggest.

“And tell them what? That a bunch of rich bitches at the Bartholomew are worshipping the devil? Just saying it sounds ridiculous.”

As does hearing it out loud, even though it’s exactly what I think is happening. They post discreet ads in newspapers and online, luring people to the building with the promise of money and a place to stay. People like me and Ingrid and Dylan.

Each of us entered the Bartholomew willingly. But once we were there, the rules kept us trapped.

“How did you figure it all out?”

“It was Erica who started it,” Ingrid says. “We went to the park, just like you and I did, and she told me she found out that the person who was in 12A before her wasn’t dead, which is what she’d been told. That freaked her out a little. So I did some research into the Bartholomew and learned about some of the weird stuff that happened there. That freaked Erica out a lot. So when she left, I assumed it was because she felt too creeped out to stay there anymore. But then Dylan came by asking if I’d heard from her. And that’s when I suspected something else was going on.”

Her story is a lot like my own. Her new friend went missing; she started to think something weird was going on and decided to look into it. The only difference was that she learned about Greta Manville’s relationship to Cornelia Swanson much sooner than I did.

“I met Greta in the lobby during my interview with Leslie,” Ingrid says. “And I thought it was cool to be in the same building as an author, you know? At first, I thought she was nice. She even gave me a signed copy of her book. But when I read about Cornelia Swanson and noticed their resemblance, I knew what was up.”

“You asked her about it,” I say. “She told me.”

“I guess she left out the part about threatening to get me kicked out if I ever talked to her again.”

That detail went unmentioned, even when Greta told me about her life at the Bartholomew. My apartment used to be her apartment, which means that at one point it belonged to Cornelia Swanson.

It’s the same apartment where she murdered her maid.

Only it wasn’t just a murder.

It was a sacrifice.

Fulfilling the promise of the ouroboros.

Creation from destruction.

Life from death.

Ruby might have been the first, but I have a heart-sickening feeling that Erica was the last. I try not to think about how many others there have been in between then and now. There’ll be plenty of time to dwell on that later. Right now, I need to focus on one thing—extricating myself from the place in a way that will cause the least amount of suspicion.

“What happened after you talked to Greta?”

“I knew I didn’t want to stay there, that’s for damn sure.” Ingrid stands and makes her way to the row of sinks along the wall. She turns on the tap and starts splashing her face with water. “At that point, I had two thousand dollars in apartment-sitting money. Enough to get me far away from that place. But I also knew there’d be a lot more money coming if I stayed.”

The cash. Dangled in front of us at the end of each week. Yet another way the Bartholomew trapped us. It certainly kept me there another night.

“I decided to stay,” Ingrid says. “I didn’t know for how long. Maybe another week. Maybe two. But I wanted to feel safe, so I—”

“Bought a gun.”

Ingrid looks at me in the mirror above the sink, her brows arched. “So you found it. Good.”

“Why did you leave it there in the first place?”

“Because something happened,” Ingrid says, her voice getting quiet. “And if I tell you what it is, you’re totally going to hate me forever.”

I join her by the sink. “I won’t. I promise.”

“You will,” Ingrid says, now using a damp paper towel to clean the back of her neck. “And I totally deserve it.”

“Ingrid, just tell me.”

“That gun cost me everything I had. That two grand I had saved up? Gone, like that.” She snaps her fingers, and I can see the chipped remains of her blue nail polish. “So I asked Leslie if I could get an advance on my apartment-sitting money. Nothing huge. Just a week’s pay early. She told me that wasn’t possible. But then she said that I could have five thousand dollars—not a loan or an advance, but five grand with no strings attached—if I did one little thing.”

“What was it?”

Ingrid stalls by examining a strand of her black-as-pitch hair. When she looks in the mirror, there’s disgust in her eyes. As if she hates every single thing about herself.

“To cut you,” she says. “When we crashed in the lobby, that wasn’t an accident. Leslie paid me to do it.”

I recall that moment with vivid clarity, like it’s a movie being projected right there on the bathroom wall. Me burdened with my two grocery bags. Ingrid rushing down the stairs, her eyes on her phone. Then the collision, our bodies ricocheting, the groceries falling, me suddenly bleeding. In the chaotic aftermath, I didn’t have time to give too much thought as to how my arm had been cut.

Now I know the truth.

“I had a Swiss army knife,” Ingrid says, unable to look at me. “I held it against my phone, with just the tip of the blade exposed. And right when we crashed, I sliced your arm. Leslie told me it shouldn’t be a big cut. Just enough to draw blood.”