by Riley Sager
Satisfied, I open the door and leave 12A for the last time.
I keep the apartment door open as I move down the hallway, letting smoke billow out behind me. At the elevator, I press the down button. While waiting for it to arrive, I go to the nearby trash chute. I then flick the lighter and hold it just below the final copy of Heart of a Dreamer.
My hand resists bringing the flame any closer.
This isn’t just some random copy of the book.
It’s my copy.
Jane’s copy.
But I also understand that she’d want me to do it. This isn’t the Bartholomew of her dreams. It’s a shadow version of that fantasy realm. Something dark and rotten to its core. If Jane knew the truth about the Bartholomew, I’m sure she’d despise it as much as I do.
Without another moment’s hesitation, I place the book against the lighter’s white-hot flame. As fire leaps across its cover, I drop the book down the trash chute, where it hits the dumpster below with a soft sizzle.
The fire alarm in the rest of the building goes off just as the elevator reaches the twelfth floor. I step into it, ignoring the shrieking alarm, the flashing emergency lights, the smoke rolling out of 12A in sinuous waves.
I simply descend, staring at the elevator floor, where blood drips from beneath my hospital gown. My stitches have come loose. Warm liquid oozes from one of the wounds, and a blossom of red appears in the front of the gown.
On my way down, I see that the residents have already started to evacuate. They move down the stairs in rushed packs. Rats scurrying from the sinking ship. Between the sixth and seventh floors, Marianne Duncan sits on the landing, jostled by others coming down the staircase. Tears stream down her face.
“Rufus?” she all but screams. “Come back, baby!”
Our eyes lock for a moment, hers yellowed from jaundice, mine aflame with vengeance. I give her the finger as the elevator sinks to the next floor.
None of the retreating residents try to stop my descent. All it would take is a press of the elevator button on a lower floor. But they see the look on my face and the blood-stained knife in my hand and instinctively stay away.
I’m the kind of girl you don’t want to fuck with.
As the elevator comes to a stop in the lobby, I spot a small, dark shape streaking down the steps. Rufus, also making his escape. I yank open the grate and step out of the elevator, lowering my aching body just enough to scoop him up. He shivers in my arms and lets out a few sharp yaps that I hope are loud enough for Marianne to hear several floors above us.
Together, we approach the door. Charlie is there, helping the Bartholomew’s population of old and infirm get outside. He sees me and freezes, shocked, his arms dropping to his sides. This time, he doesn’t try to stop me. He knows it’s all over.
“I hope your daughter gets the care she needs,” I tell him as I pass. “Do the right thing now, and maybe one day she’ll forgive you.”
I continue on, limping out of the Bartholomew as police and fire trucks start to arrive. It’s a firefighter who spots me first, although it’s hard not to. I’m a bleeding girl in a hospital gown with bare feet, a frightened dog, a cracked family photo, and a blood-slicked knife.
Immediately, I’m swarmed by cops, who pry the knife from my hand.
I refuse to give them Rufus or the picture of my family.
I’m allowed to keep hold of them as I’m wrapped in a blanket and guided first to a waiting patrol car and then, when it arrives, to an ambulance. Soon I’m on a stretcher, being carried to the ambulance’s open back doors.
“Is anyone else inside hurt?” a cop asks me.
I give a weak nod. “A man on the twelfth floor—12B.”
I’m then loaded feetfirst into the ambulance with two EMTs. Through the open rear door, I get a tilted view of the Bartholomew itself. I look to the northern corner where George sits, stoic as ever, even as flames start to leap in the window just behind his wings. I’m about to give him a whispered goodbye when I notice movement on the other side of the roof.
A dark figure emerges from the smoke, stumbling toward the roof’s edge.
Even though he’s so high up and the heat of the fire causes the air around him to shimmer, I can tell it’s Nick. He has a towel pressed to his stomach. When a smoke-filled breeze kicks up, the towel flutters, flashing bits of red.
Two more people join him on the roof. Cops. Although their guns are drawn, they show no signs of using them. Nick has no place to run.
Still, he continues to stagger along the roof. The smoke pouring from 12A has gotten thicker, darker. It blows across him in malevolent strands, bringing him in and out of my vision.
When the smoke clears, I see that he’s reached the edge of the roof. Even though he must be aware of the cops following his path, he ignores them. Instead, he looks outward, surveying the park and the city beyond it.
Then, like his great-grandfather before him, Nicholas Bartholomew jumps.
SIX MONTHS LATER
56
Lo mein or fried rice?” Chloe says as she holds up two identical cardboard containers of Chinese food.
I shrug. “You pick. I’m fine with either.”
The two of us are in her apartment, which has, for the time being, become my apartment. After I was released from the hospital, Chloe handed me the keys and moved in with Paul.
“But what about rent?” I had asked.
“I’ve got it covered for now,” she said. “Pay me what you can when you can. After what you went through, I refuse to make you sleep on the couch.”
Yet the couch is where I am at the moment, sitting next to Chloe as we open our takeout containers. Lunch instead of dinner. Joining us this afternoon is Ingrid, fresh from her new job at a midtown Sephora. Although she’s dressed in black, her nails are a vivid purple. The bad bus station dye job is long gone, replaced with a relatively demure strawberry blond with a few pink streaks that frame her face.
“Rice for me, please,” she says. “I mean, I like the taste of lo mein better, but the texture’s so icky. It reminds me of worms.”
Chloe grits her teeth and hands her the container. If they gave out Nobel Prizes for patience, she’d certainly be in contention for one. She’s been a saint since the moment I was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. I haven’t heard her complain once.
Not about the reporters who spent a full week camped outside the building.
Not about the nightmares that sometimes leave me so shaken that I call her in the wee hours of the morning.
Not about Rufus, who yaps at her every time she enters the apartment.
And certainly not about Ingrid, who’s here more often than not, even though she now shares an apartment with Bobbie in Queens. Chloe knows that Ingrid and I are now bound together by what happened. I’ve got Ingrid’s back. She’s got mine. As for Chloe, she looks out for us both.
The two of them first met while I was being held against my will in the Bartholomew. When I never came back to the shelter, Ingrid went to the police, claiming I was taken by a coven living at the Bartholomew. They didn’t believe her.
The police didn’t think anything was amiss until Chloe, returning from Vermont early after eventually receiving the texts I had sent, also contacted them. A friendly cop put the two of them in touch. After Chloe went to the Bartholomew and was told by Leslie Evelyn that I had moved out in the middle of the night, the police got a search warrant. They were on their way to the building just as I was setting fire to 12A.
The fire ended up doing less damage than I intended. Yes, 12A was burnt beyond repair, but the blaze in the basement was contained by the dumpster. Still, it was enough damage to make me worry that I could face criminal charges. The detective working the case remains doubtful that will happen. I was in shock, fearing for my life, and not in my right mind.
I’ll agree the first two are true. As for the third claim, I knew exactly what I was doing.
“Even if you are charged,” the detective told me, “there’s not a judge in this whole city who won’t dismiss it. After hearing what went on there, I’m tempted to torch the place myself.”
From my understanding, that’s the consensus across the country. Because what took place at the Bartholomew was so insidious in its efficiency.
People in need of a life-saving organ were tipped off, usually by a former Bartholomew resident. They then used a dummy corporation to purchase an apartment, paying up to a million more than its market value.
There they waited. Sometimes for months. Sometimes for years. Waiting for an apartment sitter who’d be a suitable donor of whatever it was they needed. After the surgery, the resident spent a few more weeks in the Bartholomew to recuperate. The body of the apartment sitter, meanwhile, was quietly removed via a freight elevator in the rear of the building and taken to a crematorium in New Jersey with Mafia ties.
Records found in Leslie Evelyn’s office indicate that, over the span of forty years, more than two hundred Bartholomew residents received organs harvested from one hundred twenty-six unwilling donors. Some were runaways, and some were homeless. Some had been reported missing, and some had no one in their lives to realize they were ever gone.
But now everyone knows their names. The NYPD published the full list online. So far, thirty-nine families know the fates of their long-missing relatives. Although it’s not happy news, it’s closure, which is why I don’t blame myself for sometimes wishing Jane’s name was on that list.
Bad news is better than no news.
Almost everyone involved was brought to justice, thanks to Charlie. He took my advice and did the right thing, providing police with valuable information about how the Bartholomew operated, who worked there, who lived there, who died there.
Those who managed to escape during the fire were slowly but surely rounded up, including Marianne Duncan, the other doormen, and Bernard. All of them copped to their respective roles in the enterprise and were sentenced accordingly. Marianne began her ten-year stint in prison yesterday. She’s still waiting for a new liver.
The legal fallout extended to former employees and residents, including an Oscar winner, a federal judge, and the wife of a diplomat. Marjorie Milton hired the best defense lawyer in Manhattan to represent her—until it turned out he had also used the Bartholomew’s services. Both eventually entered guilty pleas. The tabloids had a field day.
Even more shocking was the participation of Mr. Leonard. Also known as Senator Horace Leonard from the great state of Indiana. Since he was in no condition to be evacuated during the fire, he was simply left there. Police found him crawling across the floor of the room next to mine. He probably would have died were it not for Dylan’s heart pumping in his chest.
Although he won’t be sentenced until next month, even his own attorneys expect him to get life in prison. Thanks to Dylan’s heart, that could mean a lot of time behind bars.
Then again, Mr. Leonard could always kill himself, which is what Dr. Wagner did after Leslie freed him and Jeannette from the burning room. Once the three of them escaped out a back exit of the Bartholomew and went their separate ways, he spent two days at a Sheraton in Flushing, Queens, before putting a gun to his temple and pulling the trigger.
Jeannette went the opposite route, going home and sitting with her husband until the police arrived.
Leslie Evelyn was apprehended at Newark Liberty International Airport as she was about to board a flight to Brazil. Because she was the only major player left alive, prosecutors pummeled her with charges ranging from human trafficking to aiding and abetting to tax fraud.
After she received multiple life sentences, I sent her a list of rules she needed to follow in prison. At the top was this: No nights spent away from your cell.
I didn’t sign the letter. She knows damn well who it came from.
Out of everyone I encountered at the Bartholomew, only one person is neither dead nor facing years in prison.
Greta Manville.
She was nowhere to be found when cops stormed the Bartholomew. The police searched her apartment and the basement storage cage, finding them mostly intact. The only thing that looked amiss was an empty box in the storage cage marked with a single word—Useful.
Whatever was inside must have been very useful indeed, for Greta made a clean getaway. No one has seen or heard from her since, a fact that messes with my emotions more than it should. While I have a burning desire to see her brought to justice, I also know that I never would have escaped without her help.
Then there’s the fact that she literally has a piece of me with her everywhere she goes. I wasn’t lying when I told her I hoped she lived a long, long time. Otherwise it would all be such a waste.
As for me, I’m still adjusting to my new existence as a celebrity victim—two words, by the way, that should never be used together. Yet that’s what I was called during those few weeks when I was a media darling. Everyone was talking about the plain, quiet girl with no job and no family who took down an evil criminal enterprise. Chloe took a two-week leave of absence from work to help me deal with all the interview requests. I did the bare minimum. A few phone interviews. Nothing in person. Definitely nothing on camera.
I told the reporters exactly what happened, without embellishment. The truth is bizarre enough. I ended each interview by talking about Jane, imploring anyone with the slightest bit of information to please come forward, anonymously if necessary.
So far, there have been no new leads.
Until there are, I’ll keep trying, hoping for the best but planning for the worst.
But people have been generous in other ways. My former boss called to tell me my old job was waiting for me if I ever wanted to return. I politely declined. The day I was released from the hospital, Andrew showed up with flowers. He didn’t stay long or say very much. He just told me he was sorry. I believe him.
Then there’s the GoFundMe page Chloe set up to help pay for my medical expenses. Although I wasn’t keen on the idea of accepting charity, I didn’t have a choice. When your sole possession is a broken picture frame, you come to terms with relying on the kindness of strangers.
And people have truly been kind. I’ve received so many clothes that Bobbie and I started handing things out at the homeless shelter. Same thing with shoes and phones and laptops. Everything I lost has been replaced threefold.
That’s in addition to the money I’ve received. More than sixty thousand dollars in five months. The amount got to be so high that I begged Chloe to close the account. It’s more than enough money, especially considering that on Monday I’ll be starting a new job at a nonprofit group that tries to help people locate missing loved ones. They asked if I wanted to work for them after I used some of my GoFundMe money to make a donation in Jane’s memory. I said yes. The office is small. The salary is even smaller. But I’ll get by.
I’m feeding Rufus a barbecue sparerib when I notice the time. Quarter after one.
“We need to go,” I tell Ingrid.
Ingrid brushes rice from her lap and jumps to her feet. “We definitely don’t want to be late for this.”
“Are you positive you want to do this?” Chloe says.
“I think we need to,” I tell her. “Whether we want to or not.”
“I’ll be here when you get back,” she says. “With wine.”
On the walk to the PATH station, I get a few strange looks from passersby. I’m finally being noticed, for all the wrong reasons. On the train itself, I spot a girl reading Heart of a Dreamer. Not my first sighting since word got out that Greta Manville was involved with the Bartholomew’s dark doings. The book is suddenly back in vogue, returning to bestseller lists for the first time in decades.
The girl catches me watching
and does a double-take of recognition. “Sorry,” she says.
“Don’t be,” I say. “It’s a really good book.”
Ingrid and I reach the Bartholomew just before two, finding the block closed off to cars. The crane and wrecking ball have already arrived, parked in the middle of Central Park West like some giant metal beast. A temporary fence has been erected around it, presumably to deter onlookers.
It doesn’t work. The park side of the street is mobbed. Many are from news outlets, their cameras aimed at the building across the street. Others are the morbidly curious who want to boast that they were there when the infamous Bartholomew was demolished. Rounding out the pack are well-meaning but misguided protestors who lift signs that read SAVE THE BARTHOLOMEW.
Despite its age and notoriety, the building had never been granted historical status from the city. The Bartholomew family wanted it that way. Historical designation meant more oversight—something they needed to avoid.
With Nick dead and without historical status, the Bartholomew became just like any average building in Manhattan—available to buy and, if the new owner saw fit, demolish. Which is what the real estate conglomerate that bought it immediately decided to do. Unlike the protestors, they’re fully aware no one in their right mind would buy an apartment that had been used in an organ transplant black market.
Now the Bartholomew faces its final minutes, and half the city has come out to watch it die.
Ingrid and I push our way into the fray. We go unnoticed, thanks to the accessories we donned after emerging from the subway. Knit caps and sunglasses and jackets with the collars pulled up around our necks.
I peer through the chain-link fence at the Bartholomew, which stands as solemn and silent as a mausoleum. It’s the first time I’ve laid eyes on it in six months. Seeing it again brings a fearful chill that shoots through my bones even after I tighten my jacket.
Missing from the northern corner of the roof is George. At my request, he was removed and put into the care of the nearby New-York Historical Society. City officials were happy to oblige. The plan is to put George on display as a monument to the people who died there. I hope it happens. It might be nice to visit him.