The New Couple in 5B

Sarah begs Rosie to come home, repeating her dream about Chad drinking her blood, but Rosie insists that her home is with Chad. Sarah leaves reluctantly. To Rosie’s surprise, Detective Crowe finds a gun while searching the kitchen. Rosie hopes it belonged to Ivan. Crowe tells her that he believes Chad did kill his high school girlfriend and his parents, and that he is capable of killing again. Feeling frustrated and alone, Sarah decides to leave the apartment while the police are still searching.

As Rosie leaves the Windermere in a cab, she thinks about how lonely and isolating the city must have seemed to Sarah. Troubled by Olivia’s silence, Rosie decides to visit her apartment. The apartment is stylish, and Rosie feels envious of Olivia’s lifestyle. She finds a photo of Olivia and Chad during their brief relationship in Olivia’s nightstand. She is shocked to find texts between Olivia and Max that suggest they were having an affair.

Rosie feels betrayed by Max and Olivia’s affair, despite knowing she has no real reason to. She receives a series of texts from Detective Crowe urging her to talk to him and implying that she is not safe. He asks her to come to the station the next morning or he’ll obtain a warrant for her arrest. Reeling with uncertainty about what to do, Rosie leaves.

In the final chapter of “Act 3,” Rosie returns to apartment 5B, which has been ransacked by police investigators. She prays that Chad will return and offer an explanation she can accept. When Charles and Ella Aldridge invite Rosie in, she tells them everything that has happened. They insist on Chad’s innocence and offer her some soup. Rosie asks about Lilian and the family’s relationship with Dana, but they dismiss her. Rosie begins to feel dizzy and realizes that she also ate Ella’s soup the day she lost her pregnancy. As Rosie collapses to the ground, Ella orders Abi to help her and Charles move Rosie’s body.

In “Act 4,” Rosie awakens in her own bed with her ankles and wrists tied. Ella sits beside her bed and begins to confess. She and Charles immediately regretted splitting their apartment. In Ivan’s final years, Dana promised to sell the apartment to Lillian, who would keep it in the family. Ella insists that Chad manipulated Ivan in his final days. She reveals that she kidnapped Olivia and forced her to draw up a contract signing the apartment to the Aldridges. Chad, who has also been kidnapped, has already signed. While Ella talks, Rosie loosens her restraints. As Ella implies that she is going to kill Chad, Rosie runs.

Abi chases Rosie to the roof of the Windermere. She remembers Xavier’s broken body in front of the building and considers jumping rather than letting the kidnappers catch her. Ella suggests that they forge Rosie’s signature if she jumps off the roof. Charles reveals that he, Abi, and Ella prevented Sarah from leaving the building, and he threatens to kill her and her unborn baby if Rosie doesn’t sign.

Rosie agrees to sign the contract transferring the apartment to Charles and Ella. Charles, Ella, and Abi bring Rosie and Sarah to a surveillance room with video and audio feeds from every apartment in the Windermere. Olivia and Max are bound and gagged in a corner of the room. Charles tries to bind Sarah, but she overpowers him. Rosie overpowers Abi, and uses the intercom to tell Max, who is in 5B looking for her, to call the police. Olivia and Max are both alive.

Abi admits that he helped Charles and Ella kidnap Chad using fentanyl, which they obtained from Xavier, who had been stealing it from the hospital where he worked. Using Chad as leverage, they convinced Olivia to draw up the legal documents, then drugged and restrained her. Their plan was to stage Chad and Rosie’s death as a murder-suicide, then take the apartment. Abi also reveals that he and the Aldridges have been spying on neighbors for years. Chad and Rosie vow to focus on the light in their lives. Sarah begs Rosie to come home. That night, Rosie dreams of Willa warning her she is still unsafe.

The final section of the novel, “Six Months Later,” begins with Max and Rosie discussing her book, which is almost complete. Rosie is waiting for Ella and Abi’s trial to end before finishing the book. Olivia has left town after admitting she still loves Chad, who has been filming upstate. Rosie gets a call from Chad’s agent, who says he left the day prior, confusing Rosie. The couple has sex immediately upon reuniting. Afterward, Rosie learns that the brother of Bethany, Chad’s high school girlfriend, has died in prison. She realizes that Chad is guilty of Bethany’s murder and maybe more. The ghost of Willa warns her to run.

Rosie tries to leave the apartment without Chad knowing she suspects him of the murders, but he stops her. She is able to escape and flees up the emergency staircase to the roof. Chad follows her and breaks the door so they are locked on the roof together. He admits to arranging Bethany’s brother’s death and the death of Dana. He also admits to stealing Ivan’s letter to Dana, which revealed he wanted Dana to have the apartment. Chad climbs onto the ledge and says he’s never been good enough for Rosie. As Detective Crowe bursts onto the roof, Chad leaps to his death.

In the epilogue, Rosie and Max visit her family in the Ozarks for Sarah’s baby’s baptism. Rosie has sold the Windermere apartment, and her book is a New York Times best-seller. She is grateful for Max’s support as her husband’s lies and crimes are broadcast to the world. Her father asks if she still thinks he lied to her about the way of the world. Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Hamlet, she admits that there are more mysteries in the universe than she can understand.