The Orphanage by the Lake

Hazel goes back to Andrew’s apartment. They drink some wine and go to bed. After Andrew falls asleep, Hazel snoops around Andrew’s office and computer. She finds no evidence he is connected to the Dionysus Theater. She chastises herself for her suspicions of such an “incredible guy” and goes back to bed.

The next morning, Andrew makes them breakfast. It looks delicious but actually tastes terrible because Andrew is not a very good cook. Andrew asks what Hazel was doing in his office last night, and Hazel lies that she was just working. She tells Andrew she is investigating the Dionysus Theater. Andrew says he has heard it is “one of those pop-up clubs that finance douchebags and gold diggers go to” (245) and arranges for them to go the following night. Hazel is thrilled.

Hazel meets Madeline at her office. She confronts Madeline about the possibility that she killed Mia for the inheritance. Madeline tells her that Mia’s trust fund was to be donated to Saint Agnes in the event of Mia’s death and provides legal documentation proving it. This means Madeline did not have a motive to kill Mia. Hazel tells Madeline she will be going to the Dionysus Theater the following night. Hazel has one more day to find Mia to earn Madeline’s reward.

The next night, Hazel prepares to go to the Dionysius Theater. Kenny is worried about her safety. She tells him to call in an hour. If she doesn’t answer the phone, he should call the police. She takes her switchblade and Taser with her.

Andrew picks her up at her apartment to take her to the Dionysus Theater. She is struck by how handsome he looks. They go to a run-down warehouse. A bouncer outside does not let Hazel take her Taser or cell phone inside. They enter the warehouse and go down a set of stairs. As they descend, Hazel hears Mia singing “Time After Time.” She opens the door and is shocked by what she sees.

The Dionysus Theater looks like a club lounge. The customers are all older men and there are very young girls dressed in lingerie “drifting among” them. Onstage, Mia is dressed in underwear and a corset and seems drugged and abused. She is singing “Time After Time” while the men grope the girls circulating.

Shocked, Hazel turns to Andrew and tells him they need to call the police. However, Andrew seems delighted at the scene. He tells her he “designed” the place himself. Hazel is stunned to realize Andrew is behind Mia’s kidnapping and perhaps the disappearances of the other girls from Saint Agnes. Andrew tells Hazel it is “a family tradition” (262).

Suddenly, the police officers DeGrom and Hanley appear. Along with Andrew, they force Hazel to walk to a room at the end of a hallway. Andrew walks her into the room and closes the door while DeGrom and Hanley wait outside.

In the room there is a bed and very little else. Manacles hang from the headboard. Andrew takes Hazel’s purse and throws it against the wall. Andrew tells her she is in the dungeon room. Hazel insists, “Andrew, this isn’t you” (265), but Andrew tells her the version of him she saw—who made her dinner and complimented her—was the “fake” version of himself. She realizes he orchestrated their meeting at the gala because she had been learning too much from her investigation. He had just wanted to find out what she knew, but when he realized at breakfast that she knew about the Dionysus Theater, he decided to kill her.

Andrew tells her that he attends the school concerts at Saint Agnes to select girls for the Dionysus Theater. After the show, he would approach girls and tell them he has an underground theater for the rich and famous where he can give them a chance to perform, but because it is so exclusive, they cannot tell anyone about it. Then he picks them up in his boat from the lakeshore and takes them back to his lake house, where he holds them for a few months to “break them down into compliance” (267) before bringing them to the theater.

Then, Andrew pushes Hazel down onto the bed intending to rape her. While she fights him off, Sonia opens the door and walks in. Andrew leaps off of Hazel.

At first, Hazel is hopeful Sonia will help her. Then, she realizes that Sonia is involved in the plot to kidnap girls from Saint Agnes. Sonia tells Andrew he was supposed to kill Hazel, not rape her. They argue about what to do. Sonia says she should not have let Preston DuPont talk her into letting Andrew become part of their trafficking ring. While they are distracted, Hazel grabs her switchblade that fell to the floor when Andrew threw her purse and hides it under her leg. Sonia says Andrew can have five minutes to rape Hazel, but then he has to kill her, and she leaves.

Andrew locks the door behind Sonia and gets on top of Hazel. While he struggles with his zipper, Hazel grabs her switchblade. She stabs him in the neck and kills him. DeGrom and Hanley pound on the door outside in concern.

DeGrom and Hanley break down the door, followed by Sonia. Hazel is held at gunpoint. Sonia makes Hazel drop her knife and get on the bed. Hanley handcuffs Hazel. Hazel asks Sonia why she participates in the sex trafficking. Sonia tells her she did it because she resented having to clean up after and look after the girls at Saint Agnes and because Dr. Mackenzie treated her “like his glorified assistant” (278). Sonia insists the girls weren’t kidnapped, but “chose to be here” (278) because they followed “the path of Dionysus” (279) instead of the path of Apollo. The girls wanted to be rich and famous and paid the price.

Then, Sonia begins to torture Hazel with the knife to find out who Hazel has told about their “operation.” Hazel refuses to talk. Suddenly, the SWAT team bursts in and arrests Sonia, DeGrom, and Hanley. Kenny runs in after them. He tells Hazel he called the cops after she didn’t respond to his call, and he found her location by tracking her phone using the “Find My Friends” app. He knew from his training that if he told the police there was an active shooter in progress they would respond quickly.

Hazel is determined to locate Mia before she leaves the scene. She realizes it is 11:30 PM. She has made the deadline to receive the award from Madeline.

Outside the warehouse, Hazel sees the club members and Sonia being loaded into a police wagon. Mia and some of the other girls are standing together nearby. Hazel introduces herself to Mia and gives the girl a hug. She tells Mia that Mia has done nothing wrong and that they will find somewhere safe for her to live. Hazel gives Mia her business card and tells her to call if she needs anything. Then, Hazel compliments Mia’s voice, which makes Mia smile despite the circumstances.

Two weeks later, Hazel sits on a bench in Washington Square Park. She reflects on how she is a survivor and on everything that has happened since the night at the Dionysus Theater. Mia now lives with Madeline, who is doing her best to be a good mom. Mia is recovering and has reconnected with her classmates from Saint Agnes. The Manhattan District Attorney has opened an investigation into the sex trafficking ring. They learned that Sonia murdered Mr. Goolsbee because he had grown suspicious of Sonia’s involvement in the disappearances and to “set him up as the fall guy” (289). They have also reopened the cases of Andrew’s mother’s death by suicide and the other girls missing from Saint Agnes.

Bobby Riether asked Hazel out, but she declined because of how traumatized she was after her experience with Andrew. The state took over management of Saint Agnes and Dr. Mackenzie retired. Kenny arrives with bagels. He asks her if she would be willing to take him on as an assistant. He points out that she cannot handle all of the job offers she has had since news broke out that she brought down a sex trafficking ring. Hazel agrees and they toast “to Cho and Shum” (291). Hazel feels that with Kenny at her side, she is “ready to face whatever comes next” (292).