The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)

by Freida McFadden

But I do fantasize. When Cecelia is older, when she doesn’t need me, maybe I could get away. Then he won’t have a threat against me anymore. Once she is safe, I don’t care what happens to me.

voice. A few years ago, when I was getting very close with Suzanne, we had a few too many drinks at her house and I confessed everything. Everything. I begged her to help me. I told her I wanted to go to the police, but I couldn’t. Not without anyone supporting me.

After all, if the police didn’t arrive exactly when they did, she could’ve drowned in that bathtub all those years ago. I brought it up with him once, and he just smiled at me. That would’ve taught you a lesson, wouldn’t it?

I can’t let that happen. So I drove to a clinic in the city, gave a fake name, and paid in cash for them to insert an IUD. I’ve practiced my perplexed expression when the pregnancy tests come back negative.

My punishment? I had to pepper-spray myself.

I start to back away, but he happens to look up at the window at the exact moment I’m standing there.

I started stashing some money in one of my boots in my closet, saving up in hopes of escaping him. Then one day, all the money disappeared, and the day after, he forced me up to the attic.

on the attic door. I step back, cowering against the wall. “Nina!” It’s Enzo’s voice. “Nina! I know you are in there!”

“You told me your husband tortures you and locks you in the attic.”

I never thought he could get me locked up in a mental institution multiple times just for trying to tell the truth.

I tell Enzo everything.

“Tonight, I will kill him.”

To find Andy sitting at the dining table. Waiting for me. “Andy,” I gasp. “Um, hi.” “Hello, Nina.” That’s when I see the three piles laid out in front of him. The passport, the driver’s license, and the stack of cash.

First of all, she has to be beautiful.

She has to be younger than me—young

Then I meet Wilhelmina Calloway.

when the simple background check I run reveals a criminal record, I know I’ve hit paydirt. This is a girl who will be desperate for a decent, high-paying job.

Right after I hang up with the detective, I call Millie and offer her the job.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Nina?” “We need help.”

So Millie stays in the attic.

When Millie enters the kitchen, I turn around and look at her accusingly. “Where is it?” “Where… where is what?” “My notes!”

All the good doctor has to do is tell Andy there’s no chance I’ll ever get pregnant, and those photographs go in the garbage.

I know I’ve won.

I’m free.

“It’s done. He threw me out.”

a second later, he’s kissing me.

that monster, I thought I was dead inside. Andy and I still had sex, because it was required of me, but it was always very mechanical—I

“We can’t leave her, Nina.”

“Millie.” He looks down at me with his dark eyes. “We can’t leave her with him. It is not right. I won’t allow it.”

The only thing I can think of is that maybe when Andrew left the room to sleep in his own bed (I can’t entirely blame him, given how uncomfortable the cot is for one person, much less two),

Millie Calloway went to jail for something entirely different. She was in prison for murder.

She entered the dark room and found one of their classmates—a two-hundred-pound football player—forcing himself on her friend.

Millie wasn’t laid off from her waitressing job. She was fired after she smashed her fist into the nose of one of her coworkers.

I hired her to kill him. She just doesn’t know it.

Then I take the key Nina gave me and fit it into the lock.

camera. I always thought he had nice eyes, but there’s venom in them as he stares at me.

We could go to California. I would love to put three thousand miles between me and Andrew Winchester.

“I was worried about her. So I put a red mark on the tire of her car. It’s been three days and the mark is still in the exact same spot. She hasn’t gone anywhere in three days.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll come back. But only on one condition.”

The room is deathly still. Andrew isn’t in there anymore.

I agreed to return here on one condition. Enzo was to stay with Cece and protect her with his life.

Millie. Holding up a bottle of pepper spray, pointed at my face. “Millie,” I gasp. Her hands are shaking and her face is very pale. It’s like looking into a mirror. But her eyes are filled with fire.

“He’s dead.” I say it as a statement, but it comes out more like a question. “How long has he been dead?”

His chest isn’t moving.

My darling, Cece, please forgive me for what I’m about to do.

pick up my phone and call the police.

“Do you know anything about the bruising on your husband’s body?”

“I never knew him personally,” Connors says. “But my daughter did.” “Your… daughter?” He nods. “Her name is Kathleen Connors.

I’m not going to walk out of here in handcuffs after all.

I’m about eighty percent sure our old house is haunted.