The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)

by Freida McFadden

There’s something

about this room that’s making a little ball of dread form in the pit of my stomach.

Do you know those movies about the scary cult of, like, creepy kids who can read minds and worship the devil and live in the cornfields or something? Well, if they were casting for one of those movies, this girl would get the part. They wouldn’t even have to audition her. They would take one look at her and be like, Yes, you are creepy girl number three.

Is there something wrong with me that I am scared this nine-year-old girl is going to murder me?

I’d say there’s at least a twenty-five percent chance she’s going to murder me in my sleep if I get this job. But I still want it.

There’s something in his expression that sends a chill down my spine. And then he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Almost like he’s trying to warn me. But he doesn’t say a word.

wonder if she would feel the same way about me if she knew I spent the last ten years of my life in prison.

Her lips twitch and her eyes narrow. I’m not exactly sure why though. She herself offered to let me call her by her first name.

“Why is the lock to this bedroom on the outside rather than the inside?”

Sometimes it feels like Nina has a split personality. She flips from hot to cold so rapidly. She claims she was joking, but I’m not so sure.

As I shut the door, I notice marks in the wood. Long thin lines running down the length of the door at about the level of my shoulder. I run my fingers over the indentations. They almost seem like…

Scratches. Like somebody was scraping at the door. Trying to get out.

It looks like it’s been painted into place. Even though I have a window, it doesn’t open.

Almost a minute has gone by when the translation of pericolo finally appears on the screen of my phone: Danger.

Nina is watching me at the stove with that dark expression in her blue eyes. She doesn’t like her husband complimenting me.

get to the door of my room and I grab the knob and… It doesn’t turn.

I was never locked in the room after all. Nina didn’t have some crazy plot to trap me in there. The door was just stuck. But I can’t seem to shake that uneasy feeling. That I should get out of here while I still can.

something has changed. I can sense it. Nina isn’t the person she used to be. But it doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business.

Nina’s moods are wildly unpredictable. At one moment, she’s hugging me and telling me how much she appreciates having me here. In the next, she’s berating me for not completing some task she never even told me about.

Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis.

When I first came here, Enzo was trying to warn me about something, but Nina opened the door before he could say anything. And obviously, he’s changed his mind. Whatever Enzo knows or thinks, he isn’t going to tell me. At least not now.

“Sei pazzo!” he yells at me. He rakes a hand through his black hair. “Che cavolo!”

Nina really did try to kill her daughter.

You get out, Millie. It’s… dangerous.

As much as I’m looking forward to tonight, I have a bad feeling about it. I have a feeling that if I go to the show tonight, something terrible will happen.

While I am sitting on the bed, feeling sorry for myself, something on my nightstand catches my eye.

It’s a copy of the playbill from Showdown.

Nina knows everything.

“Millie,” he breathes, “you must get out of here. You are in terrible danger.” My mouth falls open. Not only because of what he said, but how he said it. Since I’ve been working here, he hasn’t managed to string together more than a couple of English words. And now he said two entire sentences. And not just that, but the

Italian accent that is usually so thick that I can barely understand him, is far more subtle. It’s the accent of a man who is very comfortable with the English language.

“You are wrong. She is not⁠—” Before he can get any other words out, the front door to the house swings open again. Enzo quickly releases my arm and backs away.

But I still can’t push away the feeling that I’m in danger.

The door isn’t stuck. It’s locked.