The Housemaid's Secret

THE HOUSEMAID'S SECRET A TOTALLY GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER WITH A SHOCKING TWIST FREIDA MCFADDEN BOOKS BY FREIDA MCFADDEN The Housemaid series The Housemaid The Housemaid’s Secret Never Lie The Inmate Do You Remember? Do Not Disturb The Locked Door Want to Know a Secret? One by One The Wife Upstairs The Perfect Son The Ex The Surrogate Mother Brain Damage Baby City Suicide Med The Devil Wears Scrubs The Devil You Know CONTENTS Prologue PART I Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Part II Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Part III Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Part IV Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Epilogue Hear More from Freida Books by Freida McFadden A Letter from Freida The Housemaid Acknowledgments PROLOGUE Tonight, I will be murdered. Lightning flashes around me, illuminating the living room of the small cabin where I’m spending the night, and where my life will soon reach an abrupt end. I can just barely make out the wooden floorboards below, and for a split second, I imagine my body splayed out on those floorboards, a pool of red spreading beneath me in an uneven circle, seeping into the wood. My eyes open, staring into nothing. My mouth slightly ajar, a trickle of blood running down my chin. No. No. Not tonight. Once the cabin goes dark again, I grope blindly in front of me, moving away from the comfort of the sofa. The storm is bad, but not bad enough to cut off the electricity. No, somebody else is responsible for that. Somebody who has already taken one life tonight and expects that I will be next. It all started with a simple cleaning job. And now it might end with my blood being mopped off the cabin floor. I wait for another flash of lightning to show me the way, then I move carefully in the direction of the kitchen. I don’t have a plan in mind, but the kitchen contains potential weapons. There’s an entire block of knives in there—short of that, even a fork might come in PART I ONE MILLIE Three Months Earlier After an hour of scrubbing, Amber Degraw’s kitchen is just about spotless. Considering that, as far as I can tell, Amber seems to eat almost all her meals from restaurants in the area, it feels like the effort isn’t quite necessary. If I had to put down money, I’d bet she doesn’t even know how to turn her fancy oven on. She has a beautiful, enormous kitchen filled with appliances that I’m fairly sure she has never used even once. She has an Instant Pot, a rice cooker, an air fryer, and even something called a dehydrator. It seems somewhat contradictory that somebody who has eight different kinds of moisturizer in her bathroom also owns a dehydrator, but who am I to judge? Okay, I judge a little. But I have carefully scrubbed down every single one of these unused appliances, cleaned the refrigerator, put away several dozen dishes, and mopped the floor until it’s shiny enough to almost see my reflection. Now all I have to do is put away the last load of laundry and the Degraws’ penthouse apartment will officially be clean as a whistle. “Millie!” Amber’s breathless voice floats into the kitchen, and I wipe a bit of sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “Millie, where are you?”