The Housemaid is Watching

Three Months Earlier

(This book picks up over a decade after the ending of The Housemaid’s Secret.)

Millie Accardi, a social worker, is now the mother of an 11-year-old daughter, Ada, and 9-year-old son, Nico. She has just moved into a home she purchased in Long Island with her husband, Enzo Accardi, at 14 Locust Street. It’s located on a cul-de-sac with two other houses.

Next door, at 12 Locus Street, their neighbor greets them warmly. She introduces herself as Suzette Lowell and says she’s a real estate agent. She lives with her husband Jonathan and they have no children. Suzette talks about how “rustic” and “small” their house is and implies she thinks Millie is pregnant, even though she isn’t. Suzette invites Millie and Enzo over for dinner the next night.

Across the street, at 13 Locust Street, Millie feels someone looking at her. Suzette says that someone named Janice lives at 13 Locust Street with a son that’s Nico’s age. She says that Janice is nosy but never leaves her house.

That night at dinner, Nico asks to get a preying mantis for a pet. Millie is against it, but Enzo coaxes her into saying yes. Afterwards, Enzo and Millie continue to unpack. Millie asks Enzo why he thinks they managed to get this house for so cheap, but Enzo dismisses her concerns and encourages her to just enjoy it.

The next day, the kids begin school. Millie goes to introduce herself to Janice and her son, Spencer, as they go out to meet the bus. Janice looks displeased to be talking to her, and Millie sees that Spencer has a leash attached to his backpack. Spencer turns out to be in the same class as Nico, with Mrs. Cleary. Janice tells her to watch out for Suzette, who she says is not a nice person.

After the bus leaves with the kids, Janice is horrified to learn that Millie intends to let her kids walk home, saying that anyone could snatch them off the street. Janice says she doesn’t work since her husband left her enough money when he passed away that she doesn’t need to.

The kids get home, and the family heads to Suzette’s for dinner. They’re greeted by the housekeeper, an older woman named Martha, who works there twice a week. Suzette’s house is twice the size of theirs.

Suzette’s husband Jonathan works in finance and seems like a nice guy, and Millie senses they are probably genuinely happily married. When the Lowells mention not knowing what to do with their yard, Enzo brings up that he’s a landscaper. Jonathan offers to help promote Enzo’s business since he often deals with people buying new homes.

The dinner is elaborate, and Suzette gossips about Janice and how overprotective she is of her kids. They talk about how Janice is preoccupied with a situation involving a missing boy a few towns over, but Suzette that just turned out to be custody battle with the parents, and the father had taken the boy and gone to Canada with him. Throughout the dinner, Suzette keeps teasing Millie about using the wrong forks.

Afterwards, Millie comments to Enzo about how aggressively Suzette was flirting with him and talks about how Suzette wants him to teach her to do some gardening. Enzo comforts her, and they start to get intimate, but Millie thinks she hears a scratching noise in the house.

On Thursday morning, Martha shows up to clean Millie’s place, saying that Enzo asked her to come. Millie asks him, and he confirms that he thought she should come twice a month to help relieve some of Millie’s burden. Martha makes Millie uneasy with her awkward demeanor, but Millie tells herself she’s probably good at what she does.

Two weeks after moving in, Spencer and Nico have a playdate on Sunday. Nico asks to bring the baby praying mantis he got last Monday, but Millie says no.

At the playdate, Janice offers Millie some juice and asks her about her dinner with Suzette. Janice makes her dislike of Suzette very clear. She also mentions to Millie that she saw Enzo head over to her place about an hour ago.

Afterwards, Millie asks Enzo about it, and he says that Suzette has already helped him get two new jobs. He also promises to let her know beforehand if he’s ever going over there.

That night, Millie hears the scratching noise again in the house. She goes to check it out, but finds nothing.

Millie is cooking when Nico accidentally breaks one of Suzette’s windows playing baseball. Millie goes over to tell Suzette and to apologize. Millie offers to have Nico come do chores for her to make up for it. Suzette clearly does not like this idea, but Enzo coaxes her into it.

Meanwhile, at work Millie works at a hospital, and she’s tasked with getting Mrs. Green, an 91-year-old disoriented woman, home. Millie tries to pack up her stuff, but the woman accuses her of stealing. A nurse, Donna, comes in to calm her down. Millie feels upset but Donna reminds her the woman has dementia. Donna sees that Millie looks unwell and takes her blood pressure, noting that it’s high.

That night, Millie mentions her high blood pressure to Enzo, and they both agree to get checked out by doctors. Enzo then talks about getting life insurance policies for the sake of the kids. Millie wonders why he has a sudden desire to get life insurance. Ada overhears this conversation and asks if they are dying, and Millie comforts her.

Late that night, Millie sees Enzo talking to Suzette in her backyard, and she wonders what they’re talking about so late at night and whether Enzo is hiding something from her.

Early next morning, Millie is woken up by sounds downstairs that turns out to be Martha coming in to clean at 6 AM. Enzo tells Millie that he gave Martha a key. Later, she sees Martha rifling through a drawer, and Millie asks her what she’s doing. Martha says that she was looking for pen and paper to leave Millie a note to say that they were out of cleaning spray.

Millie also notices a broken vase, but Martha says she wasn’t the one who broke it. They call Nico over, and he admits to breaking it at night. Millie asks Nico why he just left it there instead of cleaning it up, and Nico says they told him not to touch glass. Millie apologies to Martha, but Martha is still upset over being treated like a criminal.

Millie goes to see a doctor, Dr. Sudermann, who tells her that her blood pressure is way too high and that she should get on medication.

Later, Jonathan comes by to tell her that Nico has been helping out, but he dropped a plate on the floor and just left the glass there, and he thinks it would be better if Nico didn’t come by anymore. Millie notices Suzanne closely watching Millie’s interaction with Jonathan.

Millie gets home late from work one day and notices the house is completely empty. She finds Enzo at Suzette’s house, but the kids are nowhere to be found. Enzo doesn’t know where they are either. They look around for them, and Millie says she’s going to call the police, but Suzette discourages them from doing so.

As they consider this, Enzo notices an incongruity in the wallpaper. When he picks at it, it reveals a hidden door in their house, and Millie thinks that this must be where the scratching noise she’s been hearing is coming from.

They open the door, and the kids are in there. They say that they found this room and were playing in there and couldn’t hear anyone calling for them. They usher them out, but Millie notices that Ada looks upset like maybe she was crying for a long time.

That night, Enzo talks about fixing up the hidden room, but Millie notes her discomfort about tiny enclosed spaces in general (because of the events of the first book where she got locked into a room). Enzo says that Suzette, as a real estate agent, thinks it’s a good idea, and the mention of Suzette annoys Millie. The next day, Millie is relieved to see that Enzo is sealing up the room like she asked. They make up.

Millie soon gets a call from Nico’s school asking her to urgently come in. When she gets there, Enzo has already arrived. They find out that Nico started a fight with a boy who was making fun of a girl. The boy he attacked, Caden Ruda, is in the emergency room. Nico is suspended for the rest of the week.

Back at home, Millie and Enzo remind Nico that it’s bad to fight with other kids, but Enzo also tells Nico that it was good that he stood up for someone who needed help. Millie is less sure, thinking about how she went to prison for 10 years for standing up for someone who needed help once, and she doesn’t want Nico to end up like that. She tells him that he’s still grounded.

Nico is upset that night, but he says it’s because his preying mantis, Little Kiwi, died. Nico says he got stuck in a molt and died, so Nico flushed him down the toilet.

Enzo also notices that 50 dollars is missing from one of his drawers that night. Millie suggests it was Martha, but Enzo is reluctant to keep accusing her of stuff.

With Nico suspended, Millie tries to arrange a playdate with Spencer so he’s not just stuck at home, but Janice refuses to let them play together since he was found to be fighting with another boy. Janice also comments on how Enzo spends too much time with Suzette. Millie says they’re just doing housework, but Janice notes that they’re also inside the house a lot.

Shortly after, Millie goes home one day because she left her phone at work, and she sees Martha there cleaning. She watches at Martha pockets a necklace from her jewelry box. She demands that Martha give it back, and then tells Martha to get out. When Millie says she might tells Suzette, Martha threatens to reveal that Millie is an ex-con. Millie agrees not to tell Suzette about this incident in exchange for Martha’s silence.

When he gets home, Millie tells Enzo what happened.

When Nico’s little league game rolls around, the whole family attends. When the umpire makes a bad call, Enzo shots about it, and Nico gets upset. Nico then throws a punch at the first baseman, and Millie and Enzo rush down to castigate Nico. Nico is kicked off the team.

Millie is shocked when Enzo defends Nico’s behavior, saying he’s just a boy and that it’s normal for boys to fight. Millie insists Nico is in the wrong, and Enzo reluctantly agrees. After they take away Nico’s device privileges, Millie says she wants to send Nico to therapy. She worries that there’s something seriously wrong with him.

Shortly after, Suzette finds Millie outside and asks her to put out her trash later in the day, since she says she has to stare at it when they put it out early.

As they’re talking, a plumber comes by and tells Millie that their check bounced. Millie is embarrassed and doesn’t have the $300 in cash that the plumber needs. Instead, Suzette gives the plumber the money, and she tells Millie to pay her back when she’s able. Millie is confused at why the check would have bounced and whether Enzo is spending money she doesn’t know about.

Afterwards, Millie checks her account and sees that the balance is about a thousand dollars less than she was expecting, and she sees a $1,000 withdrawal from a few days ago. She calls the bank and is told that it was Enzo who did it. She asks him about it when he gets home, and he says he had to take the money to replace some equipment that broke.

On Sunday, Millie hears Nico trying to sneak out even though he is grounded, but Nico says he’s just going to Spencer’s house, which Millie previously told him was permissible.

Enzo then tells Millie that he’s going to the beach with some of Suzette’s friends because there’s a potential client with two large estates in the group going. Millie insists that Enzo take the whole family, despite Enzo’s resistance since he knows Suzette will not want them there.

On the way to the beach, Enzo is stopped by an officer for speeding and lies his way out of it. Millie thinks about how Enzo being a good liar never bothered her until now.

When they get there, Suzette says that the potential client they were meeting for Enzo ended up cancelling so it’s just them. Millie then watches with annoyance when Suzette helps put sunscreen on Enzo. Millie also notices Nico glaring at Suzette and then talking to Suzette later, though Millie can’t imagine what Nico could possibly have to say to her.

Suddenly, they hear a scream from Suzette who was almost drowning, and Enzo rescues her. Afterwards, Suzette thanks him profusely, and Suzette and Jonathan leave. Back at home, Millie is upset with Enzo over his behavior with Suzette. Millie also comments on Nico’s apparent dislike of Suzette and she wonders if Nico did something to make Suzette have trouble swimming.

Millie wakes at 3AM to Enzo coming back in. He says he went for a drive, but Millie thinks he smells like perfume.

The next day, Millie is convinced that Enzo is cheating on her. When she gets home from work, Enzo’s truck is there, but he’s not home, and Millie assumes he must be with Suzette again. She goes to find Enzo, but no one answers. She is surprised to find that the door is unlocked. She enters to find Jonathan Lowell’s body dead on the floor with the throat slit.

Millie thinks she hears a door close in the house. She then bolts home to get her phone to call 911, but Enzo is now home and washing his hands. He’s also covered in blood. Enzo says he cut himself. Millie tells him what happened to Jonathan, and she tells him to change his shirt. The police soon arrive at the Lowell’s house.

Millie asks Enzo where he cut himself, but it’s tiny and Enzo says it stopped bleeding. Millie is skeptical that a cut that size would result in so much blood.

The detective, Detective Willard, soon arrives to question them. Willard says that Janice Archer was the one who called them after hearing shouting in the house. Janice saw Millie enter the house after the police were called and leave right after. Janice also saw Enzo go into the house two hours prior and didn’t see him leave so presumably he left via the back door. Janice has also told them about how much time Enzo spends over there.

The detective then asks to speak with Enzo, though they do so privately so Millie doesn’t know what they discussed. Afterwards, Millie sits the kids down and tells them what happened. Enzo reassures Millie that he had nothing to do with Jonathan’s death.

Willard soon wants to talk to them again, and Millie suggests reaching out to Benito Ramirez, a good friend of theirs who is also a NYPD detective. (They met him at the end of The Housemaid’s Secret.) They call up Benito, and Millie tells him what’s happened.

The next day, Millie sends the kids off to school, and Janice is at the bus stop. As they talk. Millie finds out that Nico didn’t really go to Spencer’s place the other day. Instead, Nico admits that he just wanted to go off and be alone. Millie wonders what Nico isn’t telling her.

At the police station, Millie and Enzo are split up to be questioned. Willard questions Millie about Enzo’s relationship with Suzette. He asks her if she knows that Enzo recently purchased a gun with the $1,000 the he withdrew. Also, he tells her that Enzo checked into a motel with Suzette four nights ago. He also tells Millie that Jonathan Lowell had a significant life insurance policy and that Suzette is the sole beneficiary.

At that point, Millie refuses to answer more questions without a lawyer.

Enzo is questioned for hours.

Afterwards, Millie interrogates him. Enzo admits that he checked into a motel, but that it was with Martha. He says that he went to give Martha her last paycheck and that she had bruises everywhere. He says that her husband was beating her and taking her paychecks. Martha had to steal in order to get money to be able to leave him.

He says the night he was talking to Suzette late at night, it was because Suzette thought Martha was stealing, and he had to convince her not to fire her. He says that the gun was for Martha. He didn’t want to tell Millie because of her blood pressure and how she’d been stressed about things. After their conversation, Millie is still convinced there’s something that he’s not telling her.

When they get home, Benito Ramirez is there waiting for them. He tells them flat out that Willard thinks Enzo was sleeping with Suzette and that they conspired to kill Jonathan for the insurance money. Suzette recently increased Jonathan’s life insurance. He also says that Janice has photos of Enzo going over to Suzette’s place and whatnot.

Ramirez says he reached out to a public defender who is recently out of law school to help them, who is on her way over. Millie and Enzo are shocked to see that it is Cecelia “Cece” Winchester (the little girl from the first book), who is now 27. She was 10 when Millie and Enzo last saw her.

Enzo tells Cece everything that happened and insists he had no reason to kill Jonathan. Cece wonders if this has to do with Dario Fontana, who had been the husband of his sister Antonia and the reason he once left Italy. Dario abused Antonia and was a dangerous man with mob ties. Enzo killed Dario, so he had to leave Italy.

Today, Enzo finally admits that he previously worked for Dario for eight years beginning when he was a teenager, which he had never told Millie about before.

After Cece and Benito leave, Millie questions Enzo about what he did for Dario. Enzo admits that he would go after people who didn’t pay their debt and break fingers if necessary. But Enzo insists he never killed anyone.

That night, Millie sneaks into the Lowell’s large backyard to see what Enzo and Suzette had been working on and if there’s an entrance to the backyard without parking out front. However, she is interrupted by Suzette who has spotted her outside. Suzette accuses Enzo of the murder and says that he was obsessed with her. Suzette says that Enzo told her that he only married Millie because she was pregnant.

Crucially, Suzette does confirm in the conversation that there’s a way to get into the backyard without going through the front.

The next morning, Willard is back with a search warrant. Millie takes the kids to school and tries to comfort them. Millie then goes to see Martha, who is not there. Martha’s husband is highly unpleasant and says she ran off earlier this week. Millie is glad Enzo’s story appears to check out.

After the police search, their house is in shambles. Cece calls to let Millie know that the police apparently found something, but she doesn’t know what it is yet. Cece reassures Millie that they’ll get through this.

That night, Nico suggests to Millie that he may have done a bad thing, but he doesn’t say what it is.

Over breakfast the next morning, Cece arrives clearly hurried to tell them that the police are on their way to arrest Enzo. She says the police think they have found the murder weapon — a pocket knife they found in a drawer. It was wiped off, but they found traces of blood on it.

When he finds out about the pocket knife, Enzo finally admits to Cece and Millie that he was the one who killed Jonathan. As expected, the police arrive and arrest him.

Afterwards, Millie goes upstairs to comfort the kids. Ada is distraught. Ada then tells Millie that Enzo didn’t kill Jonathan — she (Ada) did.

The book now switches to the perspective of 11-year-old Ada. She recalls being told they were going to move, and the family relocating to the new house. The new house is double the size of their old apartment, and she and Nico have separate rooms now.

At school, she is new and doesn’t have friends. She meets Gabe, who tells her about kid, Braden Lundie, who went missing from a few towns away a few years ago. Meanwhile, Nico makes new friends easily. When they arrive home one day on the bus, they see Jonathan Lowell looking out at the bus and he waves to them.

Nico is soon sent to do chores at the Lowell house, and it seems to be making Nico upset. Meanwhile, Martha has been coming to their house to clean, and Ada notices that she has bruises.

One day at school, Gabe asks Ada out on a date, and he grabs her hand to try to hold it. However, Ada doesn’t like it, and tries to get free. Right then, Enzo shows up to pick her up and gets mad at Gabe. Afterwards, Enzo is upset. He gives Ada a pocket knife to protect herself in case anyone ever tries to hurt her.

Soon, Ada tries to talks to Nico, but he’s avoiding her, and she sees that he’s increasingly upset. Today, it looks like he has wet his pants. He tells her not to tell anyone.

Ada soon discovers Nico playing in his “secret clubhouse” which is the hidden room that he discovered. As they’re in there, Ada suggests to Nico they have a sleepover and share the same room again, but Nico gets upset and says no, and Ada starts to cry. Soon, Enzo finds them in the room and seals it up.

Soon, a boy named Hunter at school takes an interest in Ada and asks her out. She says no. He keeps pressuring her, so she goes to hide in the bathroom.

One day, there are plans to go to the beach with the Lowells. There, Ada notices the hostility Nico has towards them. Ada asks Nico about it, but he’s hostile towards her as well. Later, Ada overhears Mrs. Lowell apparently threatening Nico not to tell anyone about something. That upsets Ada, so while they are swimming she goes underwater and grabs Mrs. Lowell’s legs to make her choke on water as she tries to swim up.

Finally, Nico comes in one night and tells Ada everything that’s been going on with him. He says that while he was doing chores for the Lowells, he found a secret room at their house filled with Mr. Lowell’s cool expensive collector item toys. Nico broke something pricey in there, and Mr. Lowell told him to make up for it by continuing to come play in the room while Mr. Lowell would watch from a camera.

Even after Mr. Lowell told their mom not to send Nico over there anymore, he told Nico he needed to keep coming secretly. Nico didn’t want to, but Mr. Lowell threatened to hurt their whole family if he didn’t.

Ada is determined to protect her family and her brother. She sneaks into the Lowell house to threaten Mr. Lowell, and she finds the room that Nico had told her about. She sees all the toys but also sees there’s a cot in the corner. There’s also a brown stain on the sheets.

She’s interrupted by Mr. Lowell coming in to confront her. Ada says she wants to leave, but Mr. Lowell won’t let her. However, Ada has the pocket knife on her, so she stabs him with it. She then runs home and tells Nico what happened. She then washes off the knife and stuffs it in a drawer.

Millie comforts her daughter. She realizes Enzo must’ve learned about the pocket knife and realizes that it was Ada, which is why he told her that he did it. Millie calls Cecelia and tells her what happened. Cecelia immediately goes to see Enzo, reassuring them that no court would convict Ada for doing this out of self-defense.

Millie then puzzles over what happened. Ada stabbed Mr. Lowell in the stomach, but she wasn’t tall enough to slit his throat. So she must’ve gone back and slit his throat when he was down.

Enzo calls from the police station, and Millie tells him not to confess, saying that they can figure this out. Benito then shows up, and tells Millie that Cece told him what really happened. Benito also tells Millie about something else they found in the room, and Millie asks him for a favor — to take her to speak to Suzette, who is currently staying at a hotel.

Suzette is staying at a fancy hotel. Benito and Millie go to see her, and Benito says they know all about the hidden room. Suzette claims to know nothing about the room, but Benito says her fingerprints are all over it. They also found blood and DNA belonging to Braden Lundie, and they are currently digging up their backyard. Suzette denies knowing anything about Braden.

Millie tells Suzette that they’re here to give her a choice. Suzette can confess to her husband’s murder and say that it was because she found out about his misdeeds. If not, they’re going to go after her for conspiring to kill Braden.

It’s now been two weeks since Suzette confessed to the murder of her husband. Enzo is home. Benito comes to see how they’re doing and mentions he is going on a date with Cecelia’s mother.

Meanwhile, at school, Hunter continues to pester Ada. She threatens to castrate him in his sleep if he doesn’t leave her alone. He tells her she’s a psychopath and leaves.