The Housemaid's Secret

Wendy tells Millie she found a college friend Douglas knows nothing about who is willing to allow Wendy to stay with her on her farm in upstate New York for as long as necessary. The only problem is the friend can only drive down as far as Albany to pick Wendy up. Wendy needs a ride to Albany. Millie agrees to rent a car in her own name and drive Wendy to Albany. Wendy warns Millie that Douglas is dangerous and helping Wendy will put Millie in danger, but Millie refuses to be afraid.

Millie rents a car, unhappy that the car is a bright red Hyundai. She feels the car is too conspicuous, but the rental place had few other options. As she stands at the rental counter, Millie again feels as though she is being watched.

Millie parks the car a few blocks from the Garricks’ building and waits for Wendy. Douglas is out of town, but he texts Millie to be sure she will be coming to clean, and she responds positively even though she won’t. Wendy arrives in jeans, claiming Douglas hates women in jeans. Wendy double checks that Millie hasn’t told anyone what they are doing. As they pull onto the road, Millie notices a black Mazda behind them. Millie tries to see the license plate, afraid it is the same car that has been following her, but she can’t see it. Millie decides to outrun it once they get on the highway, but the Mazda doesn’t follow them onto the highway.

At Wendy’s suggestion, they stop at a McDonald’s. As Wendy goes inside, Millie takes a call from Brock. She forgot they were supposed to have dinner that night, so she lies and tells him she’s studying. Brock becomes angry, so Millie soothes him by telling him she loves him. Millie makes another date to have dinner with Brock, determined to tell him the truth about her past despite her fear that it will lead to their breakup.

It takes over four hours for Millie and Wendy to arrive in Albany. Millie pulls into a rest stop that has a motel attached. Wendy has second thoughts, but Millie assures her everything will be alright. Millie uses her own identification, but Wendy’s money, to rent a room for the night. Millie watches Wendy enter the room and then she drives away.

Millie returns to the city shortly before midnight and drops off the car at once because she doesn’t want to be charged for a second day. However, when she leaves the car rental office, she realizes she has no transportation home except the subway, a dangerous prospect so late at night. As she pauses on the street corner, a car pulls up and she recognizes it as the black Mazda that’s been following her around. The driver’s side door opens.

Millie frantically searches her purse for her mace when she recognizes the driver’s voice. It is Enzo Accardi, her former boyfriend. Enzo tells her he came back three months ago and has been following her in an attempt to protect her. However, he didn’t approach her because he believed she was mad at him for the way their relationship ended. Enzo is also aware of Millie’s relationship with Brock, and he’s attempting to respect it. However, Enzo thinks Brock is a wimp because he did nothing to protect Millie from Xavier. Enzo confesses that he planted drugs in Xavier’s apartment so he would go to jail. Enzo gives Millie a ride home, and Millie tells Enzo about her trip to Albany with Wendy.

Enzo expresses doubt that Wendy will be safe in upstate New York from a man as wealthy as Douglas Garrick. Millie is annoyed that Enzo appears to not believe she can take care of herself. Just the same, Enzo insists Millie call him if she runs into any problems, promising her he’ll be there if she ever needs him. Millie insists she won’t need him but agrees to keep his offer in mind. However, as Millie goes inside her building, she becomes aware that it wouldn’t take much for a man like Douglas to break into her apartment. She is hesitant to go inside, but she also doesn’t want to call Enzo and appear weak. However, when she enters her apartment, it is empty.

Millie and Brock are having dinner in his apartment. Brock tells Millie about an opening for a receptionist at his law firm. He explains the position is part time and for weekends only. Millie has told Brock she is no longer working for the Garricks, so he thinks this might be a good opportunity for her, but Millie hesitates because she knows the firm will do a background check and Brock will learn the truth about her. She decides it is time to tell him, but first she goes into the kitchen to get water. While she’s filling her glass, Wendy calls and tells her that Douglas was waiting for her at her friend’s farm and brought her back to Manhattan. Wendy asks Millie to come over right away, so she leaves Brock wondering what she’d been about to tell him.

Millie arrives at the Garricks to find Wendy lying on the couch with a fresh bruise on her cheek. Wendy also says she thinks one of her ribs might be broken. Millie gets a pack of ice for Wendy and listens as she describes how Douglas was waiting at the farm when Wendy and her friend arrived. Wendy says that she’s decided to just accept that this is her life, but Millie refuses to agree to that.

Millie goes back to working for the Garricks. On this night, she is making dinner when Wendy comes downstairs. Wendy tells Millie she found something in the bookcase upstairs. She shows Millie a gun inside a hollowed-out dictionary. Wendy asks Millie if she knows how to shoot a gun and asks Millie to teach her. Millie refuses, assuming Wendy wants to kill Douglas, and is unable to support that act. As they argue, the sound of the elevator alerts them to Douglas’s arrival. Wendy quickly returns to the guest bedroom while Millie goes down to the kitchen. Douglas instructs Millie to leave the potatoes off Wendy’s plate, clearly as a show of control over how much food Wendy eats. Millie takes this as another sign of his abusive behavior.

Millie is lying in bed thinking about Enzo when Brock texts her. Millie struggles with her feelings for Brock, wishing that connecting with him was as easy as it was with Enzo. She reconfirms with herself that her inability to fully commit to Brock is due to her fear of telling him the truth about her past. As she’s considering this, her phone rings and she sees it is Douglas. Although it is late, she answers. Douglas tells Millie that Wendy is feeling better, and they no longer need a housemaid. He says she can finish out the week, and they will give her tickets to a Mets game as a thank you for her service. Douglas’s comment about Millie’s affection for the Mets bothers her after he hangs up because she never mentioned liking the Mets to Douglas, but then she realizes she is currently wearing a Mets t-shirt. She feels as though he might be watching her, so she texts Brock and asks him to come over.

On Millie’s last day at the Garricks, she is folding laundry as she contemplates the dinner she plans to have with Brock that night to tell him about her past. She also thinks of how relieved she is to be out of the Garrick situation, though she still worries about Wendy and has made her promise not to do anything rash. Millie has decided to call Enzo and ask him to help Wendy.

As Millie finishes with the laundry, she overhears Wendy and Douglas arguing in the guest bedroom over a credit card charge at an expensive restaurant. Millie goes to the door and listens as Douglas expresses jealousy, accusing Wendy of cheating on him. As they argue, Millie hears a crash, a scream, and then unnerving silence. Worried Douglas is hurting Wendy, Millie remembers the gun.

Millie gets the gun, thinking she will only use it to scare Douglas into letting Wendy go. She runs back to the guest bedroom and barges in to see Douglas strangling Wendy. She yells at him to let her go. Douglas doesn’t move. She calls to him again, but he continues to stand still as Wendy struggles to push him away. Finally, Millie feels she has no choice, so she fires the gun.

Douglas falls to the floor and Wendy is free, falling to her knees and coughing as she struggles to breathe. Blood begins to seep out from under Douglas. Wendy checks Douglas for a pulse and announces he is dead. Wendy instructs Millie to leave, telling her that she’ll say she was out and came home to find Douglas dead. She says Douglas always comes in through the back door and there is no camera there. No one will know when he arrived home or that Millie was there when he did. Wendy again insists Millie leave, but first she tells Millie to delete all the texts on her phone between her and Douglas and those between Millie and Wendy. Millie does. Wendy tells Millie not to contact her, promising it will all work out. Wendy is smiling as she stands over Douglas’s body.

Millie is upset as she takes the subway home, convinced those around her must think she is behaving erratically because she keeps rocking back and forth. Brock calls and Millie realizes they had a date, but she cannot face him now. She lies and says she has a stomach bug.

Millie wakes late in the morning after having taken a sleeping pill. Someone is pounding at her door. Millie stumbles to the door and discovers Detective Ramirez there wanting to talk to her about Douglas. He insists that she go down to the police station. Millie calls Brock and asks him to meet her at the police station as her lawyer. Brock agrees, much to Millie’s relief, but then she realizes she has no choice now but to tell him about her past.

Brock is at the police station when Millie and Detective Ramirez arrive. She speaks to him briefly, and then she is placed in a small interrogation room where she waits alone for nearly an hour. When Brock comes in, he tells her that she’s a suspect in the murder and the police are searching her apartment. Millie tells Brock that she went to prison for stopping a man from attacking her friend when she was younger. Brock is shocked, but still willing to help her. Brock asks why they think she would kill Douglas, and Millie claims she has no idea, not willing to share with Brock the abuse she witnessed against Wendy or that she did shoot Douglas. Brock says he believes they focused on her because of her past.

They continue to wait for over an hour before Detective Ramirez finally comes into the room. Ramirez begins by asking what time Millie left the Garricks’ the night before and if she had seen Douglas. He then asks what her relationship with Douglas was. Ramirez asks if Millie was having an affair with Douglas, showing her text messages from a burner phone that imply she was. Millie insists all the text messages were about work, but that some of them had been deleted. However, she cannot prove it with matching messages on her own phone.

Ramirez shows Millie a picture of the bracelet Wendy gave her and asks how it ended up in her apartment, implying that the inscription on the back could apply to Wendy or Millie—Wilhelmina—since both their names begin with W. Ramirez shows Millie a picture of the dress Douglas gave her to return, not believing that he failed to give her a receipt for it. Finally, Ramirez asks if Millie spent the night at a motel in Albany the same night Douglas was in Albany for a meeting. Upon hearing this, Brock becomes angry because he recalls that as the night Millie stood him up for dinner with the excuse of needing to study. Millie insists she wasn’t having an affair with Douglas, and that Wendy could back her up. However, Ramirez says that Wendy told them about the affair and claims that Douglas invited Millie over to break it off. Then, he mentions Millie’s fingerprints on the gun.

Millie tells Ramirez everything that transpired between her and Wendy with the exception of the actual shooting. Ramirez leaves the room. Brock accuses Millie of cheating on him, pointing out all the times she made a date with him and then didn’t show up. When Brock asks Millie straight out if she killed Douglas, she doesn’t respond, implying she did. Brock walks out of the interrogation room, informing her that their relationship is over, and she can get a public defender.

Ramirez tells Millie she is free to go. As soon as she leaves the police station, she tries to call Wendy, but the call goes straight to voicemail. She takes the train home and is informed by her landlady that she has a week to move out due to her legal problems. Millie goes up to her apartment and finds it in disarray because of the police search. She ignores it and sits on the couch, watching the news reports about Douglas’s death. Wendy is shown making an emotional statement on what a good person and good husband Douglas had been. Then they show a picture of Douglas, and Millie suddenly realizes that the man she shot wasn’t Douglas Garrick.