SWNOVELS Chapter The Housemaid’s Secret: Epilogue
Three months later
I don’t understand how Enzo had so much stuff in that little studio apartment of his.
He walks into my apartment, carrying what feels like the ten millionth box filled with his belongings, and sets it down on top of another box. Okay, it isn’t torture watching Enzo carry boxes, the muscles in his arms bulging under his T-shirt, but for God’s sake, what is in all these boxes? The man seems to rotate through like seven or eight T-shirts and two pairs of blue jeans. What else could he possibly have?
“Is that all of it?” I ask him, as he wipes sweat off his brow.
“No. Is two more.”
“Two more!”
I am sort of starting to regret this. Well, not really. After breaking up with Brock, Enzo and I continued right where we left off before he went to Italy. Except this time we both knew we couldn’t live without each other. So when he eventually pointed out that he was throwing away rent money every month when he was already spending all his nights at my apartment, I was quick to suggest that he move in with me.
It’s funny. When it’s right, you just know it’s right.
“Two small boxes,” Enzo says. “Is nothing.”
“Hmm,” I say. I don’t believe him. His definition of “small box” is something that weighs less than I do.
He grins at me. “Sorry I am so annoying.”
He is not annoying at all. In fact, he is the only reason I was allowed to stay in this apartment at all. Mrs. Randall was still ready to give me the boot, even after I was completely exonerated, but Enzo went to talk to her, and she was suddenly happy to let me stay. He is quite charming.
Enzo crosses the room to put his arms around me. Even though he’s a little sweaty from carrying boxes back and forth between our apartments, I don’t care. I still let him kiss me. Always.
“Okay,” he says when he finally pulls away. “I go get other boxes.”
I groan. The two of us are going to have to go through these boxes together and get rid of a lot of stuff. Also, I have a plan to clear out some drawer space today.
A few minutes after Enzo takes off, the buzzer rings for the door downstairs. Enzo mentioned ordering some pizza for dinner, but I don’t think he put in the order yet. So that means there’s only one person who could be down there.
I hit the buzzer to let him up.
A minute later, I hear the pounding on my door. I grab the box that’s been sitting on top of my bed and carry it out to the living room. I keep it balanced in one arm while I unlock the door with the other.
Brock is standing at my door. As always, he is dressed in one of his expensive suits, his hair perfectly styled, his teeth gleaming white. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in three months, and it’s like I forgot how flawlessly handsome he is. I’m sure he is going to make some woman a wonderful husband someday. But it was never going to be me.
“Hey,” he says. “You got my stuff?”
“It’s all right here.”
I heft the box into Brock’s waiting arms. When I was trying to clear space for Enzo, I noticed I still had a drawer filled with Brock’s clothing and random belongings he left behind. I considered just tossing it all, but I remembered the way he gave me a heads-up when the police had a warrant for my arrest, and I decided to call him and ask if he wanted his stuff back. He told me he would come by the next day.
“Thanks, Millie,” he says.
“No problem.”
He hesitates at the door. “You look good.”
Oh God, are we playing that game? “Thanks. You too,” I say. And then because I can’t help myself, I ask, “Are you seeing anyone?”
He shakes his head. “No one special.”
He doesn’t ask me the same question, which I’m grateful for. After all the times I turned him down when he asked me to live with him, it would be hurtful to tell him that I’m moving in with Enzo. And despite the way things ended with Brock, when he walked out on me at the police station, I know he loved me. Much more than I loved him.
“Well…” He shifts the box between his arms. “Good luck with… everything.”
“You too. I guess I’ll see you around.” I don’t know why I added that last part. I’ll probably never see him again.
I’m about to close the door when Brock puts out his hand to stop me. “Oh, hey. Millie?”
“Yes?”
He shakes the box, looks down at the contents, then looks back up at me. “Is my extra bottle of pills in here?”
I dig my fingernails into my palm. “What?”
“My extra bottle of digoxin,” he clarifies. “The one I used to keep in your medicine cabinet for when I spent the night. Do you still have it? I take the extra bottle when I go on trips.”
“Um…” I dig my nails deeper into the skin. “No, I…. I haven’t seen it in the medicine cabinet. I must’ve tossed it. Sorry.”
He waves a hand. “No worries. I’m just glad you didn’t throw out my Yale hoodie.”
Brock waves goodbye to me one last time, and instead of shutting the door, I watch him walk down the stairs, holding my breath the entire time. I don’t let out the breath until he’s disappeared from sight.
I didn’t think he would remember that bottle of pills he left in the medicine cabinet. But I certainly remembered it. When I first found it in there back when we were dating, I looked up the medication, just to learn more about my boyfriend. That’s how I found out that digoxin in large doses can cause fatal arrhythmias. It was a fact I filed away in the back of my head at the time.
Digoxin, despite its dangers, is a commonly used heart medication. So common that even Douglas Garrick was on it for his atrial fibrillation. But the pills that Wendy Garrick overdosed on did not come from Douglas’s stash, as the police assumed.
After I took Enzo’s car keys, right after I heard there was likely a warrant for my arrest, I didn’t drive out to that cabin after all—I kept my promise to Enzo. Instead, I drove into Manhattan. I went to the apartment of Russell Simonds’s wife Marybeth, who happened to be an employee of the real Douglas Garrick, and I introduced myself.
Marybeth turned out to be a lovely woman. She was quite broken up over the death of her boss, and I felt terrible having to explain what I knew about her husband. But she felt a lot better after we had a nice long chat. And after recalling a hefty life insurance policy Russell took out a few years ago, Marybeth decided to take a little therapeutic drive out to that cabin in the woods.
And as for me, I went on my way, minus one bottle of digoxin.
The ironic part is that if Wendy had instead slipped her husband a little bit extra of his own medication, it probably would have killed him, and it might have been hard to prove that the dose wasn’t accidental. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble.
Instead, she made an incredibly bad judgment call. She underestimated an extremely dangerous person.
Me.
And she paid the ultimate price.