Opening
In these chapters, Grace Angel endures the full horror of Jack Angel’s cruelty in the past while, in the present, she quietly engineers his downfall. The arrival of Millie Harrington’s sleeping pills turns fear into strategy, shifting the story from captivity to calculated resistance.
What Happens
Chapter 16: The Red Room (Past)
Reeling from her failed escape in Thailand, Grace lashes out in a final, reckless attempt at freedom—smashing a wine bottle over Jack’s head before a dinner with Diane and Adam. He barely flinches. With chilling composure, he cancels their plans and marches her to the basement.
Past the utility room, he unveils a hidden steel door, then a chamber painted floor to ceiling in brutal, blood red. This, he says, is the real room he has prepared for Millie: the walls decked with the grotesque portraits of terrified women he forced Grace to paint. He shoves her inside; the door slams, handleless from within. As he taunts her through the metal, Grace spirals into a panic attack and the terror of Imprisonment and Isolation becomes horrifyingly literal. Only the thought of saving Millie helps her steady her breath, even as she realizes she has been catastrophically naive about any “good” in Jack.
Chapter 17: A Glimmer of Hope (Present)
In a public restroom, Millie—clear-eyed in her way—tells Grace they must kill “Jorj Koony” with the sleeping pills she has stolen, inspired by an Agatha Christie plot. Grace says no aloud but recognizes the first real opportunity she has ever had. She pretends to flush the pills, then hides them in the toe of her shoe.
Millie returns upset, drawing Jack’s suspicion. When pressed, she claims the “secret” was about killing George Clooney; Grace pivots fast, lying that Millie is sad because she can’t visit their new house yet. Jack seizes the moment, inviting Millie for the weekend and turning Grace’s lie into a dangerous reality. At the cinema, Grace sees his satisfied smile and understands how easily he shapes belief—an escalation of The Power of Perception and Credibility.
Chapter 18: Setting the Trap (Present)
At school drop-off, Jack confirms the visit with Millie’s carer, Janice. Thinking ahead, Grace invites Janice to come too, ensuring Millie has a guaranteed ride home. She then delays the visit by proposing a proper celebration for Millie’s eighteenth birthday the following week—buying time. Jack agrees but retaliates by telling Janice about Millie’s “joke,” costing Millie her Agatha Christie audiobooks for a week.
In the car, Grace plays the part of the submissive wife, convincing Jack that inviting Janice is about school rules and that she has accepted her fate. At home, Esther calls; Grace seizes the opening and invites her—and by extension Diane and Adam—to Millie’s birthday party, calculating that more witnesses make Millie harder to disappear. Jack fumes, but when Grace theatrically begs him to cancel, he insists the party go ahead as punishment. Later, a small distraction lets Grace slip the tissue-wrapped pills from her shoe to her pajama waistband, smuggling them into her locked room—a quiet victory powered by Resilience and the Will to Survive.
Chapter 19: The Punishment Game (Past)
After her first night in the red room, Grace breaks and bargains: she will obey if he never locks her there again. Jack twists this surrender into a ritual of Psychological Manipulation and Control. For each dinner party, he assigns elaborate menus; any misstep—slightly tough meat, marginally overcooked fish—earns her a night in the red room after the guests leave.
The punishment expands to any infraction, even not finishing dessert at a friend’s house. The anxiety he cultivates breeds more errors, feeding a vicious cycle. Five months in, a dinner for Esther and Rufus is the first flawless meal. Grace learns what excites Jack most isn’t the room itself but her terror—pure Fear as a Weapon. If she tries to stay calm, he waits outside and graphically describes Millie’s future there until Grace breaks and begs.
Chapter 20: The Party (Present)
On the day of Millie’s party, Appearance vs. Reality rules. The house gleams; Millie delights in a sunny yellow bedroom Jack presents as hers. But when she tests the locked basement door, Jack promises to show her “what’s inside” once she moves in, curdling the celebration.
Guests arrive; Jack performs the perfect husband. The mask slips when he announces Grace’s “gift” to Millie: the terrifying portraits for her bedroom. Grace nearly collapses, and Esther watches closely. Then Esther notes that Jack had previously told her and Diane that Millie’s favorite color was red and her room would be decorated to match. Jack shrugs it off as a mix-up, but the room darkens with doubt. In the kitchen, he springs two blows: surprise plane tickets to Thailand in June and an ultimatum—take the trip or Millie moves in next week. Grace capitulates. Later he unveils a July trip to New Zealand, implying that Millie—and perhaps Grace—might “stay” with her parents. Grace reads the story he is scripting: a neat disappearance. She understands her only path to safety—she must kill him.
The Plan Begins (Past)
Grace turns Millie’s pills into a method. She starts a hunger strike, feigning despair to make herself too fragile to be Millie’s caretaker. When Jack worries she won’t be presentable, she “reluctantly” suggests a nightly whisky, claiming it once helped her appetite.
He tests her; she forces the whisky down and nibbles food. When he threatens to cancel a Millie visit, she calls his bluff, saying she’s too weak and might miss the party entirely. Cornered by appearances, Jack agrees to bring her a whisky each evening when he pours his own. The routine is set—the delivery system Grace needs to poison him.
Character Development
Grace evolves from traumatized captive to strategic operator, disguising resolve beneath submission.
- She reframes fear into leverage, inviting witnesses, delaying Jack’s timeline, and extracting small freedoms.
- She weaponizes Jack’s ego, using his need to punish and to perform as a “perfect husband” to mandate the party and the nightly whisky.
- Her decision to kill is sober and protective, anchored in Love and Sacrifice for Millie.
Jack’s grandeur curdles into overconfidence.
- He escalates from control to endgame planning for Millie.
- He underestimates Grace, mistaking her performances for true defeat.
- His fixation on image blinds him, allowing social scrutiny to creep in.
Millie remains the catalyst.
- Her blunt moral clarity reframes the stakes for Grace.
- She supplies the means—the pills—and the motive, reaffirming Jack as the “bad man.”
- Her presence at the party increases outside visibility, pressuring Jack’s narrative.
Themes & Symbols
The party crystallizes appearance versus reality. Guests see warmth, a beautiful yellow room, and a devoted couple; Grace sees a battlefield where every smile is cover fire. Jack’s hospitality is a costume designed to conceal the red room’s truth and to script a tidy disappearance.
Control tightens and then begins to slip. Jack’s punishments and ultimatums demonstrate total psychological dominance, but Grace mirrors his tactics, feigning weakness to dictate terms. Terror once silenced her; now it becomes data she uses to predict and manipulate his moves. Survival transforms into strategy, and strategy into power.
The rooms become competing symbols:
- The yellow bedroom promises safety and belonging—a curated illusion for public consumption.
- The red room exposes Jack’s core: violence, confinement, and fear fed by spectacle. Together, they map the novel’s moral terrain: a sunny facade masking a private hell.
Key Quotes
“We kill ‘Jorj Koony.’” Millie’s mispronunciation both softens and sharpens the idea. It frames murder as a simple moral equation: remove the bad man to protect the sister they love.
“I not forget he bad man.” At the party, Millie’s whisper slices through Jack’s performance. Her unwavering memory becomes Grace’s anchor and a counterweight to Jack’s gaslighting.
“Either we go to Thailand, or Millie moves in next week.” Jack’s ultimatum compresses time and stakes. It reveals his strategy of forced choices that look reasonable from the outside while closing off every safe option.
“This is the real room for Millie.” Jack’s revelation of the red room transforms threat into concrete intent. It turns Grace’s fear into certainty and lays the groundwork for her later resolve.
“Her only way out is to kill him.” Grace’s internal conclusion marks the turning point from endurance to action. The story pivots from if she can escape to how she will accomplish it.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence marks the novel’s hinge. Past chapters expose the mechanics of Jack’s cruelty, so the present can weaponize that knowledge. The pills, the party, and the whisky routine shift the narrative from reaction to plan, while Esther’s suspicions form the first public crack in Jack’s immaculate image.
The stakes now become a countdown. Jack plots a disappearance masked as travel; Grace scripts an intervention masked as submission. Every social interaction doubles as evidence or alibi, every domestic ritual a potential delivery system. The struggle moves into its endgame—precision over panic, strategy over spectacle.