Opening
On her first day in the Garricks’ glittering penthouse, Millie Calloway senses the shine doesn’t match the truth beneath it. A peering green eye behind a cracked door, a perfectly folded pile of “dirty” laundry, and a lavish dinner served to one set off alarms about Douglas Garrick and the unseen Wendy Garrick. As Millie’s unease mounts, her past life—and the dangerous skills she’s tried to leave behind—pushes her toward action.
What Happens
Chapter 6: The Eye in the Door
Millie arrives at the Garricks’ immaculate, museum-like penthouse. The place is spotless except for dust, odd for a home supposedly cleaned several times a week. On the mantle she studies photos of Douglas and a thin, auburn-haired woman—Wendy—posing outdoors, running, smiling, alive. The happy images clash with Douglas’s portrait of a fragile recluse tucked away upstairs.
A thump from above draws Millie to the master suite. She opens the hamper and freezes: the “dirty” laundry is neatly folded, as if staged. As she carries the basket down the hall, she notices the guest room door slightly ajar. She leans in—and a single green eye watches her from the crack. Millie introduces herself as the new cleaner, but the door snaps shut without a word. Douglas warned her not to “bother” his wife, so she backs off, rattled by the folded laundry and that unblinking eye.
Chapter 7: A Dinner for One
In the kitchen, Millie finds an exacting weekly menu—Cornish game hens, pâté, and cornichons sourced from four different specialty shops. The list reads like a performance of taste and control. Despite her nerves, she plates an elegant meal and sets two places.
At 7 p.m. sharp, Douglas breezes in and calls for Wendy. No answer. Seeing the two place settings, he explains Wendy is “feeling under the weather.” Millie offers to bring a plate upstairs; he declines. She offers again; his tone tightens. He insists he’ll handle it himself. Millie leaves him with a solitary feast in a penthouse full of silence, and her conviction grows: Wendy’s isolation isn’t about illness.
Chapter 8: A Bad Feeling
Millie confides in her boyfriend, Brock Cunningham, in his sleek, high-end apartment. He waves off her instincts with joking theories—maybe Wendy’s a “vampire” or a “werewolf.” Over an expensive bottle of Giuseppe Quintarelli, Millie pretends to taste notes she can’t detect, feeling like an impostor in his world. She sees him as the “catch,” not her, and the gap between their experiences shows: her danger sense meets his comfortable disbelief.
Chapter 9: The Crying
A month passes, and Millie still doesn’t meet Wendy. She begins pausing at the guest room door, listening. One afternoon she hears it clearly: sobbing. Thinking of the bystander effect, she knocks. The crying stops. Millie says she won’t leave until she knows the woman is okay. The door opens a sliver—one green eye, red and swollen. In a tight voice, Wendy says she’s fine and needs to rest, then closes the door.
Douglas arrives moments later, chipper, with roses and a small blue jeweler’s box. When Millie mentions the crying, his cheer dims; he pointedly asks whether she spoke to Wendy. Millie lies and says no. He relaxes and reveals a diamond bracelet, a glittering consolation prize he frames as love. The timing reads like strategy, not tenderness, and Millie’s certainty hardens: something is wrong here.
Chapter 10: Enzo
Millie’s memories surface. Before Brock, there was Enzo Accardi—a partner in rescuing abused women, even when it got “messy.” He pushed her toward a social work degree and a straighter path. Their close friendship turned passionate until Enzo left for Sicily after his mother’s stroke. Former enemies were “taken care of,” he said, and he’d be back soon. A year later, still tied to his mother’s bedside, they ended things over the phone, both in tears.
Back in the present, Millie hunts down the Garricks’ finicky grocery list—cucamelons included. On her way out, her downstairs neighbor, Xavier, a man with a gold tooth and a scar, greets her by name with unsettling familiarity. The encounter tightens the feeling that eyes are on her. She considers moving in with Brock, not for romance, but for safety. Her past insists on one truth: if Wendy needs help, Millie won’t be able to walk away.
Character Development
Millie’s sharper instincts awaken as the Garricks’ veneer fractures. These chapters position her between the safe life she wants and the dangerous purpose she can’t ignore.
- Millie Calloway: Protective, perceptive, and practiced in crisis. Her impostor syndrome with Brock collides with her capacity for quiet investigation and, if necessary, decisive action.
- Douglas Garrick: Polished and punctual yet reactive and controlling. He manages access to Wendy, frames the narrative, and leverages grand gestures to maintain power.
- Wendy Garrick: Mostly unseen, but her presence intensifies—an eye at the door, a voice compressed by fear, and muffled crying that exposes the lie of her “illness.”
- Brock Cunningham: Affectionate and generous, but glib and insulated. His jokes and luxury tastes underscore his distance from Millie’s hard-earned intuition.
- Enzo Accardi: A ghost of Millie’s truest self—loyal, effective, and morally flexible in the name of protection. He embodies the road Millie left but may need again.
Themes & Symbols
These chapters sharpen Appearance vs. Reality. The gleaming penthouse, curated menu, and staged laundry signal a life curated for display, not honesty. Douglas’s image as the doting husband collapses beside a locked door, a sobbing wife, and a dinner served to an empty seat. Every polished surface reflects a lie.
Deception and Manipulation thread through every interaction. Douglas filters all access to Wendy and uses a diamond bracelet as leverage. Millie lies about talking to Wendy, not to deceive for gain, but to protect her investigation. That ethical gray zone points toward Justice and Revenge—the moral center of Millie’s past with Enzo and a likely path forward. Symbols pile up: the folded “dirty” laundry as performative order; the guest room’s locked door as literal and psychological imprisonment; the single green eye as a plea that can’t speak freely; the menu as wealth functioning as control.
Key Quotes
“feeling under the weather” Douglas’s euphemism minimizes Wendy’s condition and keeps Millie at a distance. The soft phrasing hides hard control, letting Douglas maintain a narrative of care while enforcing isolation.
“taken care of” Enzo’s phrase is an ethical fog—did justice happen, or something darker? The ambiguity links Millie’s effectiveness to methods polite society refuses to name, foreshadowing how she may confront Douglas.
“catch” Millie’s self-description exposes her class anxiety and fear of not belonging in Brock’s world. That insecurity increases the pressure to accept surface-level safety instead of trusting her instincts.
“vampire” / “werewolf” Brock’s flippant labels turn Millie’s dread into entertainment. His humor signals a blind spot: he doesn’t recognize danger unless it’s dressed as myth, not domestic control.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
Chapters 6–10 erect the novel’s central tension: a pristine home disguising a captive wife, and a protagonist built for rescue trying to live a quiet life. Millie’s flashback reframes her as an active force, not a bystander; she knows how to intervene and what it costs. Douglas’s controlled access, performative gifts, and scripted explanations clash with Wendy’s visible distress, making confrontation inevitable.
This section binds plot and psychology. The Garricks’ secrecy pushes Millie toward her former self; Brock’s comforts pull her away. Xavier’s intrusive presence adds exterior pressure. Together, these strands escalate the stakes and set the story’s trajectory—from suspicion to action, from polished lies to dangerous truth.