The Housemaid(70)

Yes, I want Andy dead. But I don’t want to deal with any of the consequences. Especially the letter that will go to the police in the event of his death. I want him dead, but not enough to spend my life in prison.

“You can’t do it.” I shake my head firmly. “You’ll go to jail. We’ll both go to jail. Is that what you want?”

Enzo mumbles more Italian under his breath. “Fine. Then you leave him.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. I will help you.”

“What can you do?” It’s not entirely a rhetorical question. Maybe Enzo is secretly rich. Maybe he’s got some mob connections I don’t know about. “Can you get me a plane ticket? A new passport? A new identity?”

“No, but…” He rubs his chin. “I will find a way. I know some people. I will help.”

I want so badly to believe him.





FORTY-EIGHT





Step Seven: Try to Escape





A week later, I meet up with Enzo to make plans.

We are careful about it. In fact, when I have friends over from the PTA, I make a show of snapping at him that he’s ruining my geraniums, just to ward off any potential gossip. I’m almost certain Andy put a tracking device somewhere in my car, so I can’t drive to his house. Instead, I drive to a fast-food restaurant, park in the lot, and hop into his vehicle before anyone can see. I leave my phone behind.

I’m not taking any chances.

Enzo has a small basement apartment that he rents, but it has a private entrance. He leads me to his tiny kitchenette with a round circular table and rickety chairs, and the chair groans threateningly as I sit down. I feel self-conscious about how much nicer our house is than his living quarters, but then again, I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would care about stuff like that.

Enzo goes over to his fridge. He pulls out a beer and holds it up. “You want?”

I start to say no, but I change my mind. “Yes, please.”

He returns to the table with two beer bottles. He uses a bottle opener on his keychain to pop them both open and then he slides one of them across the table to me. I rest my fingers on the bottle, feeling the cold condensation under my hand.

“Thank you,” I say.

He shrugs. “Is not great beer.”

“I don’t mean for the beer.”

He cracks his knuckles. As the muscles in his arms flex, it’s hard not to be aware of how incredibly sexy this man is. If the women in my neighborhood knew I was in his apartment, they would all be incredibly jealous. They would assume he was ripping my clothes off as we speak and getting ready to ravish me—they would probably be angry that he picked me out of all the other women on the block who are more attractive than I am. Enzo could do so much better. They have no clue. It’s so far off from the truth, it’s almost funny. But not really.

“I had a feeling,” he says. “Your husband—I could tell he is bad guy.”

I take a long swig from the beer bottle. “I didn’t even know you spoke English.”

Enzo laughs. He’s been working in my yard for two years now, and this is the first time I’ve heard him laugh. “It is easier to pretend I don’t understand. Otherwise, the housewives do not ever leave me alone. You get me?”

Despite everything, I laugh too. He’s right about that. “You’re from Italy originally?”

“Sicily.”

“So…” I swish my beer around in the bottle. “What brought you here?”

His shoulders sag. “It is not a good story.”

“And mine is?”

He looks down at his own beer bottle. “My sister Antonia’s husband—he was like yours. A bad guy. A rich, powerful bad guy, who made himself feel better by slapping her around. I tell her, leave… but she would not. Then one day, he pushed her down the stairs and she never woke up at the hospital.” He grabs the sleeve of his T-shirt and pulls it up to reveal the tattoo I have seen of the heart with the name Antonia inscribed in it. “Now this is how I remember her.”

“Oh.” I clasp a hand over my mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “There is no justice for men like him. No jail. No punishment for murdering my sister. So I decided to punish him. Myself.”

I remember the dark look in his eyes when I told him what Andy did to me. I will kill him. “Did you…?”

“No.” He cracks his knuckles again—the sound echoes through the tiny apartment. “I did not go that far. And I regret this. Because after that, my life was worth nothing. Niente. I had to take everything I had and use it to get out.” He takes a drink from his beer bottle. “If I ever go back, I will be killed before I leave the airport.”

I don’t know what to say. “Was it hard for you to leave?”

“Will it be hard for you to leave here?”

I think about it for a moment and shake my head. I want to leave. I want to put as many miles as I can between me and Andrew Winchester. If that means going to Siberia, I’ll do it.

“You will need passports for you and Cecelia.” He ticks it off on his fingers. “A driver’s license. Birth certificates. Enough cash to keep you going until you can find work. And two plane tickets.”