The Maid's Diary

Three nights before the murder, Jon and Mia are at a quiet little bar. He feels woozy and thinks this is the effect of lust. Mia takes him upstairs to a rented apartment. Jon realizes that the glass windows might expose their activities to anybody who wants to watch but he doesn’t care as Mia undresses him.

Mal is still on the phone with Lula, who tells her that the Norths only live in the house in Vancouver two months out of the year and aren’t due back until January. They also use the cleaning service where Kit works but have no idea who their maid is. Lula sends Mal photos of the Norths. Mal and Benoit speculate that Beulah Brown never got a good look at the real Vanessa before she left for Singapore. Both detectives conclude that Kit has been the victim of foul play.

Two days before the murder, Jon wakes up alone in the rented apartment. One of his wrists is handcuffed to the bed and he’s naked. It is nearly 2 am. He’s frightened and in pain. Jon finds the keys to the cuffs and frees himself. He notices a needle mark on his arm and finds lines of cocaine in the bathroom but he can’t remember anything. He is sure Mia set him up and now worries about what Daisy will think.

The photographer waits outside and gets pictures of Jon staggering out of the condo tower where he spent the night. He hails a cab, and the photographer follows it to the emergency room of the hospital. Jon seems to have concocted a story to tell his wife because she arrives shortly afterward.

Kit writes about her experience of being drugged and raped at the ski lodge party. She can’t recall most of the incident because the people around her said she was a liar and “insane.” Kit finally put the pieces together when she found the documents in Daisy’s safe. Kit’s mother signed an NDA in exchange for a large sum of money from Daisy’s mother that was intended to finance Kit’s education. Instead, Kit dropped out of school and led an aimless and confused life.

She is equally disturbed by Boon’s silence about the party. Kit confesses to the diary that she doesn’t want simple justice for Jon and Daisy. She wants to stop other women from being harmed by people like them. Kit meets up with Boon to confront him about his behavior at the party. He tells her that he was afraid to speak up because he would have been outed as gay. He is sorry for not helping her but he was also victimized and frightened. Boon apologizes for not telling Kit sooner. She responds by saying that he owes her. Kit makes him watch the tape of the assault on her.

On the morning of November 2, Mal calls a team meeting to brief everyone on the breakthroughs in the case. Someone has caught camera footage of the Audi and the Subaru heading toward an abandoned dockyard. Mal concludes that the dump site for the Subaru has been found. A third vehicle was also spotted in the dockyard. This is a Mercedes with a couple seated inside. The car leaves after the Audi but goes in another direction.

The Mercedes is owned by Tamara Adler, a top Vancouver lawyer. She is handling a case for a local politician, who is assumed to be her companion in the car. Mal wants to talk to Tamara Adler. A dive team is sent to retrieve the Subaru, and DNA samples from Kit’s apartment will be matched against the blood at the crime scene.

Two days before the murder, Daisy brings her husband home. He tells her that he blacked out and had a mini-stroke brought on by stress. She suppresses her suspicions about his story because she doesn’t want to be a single mother. She needs Jon and “needs to believe she married the right man” (256).

On November 2, Mal interviews Tamara Adler. Tamara wants assurances that her name can be kept out of the papers. She has been having an affair with politician Frank Horvath. They saw something heavy being dumped into the water and the Subaru rolled off the dock. Tamara can’t identify the people involved but one could have been a pregnant woman. When Tamara tries to excuse her behavior by saying that she doesn’t want to hurt people who care about her, Mal counters: “Our missing victim also has people who care about her, Mrs. Adler” (262).

On the day of the murder, Jon still feels hung over. He tries calling Mia, but her number has been disconnected. Daisy reminds him that they are supposed to go to the North home for dinner that night. Jon calls his investigator, eager for dirt on Ahmed. As the detective can’t find anything incriminating, Jon wants him to plant something. When Jon arrives at work, he is told to go to the big boss’s office right away. He feels dread.

On November 2, Mal questions the yoga instructor who taught both Vanessa and Daisy. When the detective displays a photo of the real Vanessa, the instructor doesn’t recognize the woman. The owner of the local restaurant has the same reaction to the photo. This is not the Vanessa he knows.

The morning of the murder, Jon goes to see Darrien Walton, the head of TerraWest. He is confronted with photos of himself having sex with Mia and two unknown men. Henry Clay shares evidence Jon hired to falsify evidence against Ahmed. Walton fires Jon on the spot and has him escorted from the building. Jon is overcome with humiliation and murderous rage.

On November 2, the detectives watch as the Subaru is dragged from the water. Protected in a plastic bag in the glove compartment, they find Kit’s diary. Her DNA is a match for the blood at the crime scene, and so is Jon’s.

That same day, Daisy is watching the news at her parents’ house when a story comes on about the missing maid. As police vehicles enter the driveway, Daisy implores her mother to find her a good lawyer.

Six hours before the murder, Daisy is getting ready for the North dinner party. Jon comes home from work looking bedraggled but merely says he had a rough day. When they arrive at the Glass House, they are greeted by a non-pregnant Vanessa in a Halloween devil costume. Jon recognizes her as Mia. Daisy focuses on her T-shirt which references the sinister messages she has been receiving. Vanessa is Kit.

Kit confides to her diary that all people manipulate reality: “We’re all tricksters. Each and every one of us. No one is a totally reliable narrator” (290). Her psychiatrist told her that tricksters are representations of our dark selves.

Five hours before the murder, Kit reveals her real identity to the stunned Jon and Daisy. In shock, Daisy has already dropped the flowers and cake on the doorstep. Kit insists that they come inside for a chat. She tells Daisy that Jon had a threesome the night before. She then tells Jon that Daisy has a video capturing Jon’s rape of Katerina Popovich. She warns that someone has them all on a surveillance camera, so nothing had better happen to her: “Daisy says quietly, ‘Jon, let’s go inside. We need to go inside’” (295).