The Neighbors Are Watching Read Free

it
was
panic—feeling hemmed in suddenly by this street with its garage doors and crazy piano and whores and weird women. The air felt sharp and hot in her nose. Her head pounded. The baby kicked in a flurry like it was trying to get out. Or get away.
    I don’t want to be here
.
    Suddenly, it all felt like a huge mistake. If she could … If she could she would call her mother this very minute.
Come and get me
. But that bridge had been burned. And she’d been the one who’d torched it. It wasthen—visions of flaming bridges in her head and her fingers curling around the cell phone in her pocket—that the car drove onto the street and turned into the driveway where she was standing.
    So. They were home.
    There were a few seconds where nobody did anything. The woman—passenger—and the man—driver—didn’t get out of the car, just turned the car off and sat there. They stared at her through the windshield, this stranger in their driveway, and she stared back at them. The cooling engine ticked. Just as it was all starting to feel really, really weird, they both got out simultaneously, slamming their doors behind them.
    She could see him now, the white guy she’d never met who was about to get the biggest surprise of his life. For some reason—maybe it was the guilty look in his eyes and the turned-down corner of his mouth—it seemed like he might already know. Like maybe he’d been waiting for this moment.
    Not so with the blond, ponytailed tight-ass who had to be his wife.
She
was looking like she wondered what kind of hurricane blew this trash onto her doorstep and what was it going to take to get rid of it. She saw the wife look from her, to her suitcase, to her belly, and to her husband, her blue eyes darting like they had no place to settle, and she had just one thought.
Bitch
. The baby kicked and her bladder screamed with the urge to pee. Damn.
    He came up to her, close, and looked right down into her eyes. He was taller than she’d thought he would be. And better looking.
    “Hi,” he said. “Who are you? Can I help you with something?”
    “Are you Joe Montana?” she asked.
    “Yes, I am.”
    And then there was a second where it all threatened to fall apart, where she could taste the tears and fear at the back of her throat, and she had to bite her lip and press her fingernails into her palms just to keep from breaking down and crying. But she pulled it in and got it straight. She cleared her throat once and said, “I’m Diana Jones. I’m your daughter.”

chapter 2
    A llison lay corpse-still, her back to her husband, unblinking eyes staring at the broken squares of moonlight on the carpet. The window was wide open, but the bedroom felt hot and stifling. The lemon-tinged scent of eucalyptus leaves was heavy in the air, coating her sinuses. Thoughts ran thick and furious inside her head, pulsing through her unmoving body, throbbing between her legs. Two impulses fought for control, both so strong they made her throat constrict. She wanted to kill him—just reach over and choke him until his breath was gone—and she wanted to climb on top of him and screw him senseless. She understood the murderous urge. After what he’d done, who could blame her? But the craving for sex surprised and shamed her. Her cheeks flushed with heat in the dark and she struggled to control her breathing. She didn’t want him to feel any movement coming from her side of the bed. She could tell by the light sound of his breathing that he was still awake. Her desire for physical contact was so powerful she knew that if he touched her—just one touch—she’d give in immediately.
    He’d done it before. Those nights when they’d had some minor argument and had gone to bed in silence, he’d wait ten, maybe fifteen, minutes and then shift so slightly toward her, his hand moving over to caress the curve of her hip. His fingers would rest there, light, until he felt the tremorof consent under her skin and then he’d