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Back The Mother Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (84)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. HALLOWEEN
  6. Seven Weeks Before Halloween
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. HALLOWEEN
  11. Six Weeks Before Halloween
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. HALLOWEEN
  16. Five Weeks Before Halloween
  17. SEVEN
  18. EIGHT
  19. HALLOWEEN
  20. NINE
  21. TEN
  22. HALLOWEEN
  23. ELEVEN
  24. TWELVE
  25. Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween
  26. THIRTEEN
  27. FOURTEEN
  28. HALLOWEEN
  29. FIFTEEN
  30. SIXTEEN
  31. SEVENTEEN
  32. EIGHTEEN
  33. NINETEEN
  34. TWENTY
  35. HALLOWEEN
  36. Eighteen Days Until Halloween
  37. TWENTY-ONE
  38. TWENTY-TWO
  39. HALLOWEEN
  40. TWENTY-THREE
  41. TWENTY-FOUR
  42. Eleven Days Until Halloween
  43. TWENTY-FIVE
  44. TWENTY-SIX
  45. Eight Days Until Halloween
  46. TWENTY-SEVEN
  47. TWENTY-EIGHT
  48. TWENTY-NINE
  49. HALLOWEEN
  50. THIRTY
  51. Four Days Until Halloween
  52. THIRTY-ONE
  53. HALLOWEEN
  54. THIRTY-TWO
  55. Two Days Until Halloween
  56. THIRTY-THREE
  57. The Night Before Halloween
  58. THIRTY-FOUR
  59. HALLOWEEN
  60. THIRTY-FIVE
  61. Halloween, Present Day
  62. THIRTY-SIX
  63. THIRTY-SEVEN
  64. HALLOWEEN
  65. THIRTY-EIGHT
  66. HALLOWEEN
  67. THIRTY-NINE
  68. HALLOWEEN
  69. FORTY
  70. HALLOWEEN
  71. FORTY-ONE
  72. FORTY-TWO
  73. FORTY-THREE
  74. FORTY-FOUR
  75. HALLOWEEN... NOW
  76. FORTY-FIVE
  77. Seven Months Later
  78. FORTY-SIX
  79. FORTY-SEVEN
  80. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  81. ALICE SWANSON’S
  82. Reader's Guide
  83. Questions for Discussion
  84. Booklist

“No, not really. Just a polite nudge. She’s the wife of a key figure here, and the mother of a student at Woodard, so she’s got to hold her own.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and smiled. “Plus, she’ll be good. She seems eager.”

“Whatever,” Bettina said. “Fresh blood in the water. You’re like a shark.”

I hummed the Jaws theme as Alice came out, the screen door slamming behind her. “So sorry, guys. Hildie’s been peeing the bed lately, and I wanted to make sure she didn’t need to go.” She scooted her own chair next to mine, twisted her hair into a messy bun, and secured it with a hair tie. “I just didn’t want to put it in writing over text. But someone’s messing with us.”

“What do you mean?” Pia asked.

“Did y’all get any weird messages?” Alice looked at each of us.

We all shook our heads. In the firelight, we might’ve been witches around a cauldron. My mind flitted to the scene in my high school’s production of Macbeth, the old crones dancing around the flames. Trouble. Toil. Tumult.

Something wicked this way comes.

“Nothing? On Facebook? Did you see NeighborWho?”

“NeighborWho?” I laughed. NeighborWho was a hyper-local neighborhood group that people used to swap recipes, find lost pets, make business recommendations, trash local politicians, spread rumors, and sell shit they no longer wanted. Paul loved it because he traded old yard equipment and rated restaurants. I deleted my account after the year I’d run for school board and anonymous bitches had used it to campaign against me in ugly ways. “I can’t believe you even still read that trash.”

“Hush yourself and look,” Alice said.

I held the phone away from me (unlike Bettina, I did need reading glasses) and read it aloud for the others’ benefit:

Subject: Halloween Party in Ivy Woods

It’s been 13 years. This is the Halloween I take revenge.

~Ghost Girl

I handed her phone back. “Ooh so spooky,” I said sarcastically. She’d called us all out here for this?

“That’s targeting us. All of us.”

“Oh come on. That’s some kind of bad spam.” I gaped at Alice, searching for a sign she was joking. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s not spam,” Alice snapped. “They mentioned me, too. Look.” Alice thrust her cell phone back in my face:

Does what you did keep you up at night, Alice?

Uh-oh! I hear a buzzing sound around your hive...

Better watch out!

“See? They mention my hives. They know where we live.”

“So someone doesn’t like your backyard bees,” I said calmly. “You always said you were going to get complaints about it so close to the walking paths.”