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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

That would be difficult in the dark, with all these people milling about. Especially if Lily didn’t want to be found.

“Chill,” I said. “I’m sure she’s running around here somewhere. Do you need a drink?” I guzzled from my punch.

“I don’t know...” Theresa trailed off. In her owl mask, I couldn’t see her face, and I didn’t like that. “Kendra, there’s something I need to...” She paused. A group of kids rushed between us, and we had to back apart.

“What did you say?” I asked her once they’d passed.

I leaned over and pushed up her owl mask, revealing her eyes. She was tearing up.

“I think Jackie got to Lily.” Her voice was just above a whisper. I had to lean in even farther to hear her, so that to anyone else it might’ve looked like we were kissing. “Lily’s so mad at me.”

Jackie? Lily? She wasn’t making any sense at all. Maybe she had been dipping into the punch. Or perhaps we’d pushed her too much last night at the bonfire, made her paranoid. I tried to find another Ivy, but no one was in sight.

“Everything’s wrong.” Theresa clasped her hands together, looking around at the party. “I just need to talk to Lily. If you see her, text me, okay? She was supposed to be the babysitter.”

Supposed to be the babysitter.

As Theresa walked into the crowd, it all clicked.

The way she always tugged at the end of her ponytail.

Paul’s bee sting kit. Theresa’s allergy.

“Theresa!” I called, but the band started up with another song, and she didn’t hear me.

The lake. The clover. A young woman babysitting Ellen all those years ago. Breathing shallow. Her face white as a sheet.

You have to help. It’s a bad allergy.

Someone I would’ve completely forgotten otherwise. If she’d never come back.

But she had returned. She knew the neighborhood. She’d been here before. The bees.

The fucking bees.

Theresa Pressley was the one who’d been sleeping with Greg Hendricks. She was who we’d needed to deal with. Not Daphne. Theresa was the one who’d nearly destroyed our lives. And now she was back to do it again.

HALLOWEEN

If this was another fairy tale, the bride might be met by her prince and rescued. He’d swoop in at the last second, all freshly brushed velvet jacket and shiny black boots, and remove Daphne from the witches’ clutches. He’d take her back to the castle and they’d both be asleep and happily-ever-aftering while the rest of the ghouls and dark knights and painfully sweet lollipop twins and ice-cream sweethearts wandered Ivy Woods with their bags and pillowcases, looking for more more more on this All Hallows’ Eve.

But this is not that kind of fairy tale.