The Neighbor's Secret(66)

She scooped them up, slid on her flip-flops, and opened the door to the garage.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE



Jen couldn’t get comfortable. She kicked off the covers, pulled them back on. Paul, snoring lightly next to her, turned onto his side.

She had texted Colin to ask what happened between Abe and Laurel. Abe hadn’t been in the best mood, he replied, but he didn’t think anything too dramatic had occurred. Did Jen want him to cancel his doctor’s appointment? No, Jen replied. Nothing is more important than that.

Tomorrow morning, she’d call Dr. Shapiro, who might have some ideas of how to proceed: apology notes, or group therapy sessions, or an amendment to the point system.

This time will be different.

Jen repeated it until she started to drift off. A door slammed. She opened her eyes. Had it been real, or part of a dream?

What popped into her head was that quote everyone misattributed to Einstein, about how the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

This time will be different.

But her brain stuck on something that didn’t lie flat: Laurel Perley is a lying little brat.

The thought was a dissonant chord. Embarrassed by her indecency, she stared at the dark ceiling.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO



Janine’s texts started at seven fifteen on Monday morning.

Jen, making the coffee, recognized their rhythm: the single chime, then a trickle, finally a deluge of overlapping alarms, like blue jays sounding their frantic warnings.

The vandal has struck again!

Out of the kitchen window, Jen could see her neighbors’ rooftops. She imagined the breakfast scenes beneath them—worried clucks over coffee mugs. Lined brows, can-do brainstorming about security gates and cameras. They all thought they were invested, but no one felt the news as deeply as Jen did.

Paul had already left for the airport, which meant that Jen was alone with Abe in the kitchen. He sat behind his laptop at the banquette, cereal bowl untouched. There were circles underneath his eyes as he typed. He wore the same dark T-shirt and ankle-baring track pants that he had worn last night.

Jen hadn’t asked him whether he’d done it. If he said no, could she believe him? If he said yes—

“Abe, I thought I heard a door slam last night?”

He continued typing.

“Abe.”

“Huh?”

“Did you slam the front door last night?”

“What?” He blinked.

“The door. Did you go out late?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I took out the trash.”

Was that a metaphor?

“When?”

“Midnight. I dunno. Why? You’re always saying that we can’t wait until morning because the trucks come super early.”

She was always saying that. The trucks did come early.

“But that’s all you did?”

“Yep.”

With effort, Jen kept her voice steady. “Because the vandal broke one of the windows at Laurel Perley’s house last night. Was that your plan for justice, Abe?”

“My plan’s more sophisticated,” he said with a shrug. “But it does sound kind of like justice.”



* * *



“They think it’s a disgruntled student,” Annie said with an eye roll. She swigged the latte Jen had bought her from the espresso cart, the fancy one on Main Street. “Oh, this is delicious.”

“A student?” Jen said.

There was something going on with Jen’s hair, which was normally glossy and pin-straight but this morning clumped in irregular waves. She wore stained striped pajama pants and a holey T-shirt and—although Annie was trying not to examine too closely—didn’t seem to have bothered with a bra.

“Or a former student. They saw something similar a few years back,” Annie said, “and when the police realized I work at the school, they kind of seized on it. Don’t worry, though, I told them alllll about how Multi-Culti Night will stop anything like this from ever happening again. Although now I’ll have to miss it because tonight is the only time the window guy can come.”

Annie paused for Jen’s laughter.

She’d been pretty pleased with her joke about Multi-Culti Night, which seemed the type of dry snark Jen would appreciate, but it hadn’t even registered with Jen.

“Do you have any disgruntled former students?” Jen said.

“It’s not a student,” Annie said. “It’s the vandal, obviously, and it sucks but I suppose it was our turn. Between you and me, we’ve had so much drama this year, with, you know, Fall Fest and Laurel, that this doesn’t seem like such a big deal.” Annie shrugged. “Maybe I should be more worried.”

“Do they know anything?”

“Not really.” Annie took another gulp of the latte. The taste was so complex, rich and layered. “Is it the beans or the machine?”

Jen stared at her blankly.

Everyone seemed almost disappointed that Annie wasn’t in hysterics about the window, and maybe if the kids had been in the den when the rock sailed through, she would have been.

The impact hadn’t even been loud enough to wake any of them, or even Yellow, who apparently lacked basic watchdog skills. They had woken up to the peaceful but surreal scene of a wren hopping around their living room, and a neat pile of glass on the floor.