Also by Mary Monroe
The Lonely Heart, Deadly Heart Series
Every Woman’s Dream
Never Trust a Stranger
The Devil You Know
The God Series
God Don’t Like Ugly
God Still Don’t Like Ugly
God Don’t Play
God Ain’t Blind
God Ain’t Through Yet
God Don’t Make No Mistakes
Mama Ruby Series
Mama Ruby
The Upper Room
Lost Daughters
Gonna Lay Down My Burdens
Red Light Wives
In Sheep’s Clothing
Deliver Me From Evil
She Had It Coming
The Company We Keep
Family of Lies
Bad Blood
“Nightmare in Paradise” in Borrow Trouble
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
One House Over
MARY MONROE
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
The Neighbors - Book 1
Chapter 1 - Joyce
Chapter 2 - Odell
Chapter 3 - Odell
Chapter 4 - Joyce
Chapter 5 - Odell
Chapter 6 - Odell
Chapter 7 - Joyce
Chapter 8 - Odell
Chapter 9 - Joyce
Chapter 10 - Odell
Chapter 11 - Joyce
Chapter 12 - Odell
Chapter 13 - Joyce
Chapter 14 - Odell
Chapter 15 - Joyce
Chapter 16 - Odell
Chapter 17 - Odell
Chapter 18 - Odell
Chapter 19 - Joyce
Chapter 20 - Odell
Chapter 21 - Joyce
Chapter 22 - Odell
Chapter 23 - Odell
Chapter 24 - Joyce
Chapter 25 - Odell
Chapter 26 - Joyce
Chapter 27 - Odell
Chapter 28 - Joyce
Chapter 29 - Joyce
Chapter 30 - Odell
Chapter 31 - Joyce
Chapter 32 - Odell
Chapter 33 - Odell
Chapter 34 - Joyce
Chapter 35 - Odell
Chapter 36 - Joyce
Chapter 37 - Joyce
Chapter 38 - Odell
Chapter 39 - Odell
Chapter 40 - Joyce
Chapter 41 - Odell
Chapter 42 - Odell
Chapter 43 - Odell
Chapter 44 - Joyce
Chapter 45 - Joyce
Chapter 46 - Odell
Chapter 47 - Odell
Chapter 48 - Joyce
Chapter 49 - Odell
Chapter 50 - Odell
ONE HOUSE OVER
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Mary Monroe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2017955113
Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1611-8
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: April 2018
eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1613-2
eISBN-10: 1-4967-1613-2
Kensington Electronic Edition: April 2018
This book is dedicated to Sheila Sims, Maria Felice Sanchez, and the awesome Deimentrius Clay who owns Lady Esther’s, my favorite restaurant in Oakland, California.
Acknowledgments
I am so blessed to be a member of the Kensington Books family. Selena James is an awesome editor and a great friend. Thank you, Selena! Thanks to Steven Zacharius, Adam Zacharius, Karen Auberach, Lulu Martinez, the wonderful crew in the sales department, and everyone else at Kensington for working so hard for me.
Thanks to Lauretta Pierce for maintaining my website and sharing so many wonderful stories with me.
Thanks to the fabulous book clubs, bookstores, libraries, my readers, and the magazine and radio interviewers for supporting me for so many years.
I have one of the best literary agents on the planet, Andrew Stuart. Thank you, Andrew, for representing me with so much vigor.
The Neighbors
Book 1
Chapter 1
Joyce
June 1934
OTHER THAN MY PARENTS, I WAS THE ONLY OTHER PERSON AT THE supper table Sunday evening. But there was enough food for twice as many people. We’d spent the first five minutes raving about Mama’s fried chicken, how much we had enjoyed Reverend Jessup’s sermon a few hours ago, and other mundane things. When Daddy cleared his throat and looked at me with his jaw twitching, I knew the conversation was about to turn toward my spinsterhood.
“I hired a new stock boy the other day and I told him all about you. He is just itching to get acquainted. This one is a real nice, young, single man,” Daddy said, looking at me from the corner of his eye.
I froze because I knew where this conversation was going: my “old maid” status. The last “real nice, young, single man” Daddy had hired to work in our store and tried to dump off on me was a fifty-five-year-old, tobacco-chewing, widowed grandfather named Buddy Armstrong. There had been several others before him. Each one had grandkids and health problems. Daddy was eighty-two, so to him anybody under sixty was “young.” He and Mama had tried to have children for thirty years before she gave birth to me thirty years ago, when she was forty-eight. But I hadn’t waited this long to settle for a husband who’d probably become disabled or die of old age before he could give me the children I desperately wanted.
I was tempted to stay quiet and keep my eyes on the ads for scarves in the new Sears and Roebuck catalog that I had set next to my plate. But I knew that if I didn’t say something on the subject within the next few seconds, Daddy would harp on it until I did. Mama would join in, and they wouldn’t stop until they’d run out of things to say. And then they would start all over again. I took a deep breath and braced myself. “Daddy, I work as a teacher’s aide. What do I have in common with a stock boy?”
Daddy raised both of his thick gray eyebrows and looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “Humph! Y’all both single! That’s what y’all got in common!” he growled.
“I can find somebody on my own!” I boomed. I never raised my
