Novels by maisonnnn179

The farmhouse was not what the real estate agent had described. It was even better.Emma stood in the overgrown front yard, staring up at the two-story structure with its weathered brick facade and its dark, empty windows. The agent, a nervous woman named Layla, was talking about the history of the property, something about a family that had lived there for generations, but Emma was not listening. She was looking at the house across the street.The Smith family home sat directly opposite, separated only by a narrow strip of road and a line of dying elm trees. From the upstairs window of the farmhouse, she would have a perfect view of their front door, their living room window, their driveway. She would be able to watch everything.It was not a coincidence. Emma had spent three days searching for properties, and when she found this one, she knew it was fate. The house had been on the market for months, overlooked by buyers because of its age and its remote location, but Emma saw only p

Derek paced the living room like a caged animal, his phone clutched in his hand, his face a mask of furious disbelief. His mother sat on the couch with her arms crossed, watching him with sharp eyes, while Rachel hovered near the doorway to the kitchen, pretending to organize the cabinets but clearly listening to every word."She actually hung up on me," Derek said for the fifth time. "She said she wants a divorce and then she hung up on me. Can you believe that?"Beatrice made a dismissive sound in her throat. "She is throwing a tantrum. That is all this is. She will come back once she realizes she has nowhere else to go.""What if she does not come back?" Rachel’s voice was soft, almost innocent, but Derek knew better. He knew that soft voice, knew the calculation behind it. "What if she is serious about this?""She is not serious." Derek stopped pacing and ran his hand through his thinning hair. "She has no family. No friends. She has nothing without us."His mother nodded firmly.

The phone rang again before she made it to the end of the driveway. She did not need to look at the screen to know who it was. Derek had never been able to let anything go, not a perceived insult, not an argument, not the feeling that he was right and everyone else was wrong.She answered on the fourth ring. "You can not just say something like that and hang up on me." His voice was tight, controlled, the way he got when he was trying to pretend he was not angry. "A divorce? After everything I have done for you? After everything my family has done for you?"She kept walking. The neighbourhood was quiet this early in the morning, just a few people out walking their dogs, a couple of cars pulling out of driveways. Normal people living normal lives, unaware that in forty days, everything they knew would start to fall apart."You have done nothing for me," she said. "I paid for the house, paid for the car, paid for your mother's medical bills and your sister's tuition. I have done everyth

The thirst woke her first. That terrible, clawing dryness in her throat that she knew better than her own name. Emma bolted upright, gasping, her hands flying to her neck as if she could still feel the rope burns, the pressure of that man's fingers squeezing the life out of her while her husband watched.But there was no rope, no man. There was only her bedroom, her old bedroom with the pale blue curtains she had picked out three years ago and the digital clock on the nightstand that read 6:47 AM.She stared at the date below the time. June 12th.Her heart slammed against her ribs. That couldn't be right. The heatwave had started on June 19th. The power had gone out on the 22nd. She had died on August 3rd, after forty-three days of hell, after her husband offered her to strangers for cans of beans and bags of rice, after she kicked one of them in the groin and he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed until everything went black.But the clock said June 12th. The air conditi