The Perfect Neighbor Read online

  t h e p e r f e c t n e i g h b o r

  (a jessie hunt psychological suspense—book 9)

  b l a k e p i e r c e

  Blake Pierce

  Blake Pierce is the USA Today bestselling author of the RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes seventeen books. Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising fourteen books; of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; of the MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, comprising six books; of the KATE WISE mystery series, comprising seven books; of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising six books; of the JESSE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising eleven books (and counting); of the AU PAIR psychological suspense thriller series, comprising three books; of the ZOE PRIME mystery series, comprising four books (and counting); of the new ADELE SHARP mystery series; and of the new EUROPEAN VOYAGE cozy mystery series.

  An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

  Copyright © 2020 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright GeorgeMayer , used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

  EUROPEAN VOYAGE COZY MYSTERY SERIES

  MURDER (AND BAKLAVA) (Book #1)

  DEATH (AND APPLE STRUDEL) (Book #2)

  CRIME (AND LAGER) (Book #3)

  ADELE SHARP MYSTERY SERIES

  LEFT TO DIE (Book #1)

  LEFT TO RUN (Book #2)

  LEFT TO HIDE (Book #3)

  LEFT TO KILL (Book #4)

  LEFT TO MURDER (Book #5)

  LEFT TO ENVY (Book #6)

  LEFT TO LAPSE (Book #7)

  THE AU PAIR SERIES

  ALMOST GONE (Book#1)

  ALMOST LOST (Book #2)

  ALMOST DEAD (Book #3)

  ZOE PRIME MYSTERY SERIES

  FACE OF DEATH (Book#1)

  FACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

  FACE OF FEAR (Book #3)

  FACE OF MADNESS (Book #4)

  FACE OF FURY (Book #5)

  FACE OF DARKNESS (Book #6)

  A JESSIE HUNT PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

  THE PERFECT WIFE (Book #1)

  THE PERFECT BLOCK (Book #2)

  THE PERFECT HOUSE (Book #3)

  THE PERFECT SMILE (Book #4)

  THE PERFECT LIE (Book #5)

  THE PERFECT LOOK (Book #6)

  THE PERFECT AFFAIR (Book #7)

  THE PERFECT ALIBI (Book #8)

  THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (Book #9)

  THE PERFECT DISGUISE (Book #10)

  THE PERFECT SECRET (Book #11)

  CHLOE FINE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

  NEXT DOOR (Book #1)

  A NEIGHBOR’S LIE (Book #2)

  CUL DE SAC (Book #3)

  SILENT NEIGHBOR (Book #4)

  HOMECOMING (Book #5)

  TINTED WINDOWS (Book #6)

  KATE WISE MYSTERY SERIES

  IF SHE KNEW (Book #1)

  IF SHE SAW (Book #2)

  IF SHE RAN (Book #3)

  IF SHE HID (Book #4)

  IF SHE FLED (Book #5)

  IF SHE FEARED (Book #6)

  IF SHE HEARD (Book #7)

  THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES

  WATCHING (Book #1)

  WAITING (Book #2)

  LURING (Book #3)

  TAKING (Book #4)

  STALKING (Book #5)

  KILLING (Book #6)

  RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

  ONCE GONE (Book #1)

  ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

  ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

  ONCE LURED (Book #4)

  ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

  ONCE PINED (Book #6)

  ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

  ONCE COLD (Book #8)

  ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

  ONCE LOST (Book #10)

  ONCE BURIED (Book #11)

  ONCE BOUND (Book #12)

  ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)

  ONCE DORMANT (Book #14)

  ONCE SHUNNED (Book #15)

  ONCE MISSED (Book #16)

  ONCE CHOSEN (Book #17)

  MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

  BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

  BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

  BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

  BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

  BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

  BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

  BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)

  BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)

  BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

  BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)

  BEFORE HE LAPSES (Book #11)

  BEFORE HE ENVIES (Book #12)

  BEFORE HE STALKS (Book #13)

  BEFORE HE HARMS (Book #14)

  AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

  CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

  CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

  CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

  CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

  CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

  CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

  KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

  A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

  A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)

  A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

  A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

  A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  She didn’t want to be nosy.

  At least that’s what Priscilla Barton told herself as she walked along the Manhattan Beach Strand with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in her hand.

  Technically, Prissy, as she preferred to be called, was welcoming a new neighbor to the community. She and her husband, Garth, had been away at their Palm Spri
ngs estate for much of last week and must have missed the new people moving in. Since the Bartons returned to town, Prissy sometimes noticed the movement of a silhouette behind the always-drawn shades in the mansion next door. But she’d never seen anyone come in or out.

  It was difficult to keep track these days anyway. Since so many of her neighbors in this wealthy, beach-adjacent stretch of town spent large chunks of the summer traveling, it was hard to know who was on vacation, much less who had rented or lent out their home.

  Prissy knew that the owners of the house next door were a Hollywood agent and his wife, who ran some kind of scholarship fund for underprivileged youth. But they weren’t especially friendly and were gone for long stretches of the year. In fact, she’d overheard another neighbor say they’d be gone until August. Since she hadn’t seen them in weeks, it made sense that the person she’d seen was a renter.

  As Prissy approached the front door, she felt a tingle of anticipation. What if the agent had lent out his house to a client, maybe a famous celebrity? It wouldn’t be unusual. Lots of famous people lived or vacationed here. She could often spot them because they wore baseball caps, sunglasses, and ratty clothes. It was like their uniform.

  Plus, they rarely looked up. If she saw someone who looked borderline homeless hiding their face and refusing to make eye contact, there was a solid chance it was a celebrity. Of course, she’d learned the hard way that sometimes it was a homeless person. So she was more cautious about approaching them than when she’d first moved in.

  It wasn’t like Prissy was a stranger to wealth. For the last nine years, she’d been married to Garth Barton, who was an extremely successful executive with Sharp Kimsey, an international oil and gas company. Until last year, they’d lived in the historic Hancock Park neighborhood, not far from all those gleaming downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers.

  But Prissy, who had grown up poor and sweaty in Catahoula, Louisiana, had grown tired of the sweltering summer heat of central L.A. and demanded they move to the beach, which was usually fifteen to twenty degrees cooler. But living at the beach didn’t mean being embraced by the locals. Prissy had yet to be accepted.

  She liked to tell herself that it was because these were insular, aloof types who despised newcomers. And there was some truth to that. But deep down, she knew that it had a lot more to do with her sometimes grasping, social-climbing personality, the one she tried to hide but which always seemed to emerge at the most inopportune times.

  She just couldn’t help it. That aggressive persona had helped her scrape and claw her way out of the bayou to get to LSU, where she met the suave New Orleans boy who wanted to become a master of the universe.

  After graduation and the wedding, Garth got the gig at Sharp Kimsey and they settled in Metairie, not far from the company’s New Orleans office. They were transferred to Houston after two years and then to L.A. after four more. They’d been here for three years and Prissy loved it.

  She loved the glamour of the town. She loved the unrepentant gaucheness. She loved the too-skinny women carrying around their too-tiny dogs in too-small purses. She wanted to be a part of it, even if her attempts made her look a little desperate. That’s why she was currently standing at her neighbor’s front door with a bottle of wine and a wide grin plastered on her face—to be a part of the scene.

  She glanced back at the Strand, a pedestrian-friendly cement path that often came within a casual newspaper toss of many homes in the towns of Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. It was surprisingly unpopulated for this late afternoon hour, which meant no one was around to judge her curiosity.

  Prissy gave herself a once-over in the thick, shimmering glass of the door. She thought she looked good. At thirty-one, she still had the bouncy body she knew she needed in order to keep Garth’s eye from wandering. All the yoga, Pilates, and beach boot camp workouts had paid off, keeping her tight in all the right places. Her dyed-blonde hair was loose around her shoulders and though it was early evening, she used the warm weather as an excuse to wear a sports bra and high-waisted yoga pants. She was pretty sure she’d make a good impression, whether the new resident was a celeb or not.

  Prissy rang the doorbell but heard nothing. It must be broken. She knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer. She tried again and still got no response. She was about to give up and was debating whether to leave the wine on the doormat. But she hadn’t brought a card and there was no way she was going to just leave the stuff without the recipient knowing who’d provided the gift. So she tried one last time. If no one answered this time, she’d just come back later. She banged hard on the door with the soft side of her fist. To her surprise, it opened inward slightly.

  “Hello?” she called out loudly but tentatively.

  There was no answer. Baffled by the oddness of leaving a multimillion-dollar home unprotected, she pushed the door open a bit more.

  “Hi, it’s your neighbor!” she called out as she peeked in the foyer for a pen and paper, anything to let the resident know that she deserved credit for the wine. Just leaving the bottle inside the door as an anonymous gift defeated the whole purpose of coming by in the first place. Seeing nothing, she closed the door behind her and stepped further inside the house.

  “Hello! Anyone home? I swear I’m not here to rob the place. I have a housewarming gift. I’m just going to leave it in the kitchen.”

  She wandered down the cavernous hallway in the direction she assumed would lead to the kitchen. She felt slightly nervous. After all, she was trespassing. If someone was home and hadn’t responded because they were in the shower or had earbuds in, they would be justified in reacting badly to an interloper sauntering into their home. But she also got a delicious thrill out of sneaking around.

  She didn’t meet a soul on the way to the kitchen. Every light in the house was off, which gave her the impression that the resident was gone and had just forgotten to lock or even properly close the door. She placed the wine on the kitchen island, found a pen, and wrote a short note on a nearby Post-it, which she stuck to the front of the bottle.

  Slightly disappointed, she started back down the main hall when curiosity got the better of her again. As she reached the entrance to the large living room, she couldn’t help but step inside and marvel at the place, which looked like it had been picked up and transported here directly from Cape Cod.

  She was just considering pulling out her phone to snap a few photos so she could steal some ideas when she heard a rustling sound in the corner of the room. Looking over, she saw that it came from behind a large plant. For a second, Prissy thought she’d frightened a pet that was staying out of sight for safety.

  But then, in a sudden burst of movement, a man shot out from behind the plant and ran toward her with a look of dark intensity on his face. Prissy felt an unexpected rush of panicked terror consume her. She wanted to scream but her throat had gone completely dry. The man was barreling right for her. She finally snapped out of it when she heard his breathing, heavy and fast.

  She sprinted down the long hallway toward the front door. But running in beach sandals was awkward and after only a few steps, she lost her balance and tumbled to the floor. She scrambled to her feet again, minus one flip-flop. The sound of lumbering footsteps behind her made her whole body fire with adrenaline.

  She was just reaching out for the doorknob when she felt a hard shove slam her forward into the door. Between that and her momentum, she smashed roughly into it and slumped to the floor again, gasping for breath. Before she could get back up, she felt something wrap around her neck.

  She tried to slide her fingers underneath it. But she couldn’t get any leverage and the man was twisting it tight as he yanked her back down the hall away from the door. She collapsed on top of him, sending them both to the floor hard. But he didn’t let go.

  Between the surge of adrenaline, getting the wind knocked out of her, and now being choked, Prissy felt her entire body screaming even if she couldn’t do it out loud. She swung her
elbows down, trying to hit her attacker in the ribs long enough to make him loosen his grip. But she could feel herself starting to lose consciousness and knew that her blows weren’t having much impact.

  It can’t end like this!

  The thought popped into her head as spotted lights began to consume her vision. The idea scared her enough to force one last, desperate attempt to shake herself free. But by then, it was far too late.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jessie Hunt stood up from the kitchen table without visibly wincing.

  She collected everyone’s plates and walked over to the sink to rinse them off. As the worst cook in the group, she had escaped dinner prep duty. But that meant she was the official dishwasher. Normally it was a fair tradeoff. But since suffering her latest wounds, bending over the sink was a challenge. Putting dishes in the dishwasher was often cause for silent tears.

  She still felt the sting where the skin on her back had been burned three weeks earlier. But she managed not to let it show. Neither her boyfriend, Ryan, nor her half-sister, Hannah, seemed to notice that she was still in considerable pain.

  She’d suffered the burns while rescuing a woman from a disturbed man who’d abducted her and intentionally released her days later only to come back to her home intent on killing her. Jessie and the woman had barely managed to escape the burning house. Since then Jessie had been on leave from the LAPD, first stuck at the hospital and now in her own condo.

  She knew it didn’t have to be that way. She had lots of pain medication. The doctor had instructed her not to lower the dosage for a month. But she’d started weaning herself off it a week ago, partly worried about becoming dependent. But there was another reason too. She needed to stay alert.

  On the day after Jessie was burned, while she was recovering in the hospital, her ex-husband, Kyle Voss, was released from prison. This was the same ex-husband who’d been incarcerated in the first place for murdering his mistress, trying to frame Jessie for the crime, and then attempting to kill her when she found out.