Neighbors

by Danielle Steel

  “I’m thinking about it,” she admitted. “I’m not ready to write to her yet, but I will soon.” He wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but suspected she was just trying to muster the courage to meet her granddaughter. It wasn’t easy after so long, or even to explain.

  * * *

  —

  She and Charles were happy to see each other again after his trip to Seattle. It had gone well. He had devised a massive personal protection plan for a very important CEO who had been receiving death threats for several months, because of the environmental stance of the company he worked for, and he was afraid for his wife and kids. The people who were threatening him had bombed someone else’s home, and he didn’t want it happening to them. It was exactly the sort of thing that Charles was good at. His agency did some industrial counter-espionage work too, which Meredith found fascinating. He was modest about his work, but he had had the highest security clearance given by the government, and was highly respected in his field. He had made a few suggestions to her, and she was planning to implement them with her own security people. He thought that she needed even more protection than she currently had, and underestimated the danger to herself. Charles had tried talking to Jack about it, and he dismissed it, and said they had all the systems they needed in place.

  On Saturday, she was excited about the dinner. She arranged the flowers from her garden herself, and had picked the menu with Debbie. They were having lobster bisque to start, Cornish game hens, and chocolate soufflé for dessert, with whipped cream and crème anglaise. It was one of the things Debbie did well.

  She told Jack that she hated to waste her talents on Meredith’s intrusive neighbors, but Meredith had thanked her profusely several times, and was grateful, so maybe it was worth it to solidify their bond with her again. Things had deteriorated considerably between them while the neighbors were staying there, and Debbie made it clear how much she disliked them.

  “You need to lighten up on that,” Jack advised her, and she thought he might be right. As soon as Debbie put some effort into the menu, Meredith was happy with her again. She obviously wanted to impress her new friends. Or that was Debbie’s take on it. In fact, she just wanted to spend time with them, and good food and great wine were part of it. Debbie was making pizza margherita for Will and Daphne, with French fries and ice cream sundaes. Meredith was delighted with the menu and Charles was impressed by how beautiful the table looked, with Meredith’s magic touch. There were candles on the table, and she had used some pretty plates with a floral design in bright colors. It all looked very festive.

  As soon as the guests arrived, it was even more so. They were offered martinis, margaritas, or champagne, with hors d’oeuvres Debbie had made. They congregated in the living room and the library, and Tyla noticed very quickly how close Ava and Peter seemed. They followed each other from room to room, and spoke in hushed tones.

  “Is something going on with Peter and Ava?” Tyla asked her, and Meredith smiled mysteriously, and then whispered to her.

  “Arthur offered her a job as an assistant. She’s living there now, and she and Joel broke up.”

  “Holy shit! There’s a major change,” Tyla commented. “When did that happen?”

  “Last week, I think.”

  “Is that why Joel’s not here?”

  “She says he’s in England, but maybe he wouldn’t have come anyway. She says the breakup was bloodless and very civilized.” Tyla knew Andrew would be disappointed not to see Joel. He arrived late, and asked for him immediately. Ava gave him the party line about his being in London on business, and didn’t explain the rest. They weren’t ready to announce anything, but preferred to acknowledge it when people guessed. It seemed tasteless to Ava to make any big statements so soon after the breakup with Joel.

  “What a whore,” Andrew commented to Tyla under his breath. “Joel goes out of town for five minutes, and she’s crawling all over Peter again.”

  Tyla didn’t like to hear him talk about her friend that way, so she straightened him out. “They broke up. I think she may be seeing Peter now.” She didn’t tell him they were living in the same house, but he figured it out when Arthur said she was his new assistant. Andrew’s eyes glittered with hatred and envy as soon as he heard.

  During dinner, which everyone praised to the skies, they all got the very clear impression that Meredith and Charles were dating. He beamed every time he looked at her, and she seemed peaceful and happy. They all loved the food, and Daphne said it was the best pizza she’d ever eaten. Will ate a whole plate of fries. They devoured the ice cream sundaes, just as the adults did the soufflés.

  Meredith made Debbie take a bow for the delicious dinner, and she positively glowed at their compliments, which were well deserved.

  They had after-dinner drinks in the library, which were left on a silver tray. Charles helped Meredith bring in coffee, while Debbie and Jack cleaned up the kitchen. Debbie was mellower than she had been for a long time, with everyone so appreciative of her cooking, and they gave her a round of applause. She was preening like a peacock when she told Jack, and Meredith had hugged her for the first time in weeks. They were slowly sliding back in.

  Everyone left after midnight, since they didn’t have to work the next day, and she and Charles sat in the library alone afterward, discussing the evening. It was one of the things Meredith had always liked when she was married, being able to talk about a party afterward, and they both thought it was sweet that Peter and Ava were together and looked so much in love. When they’d exhausted the subject, they went upstairs to her bedroom, climbed into her bed and turned on the TV to watch a movie, but they were both asleep halfway through it, after agreeing it had been a lovely evening.

  * * *

  —

  Andrew’s take on it was different. After Tyla put the children to bed, after the big meal they’d eaten and the late hour for them. Daphne was already asleep when Tyla tucked her in, and she joined Andrew in their bedroom on their bed, where he was watching TV. He turned to Tyla with a sneer. He’d had a lot of wine to drink with dinner, a martini first, and the cognac afterward in the library had probably been one too many, Tyla realized.

  “What a little whore Ava is,” he commented, “moving in with Peter. She’s probably fucking both him and Joel, and giving Arthur blow jobs.” Tyla hated it when he talked that way. She considered Ava a friend now, and felt honor-bound to defend her, which with Andrew was always a mistake.

  “She broke up with Joel before Arthur asked her to move in with them,” she said primly. “She hasn’t seen Joel since they broke up.”

  “Not likely. She looks like a whore and acts like one. Shit, she was standing naked on the sidewalk the night of the earthquake.”

  “She was wearing a bathrobe,” Tyla corrected him.

  “Yeah, and what do you think they were doing right before that, which is more than I can say for us.” Tyla knew better than to answer him, particularly when he’d been drinking. He was capable of flying into a rage stone cold sober, and worse when he was drunk. “She’s such a little slut,” he went on, “and so are you.” He rolled over at lightning speed, grabbed Tyla by the throat, and pressed her down on their bed, choking her. It crossed her mind instantly that she’d have marks from his handprints on her throat the next day, if she survived it. “Are you fucking Joel now? Is that why he didn’t come tonight, because he was afraid to face me? Is that it?” He tightened his grip on her neck, dragged her up to the headboard, and started banging her head against it. It made a terrible sound, as she struggled against him, but she was afraid to wake the children if she screamed.

  She did the only thing she could think of and kneed him in the groin. He doubled up with pain, and hit her so hard in the face that it threw her against the headboard even harder, and then he dragged her out of bed and she fell to the floor. And then he kicked her as hard as he could. “Do
n’t you ever do that again, you bitch!” he shouted at her. She was dazed from the pain and could taste blood in her mouth. Her nose was bleeding, and then he slammed her head into the floor for good measure. She felt as though she was underwater, and then realized there was so much blood in her eyes she couldn’t see. He continued to kick and pound on her as she came in and out of consciousness. She was sure he was going to kill her and she didn’t care. She had no way to stop him or defend herself. There was no one to help her. She just didn’t want her children to see it happening, but she forgot about that too as she lost consciousness. Everything went black as she went down, down, down to the ocean floor and swam away in a river of blood. It was the only way to get away from him.

  * * *

  —

  The bell on the front gate rang about an hour after the guests had left. Charles and Meredith were asleep with the TV on, and she stirred when the intercom rang in her room. When she answered it, it was their night security man on duty that night. He was new. A service provided them on a rotating basis.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” he said politely. “There’s a child here. She rang at the gate, she says she lives down the street, and she needs your help. Her mother is sick or something.”

  “What’s her name?” Meredith asked as she jumped out of bed.

  “Daphne. She’s very upset. Should I call 911 for her?”

  “No…yes…I’ll tell you in a minute. Tell her I’m coming right down.” She shook Charles awake, and he was fully conscious quickly. “Charles…wake up…I need your help…Daphne’s downstairs, something about Tyla. Andrew must have beaten her again. Should I call the police?”

  “Yes.” He grabbed his phone on the bedside table, called 911 and told them they had an injured person down, attacked by an intruder, gave them the Johnsons’ address, and jumped into the clothes he’d worn to dinner. Meredith had already put on jeans, slipped into shoes, and put a sweater on, on her way down the stairs. He was right behind her. Daphne was sobbing in the front hall, barely able to speak, in her nightgown and bare feet, as Meredith grabbed her hand and they flew out the front door. The security guard opened the gate for them, as all three of them ran to the sidewalk.

  “Tell me what happened,” Meredith said to Daphne as they ran.

  “I think he killed her…he hit her and hit her and I think Mommy’s dead.” They could hear sirens by then, and two police cars converged on the Johnson house at the same time from opposite directions. The policemen jumped out with guns drawn. Because Charles had told them it was an intruder, they drew their weapons, but for domestic violence they would have taken twice as long to come, which he knew.

  “There’s an eleven-year-old boy in the house,” Meredith told them quickly. They had no way to get in. The door had locked behind Daphne when she left. They were sturdy young officers. They broke the door easily, as Charles followed them, and told Meredith to stay on the sidewalk with Daphne. She put an arm around her and held her close, and thanked God that Daphne had come to get her.

  “Are they going to shoot my daddy?” Daphne sobbed. Meredith didn’t know what to answer while they waited. Two more officers arrived and entered the house at a dead run, talking into their radios, and they came out two minutes later with Andrew, his hands cuffed behind him, his shirt and hands bloody, and for a moment Meredith was afraid that Daphne was right, and her mother was dead. They pushed Andrew into a squad car, and took off. He never looked at Daphne once. Meredith thought he hadn’t even seen her. He was screaming at the officers and fighting them, and they were rough with him, as Daphne hid her face against Meredith. Two minutes later an ambulance arrived and three paramedics rushed into the house. They still didn’t know what had happened, or if Tyla was alive, as Daphne buried her face in Meredith’s sweater and sobbed. A minute later, Charles came out with Will. The boy was ghostly pale, he had been hiding in his room under the covers, but he could hear his mother’s screams while Andrew beat her.

  “Your mom is alive,” he told both children, and then looked at Meredith with a grim expression. “I’ll take the kids back to your house. You go with her in the ambulance.” She nodded, and wanted to ask him how bad it was, but couldn’t with the children present. A moment later, they brought Tyla out on a gurney, her face and head drenched in blood, her identity unrecognizable. She was just a bloody blob. She had an oxygen mask on, an IV in each arm, and was unconscious. Meredith gently handed Daphne off to Charles, and she went with him, as Meredith followed Tyla into the ambulance. They pulled away with lights flashing and siren screaming, and she saw Charles close the front door, and then head up the hill to her house with both children. After that her whole focus was on Tyla.

  “How bad?” she asked one of the paramedics working on her. He shook his head in answer. She barely had a pulse, and was hardly breathing. Meredith heard one of the paramedics say that she had a severe concussion. They took her to the trauma unit of the nearest hospital, and Meredith never left her side for a minute. Meredith gave them all the information they needed that she knew, and when they asked her relationship to her, Meredith said “mother” so they wouldn’t send her away.

  It took them half an hour to assess her, superficially, and by then her blood pressure was a little more stable. They sent her for CT scans then, an MRI and X-rays, and by four A.M. they knew that her skull was intact, and not crushed or fractured, but she had a severe concussion. Her nose, cheekbone, and jaw were broken, and one arm. She had internal bleeding from where Andrew had kicked her in the stomach, but she was alive and was going to survive. She had surgery for the nose, cheekbone, and jaw performed by a plastic surgeon. They set her arm, and she looked like a mummy when she came back to the room swathed in bandages. They told Meredith that they had photographed all her injuries, since there would be criminal proceedings. Tyla was heavily sedated, and they told Meredith that her “daughter” would sleep now for several hours. They suggested that she come back around noon, but to expect her to be groggy for the first day or two. They were giving her morphine for the pain.

  Meredith realized as she was about to leave that she didn’t have her purse with her or her phone so she couldn’t call a cab or an Uber. They let her call Charles from the nursing desk. He called a cab for her, and told her he would pay for it when she got home.

  He was waiting in the courtyard when she got there, paid the cab, and she told him the extent of Tyla’s injuries. They both looked sick about it, as he followed her into the house. The children were asleep in her bed, in front of the TV. She left them in her bed, and she and Charles went to her study and spoke in whispers, and then he went home and Meredith slept on the couch in her study to be near them.

  She told them a modified version of their mother’s injuries when they woke up in the morning, and promised them she’d be okay.

  “Can we see her?” Will asked. Meredith could see he had one of his stomachaches. He was doubled over in pain.

  “Will my daddy go to jail?” Daphne wanted to know. Meredith didn’t tell her that he was already there and she hoped he’d stay there forever.

  “I’m not sure we can see her today. They said she’s going to be very sleepy. Maybe tomorrow.”

  She took them both downstairs and fed them cereal and toast, and Charles arrived. Before they reached the kitchen, he told Meredith that as soon as the police cleared the crime scene, he would arrange for a special service that would clean the blood off every surface where it was smeared. That afternoon, he called and got the rundown on Andrew’s situation. He was to be arraigned the next day, and they were going to charge him to the maximum extent of the law in view of Tyla’s condition. He was being charged with battery under two sections of the California penal code, for “inflicting serious bodily injury” and for “willful conduct leading to corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition” and making criminal threats. If convicted, he could serve up to four years in p
rison. A judge would set bail at the arraignment, and later there would be a trial, unless he pled guilty. Charles added that he would probably lose his medical license. He would be forbidden to come anywhere near Tyla, and possibly his children too. There would be a restraining order to prevent him. “I want Tyla and the kids to stay here,” Meredith told him.

  They took the kids to the park for an hour after they dressed, and they spent a quiet day. Meredith cooked them dinner. Charles stayed with them when she left to see Tyla briefly at the end of the day, but she was sleeping. She was still unrecognizable under her bandages. Her condition was serious but stable, and her vital signs were normal.

  The following day, Charles got the cleaning service in, as he had promised, and afterward Meredith and the children were able to go to the house and gather up some things. She settled them into a room together, with two double beds and a big TV. She took them both to school and picked them up. And at the end of the day, Charles had the results of Andrew’s arraignment. He had pleaded not guilty, was represented by a reputable criminal attorney, and the judge had released him on his own recognizance, since he was a respected physician and it was his first arrest. His lawyer had pleaded well. Pending further hearings there was a restraining order to keep him away from Tyla, the children, and their home. The next hearing was set in a month. Meredith felt sick as she listened, but she thanked God that Daphne had come to get her. If she hadn’t, Meredith was certain her mother would be dead.