Page 1 of 6 Clues Your Nemesis Loves You

chapter one

Maggie Edelstein will be the death of me. I’m stuck in a supply closet with the door cracked open, sucking in air like I’m trapped in an oxygen-deprived elevator. I don’t do elevators. Or tight spaces. Unfortunately, when it comes to Maggie, I lose all sense of self-preservation.

“The Kindness Rocks program kicks off tomorrow,” Maggie says from the hallway. Her voice is as imperial as when she strutted through Windfall High, Queen Bee of her clique. “And you’re telling me Allan lost the rocks?”

Mrs. Brazowski, who’s worked for Windfall’s Downtown Development Association since I was a teen, sighs. “He’s sure he left them in the conference room, but they’re not there.”

I don’t care where the stupid rocks are. My body has decided it’s in a sweat lodge, my arms are shaking harder than when I finish a grueling rock-climb, and my heart is gunning for my throat. These ladies need to move this conversation anywhere else but here.

Maggie huffs. “Rocks don’t walk away.”

“No, but they do roll.” Mrs. Brazowski gives a full-teeth smile.

Maggie snorts, the sound as painfully cute as I remember. “Not even your awful jokes can fix this mess.”

“It’s all I’ve got,” Mrs. B. mutters.

All I’ve got is a view of Maggie’s back. Her flame-red hair is shorter than it was in high school—shoulder-length now—her curvier figure hugged by a slim skirt and fitted blouse. I haven’t had a good glimpse of her face since I returned to my hometown a few weeks ago, because every time she’s near, I duck and hide. Or, in this awesome case, almost asphyxiate in a supply closet. Legs shaky, I lower to my knees and squint through the door crack.

Maggie tucks her stack of files tighter to her side. “Please remind Allan we have one hundred kids showing up tomorrow, and they’re all expecting to get a rock so they can paint uplifting messages on them and place them around town. If he doesn’t find those rocks, I’m letting the kids paint him.”

Mrs. Brazowski perks up. “Can we do that even if he finds the rocks?”

“Add it to the suggestion box,” Maggie says as her high heels click-clack away.

The second she’s gone, I crawl out of the supply closet and splay on my back, attempting to gulp in buckets of air.

“Lennon Bower? Is that you?”

I can barely make out Mrs. Brazowski’s kind face through the spots in my vision, but I wave at her. “Hey, Mrs. B. It’s been a while. Great to see you.”

It’s been eleven years, to be precise.

Not because I left the charming hamlet of Windfall by choice. My lucky family got shoved into witness protection for a decade—thanks to my criminal father, who laundered money for a drug cartel. I’d love to say that’s some kind of ironic joke about embarrassing dads and dysfunctional family feuds. But ha-ha-ha. Joke’s on me. This madness is actually my life.

Because of dear old Dad, I spent a paranoid decade looking over my shoulder, sure a cartel hit man was hot on my heels, ready to torture me in one of those concrete basements with chains hanging from the ceiling and blood crusted into the floor. I never did meet a hit man or a blood-crusted floor. I’m also no longer in witness protection, courtesy of a vicious cartel feud. Lucky for us, bad dudes killed other bad dudes, and the bad dudes after my family are no longer alive to threaten us. Karma, I tell ya. She’s one badass bitch.

My family has since left witness protection. But I’m still hiding.

From Maggie Edelstein.

“I heard you were in town,” Mrs. B. says to my sprawled self. “But why were you in the supply closet?”

“Had to make a call.” I mime holding a cell to my ear. “Needed privacy.”

“Okay,” she says slowly, not buying my nonsense. “Can I get you something? Water? You look flushed.”

What I need is a world where Maggie doesn’t exist.

“All good.” I motion vaguely at nothing, still on my back, attempting to regulate my breathing. I refuse to tell Mrs. Brazowski my claustrophobic-self was hiding from Maggie. Gossip is this town’s cryptocurrency. “I’ll just be down here for a minute.” Or ten. “Which way to the zoning permit people?”

Still giving me some serious side-eye, she gestures in the opposite direction Maggie went, thank God. “Take the hall to the end. Mr. Bajwa can help you from there. And it really is nice to see you, Lennon. I’m glad more of your family is moving back to town.”

With a last quizzical glance at my reclined-in-the-middle-of-the-hallway body, she shakes her head and walks off.

“Goddamn Maggie Edelstein,” I mumble.

Eleven years, and she still has the power to annihilate me.