NFH 02 Perfection

Perfection: A Neighbor From
Hell novel

by

R.L. Mathewson

Copyright 2011 by R.L.
Mathewson

Published by R.L. Mathewson at
Smashwords

This is a work of fiction.
All o
f the characters, organizations and
events described in this novel are either products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously
.

Perfection: A Neighbor From Hell novel
© R.L. Mathewson 2011. All rights reserved.

http://www.rlmathewson.com

Rerum Publishing House

eBook ISBN-
978-0-9832125-5-3

This book is dedicated to everyone who
was willing to take a chance on me, but a special thanks to Rhonda
Valverde, who has helped me get my start by taking a chance on an
unknown author.

Thank you.

I also have to mention all of my forum
friends at www.vampireromancebooks.com who keep me entertained with
their antics.

And of course to my children who will
always be my inspiration and my little buddies.

I love you, Kayley and
Shane....

even if you do frighten me from time to
time.

Perfection: A Neighbor From
Hell Novel

Chapter 1

"You stupid bitch, you ruined my
life!"

"Mrs. Sands, wait!" Zoe cried, holding
her hands in front of her face as she desperately tried to back up
in her small cubicle only to bang into the cheap off-white colored
plastic wall, leaving her with nowhere to go and a seriously pissed
off woman holding the extra large iced coffee Zoe bought ten
minutes earlier, coming her way. "Please don't-"

Her words were cut off by a stunned
gasp as twenty-four freezing ounces of her much needed caffeine fix
hit her in the face, neck, and chest, instantly drenching
her.

"You'll pay for what you did!" Mrs.
Sands screamed, pulling her hand back to slap Zoe. Thankfully
someone, probably Mr. Sands, already called security and the two
large burly guys that she passed every morning in the downstairs
lobby grabbed Mrs. Sands and yanked her back before she could make
good on the murderous glare she was sending Zoe's way.

"Bitch!" Mrs. Sands screamed, kicked,
and screeched as she was carried off the tenth floor.

With a shaky hand, Zoe reached out and
grabbed her wobbly office chair and carefully sat down, making sure
to keep most of her weight off the front left side wheel. When the
chair didn't collapse and deposit her ass on the floor, again, she
counted herself lucky.

"I told you to keep your mouth shut,"
John, the office asshole, said in a bored tone as he walked past
Zoe's cubicle.

Yeah, he really had and she was
kicking herself for not listening to him when she had the chance.
With a groan she dropped her face into her hands and wondered if
anyone would notice if she left work a little early today. Of
course they would, she thought miserably. The penny pinching
management watched their employees like hawks, never missing a
thing and ready to swoop in and attack at the slightest
blunder.

She'd lost count of how many times
she'd been written up for "excessive office supply waste" for not
reusing paper clips, leaving her computer running for two minutes
while she used the bathroom, throwing away paper that could be used
again no matter what was printed on it, and her absolute favorite,
using more than one staple on a packet. If she tried to leave even
one minute early they'd know and for the next week they'd double
her workload to get back the time they believed she owed
them.

After three long years she was too
tired to argue or care. At this point she was resigned to come in
at eight-thirty on the dot and put in eight and half hours and work
through her unpaid lunch break as was required and then go home to
the new hell that she was beginning to hate.

Two months ago when her landlord
unceremoniously evicted her so that his eighteen year old daughter
and her thirty-two year old boyfriend could have her apartment,
she'd been desperate to find a decent apartment that she could
afford on her meager salary.

When she found a beautiful two level
townhouse located in a decent neighborhood for two hundred dollars
less than her old apartment she'd been ecstatic and snatched it up
quickly, hoping that it was a sign that maybe things were going to
start looking up for her. Of course she really should have known
better since nothing in life ever seemed to go her way.

The first clue should have been when
she found out the other tenant in the two family townhouse was the
landlord's nephew. Over the years she'd dealt with that situation
enough that she really should have known better. In her experience
landlord's relatives were ruder, louder, and had a huge sense of
entitlement, making the rest of the tenants' lives a living hell.
She learned early on not to complain to the landlord when his or
her kid had all night parties, had shouting matches until three in
the morning, or when their grandkids detonated water balloons in
her mailbox. The result just wasn't worth it.

So when her new neighbor, Trevor
Bradford, parked his pickup truck halfway into her parking spot,
leaving her with no choice but to park on the street and risk a
parking ticket, she shut her mouth and sucked it up, knowing
complaining would do little good. Whenever he did something to piss
her off like steal her paper, blast his television, or track mud
into their small hallway and all over her cute welcome mat with
puppies, she bit her lip and kept her mouth shut, reminding herself
that even with the jerk next door the townhouse was still the best
place she'd ever lived in.

"What are you still doing here?" a
harsh voice demanded.

Zoe looked up, half-afraid that she'd
find Mrs. Sands standing there ready for round two. Instead she
found the woman's husband, Mr. Sands standing in her cubicle
opening, glaring at her with open disgust. That was a little
unexpected considering she was the one who realized that five
million dollars had been embezzled over the past six years and
found the proof that linked Mrs. Sands to the theft. Then again she
could certainly understand why he was in such a pissy mood since
his wife had just screwed him over.

"I asked why you're still here, Miss.
O'Shea. Your employment was terminated an hour ago. I expected you
to leave immediately," he said coldly.

"W-what?" Zoe asked, jumping to her
feet quickly, too quickly. Her chair fell back with a loud groan
and two of the wheels popped off and rolled off somewhere beneath
her desk. "Why am I fired?"

It didn't make any sense. Most bosses
would appreciate finding out that someone had stolen from them,
right? She didn't expect them to be happy, but grateful wouldn't
exactly hurt, especially right now.

With a drawn out sigh, Mr. Sands
gestured for one of the security guards who'd dragged Mrs. Sands
away to step forward. Zoe automatically took a nervous step
back.

"Please remove her before she destroys
any more company property," Mr. Sands ordered, stepping
away.

Destroying company property? With a
frown she looked down at the chair that had given her nothing but
problems over the past three years and by this point consisted
mostly of duct tape. Before she could tell him that the chair was
given to her already broken the large security guard had her by the
arm and her worn black purse in the other hand and was dragging her
towards the elevator.

"Hey!" she said, desperately trying to
dig her feet into the cheap paper-thin carpet. "Why am I being
fired?" she asked, reaching out to grab the wall of one of the
cubicles only to have the security guard yank her away. She grabbed
another wall. Damn cheap plastic walls, she thought as her hand
slipped off the cubicle wall. "I don't understand why you're firing
me. I'm not the one that stole!" she cried as she was dragged into
the elevator. She reached out and slapped her hands against the
edge of the elevator door to stop the doors from closing so she
could get her answer.

Mr. Sands shrugged. "Because you
should have found it sooner," he said, leaving her absolutely
stunned.

Her hands dropped away, allowing the
elevator doors to close and her world to crumble.

What the hell was she going to do
now?

"I would have kept my mouth shut," the
security guard mumbled.

Zoe sighed unhappily. "I really am an
idiot."

"Yup."

************

"Please,
please,
don't be in my
spot," Zoe chanted softly as she slowly turned the corner, wishing
she knew how to change or at least temporarily fix her windshield
wipers as she did her best to squint through the heavy
downpour.

A moment later she slowly stopped in
front of her house....at least she thought it was her house. With a
small groan, she pressed the button to roll down the driver's side
window and tried not to cringe when the window emitted its usual
grinding noise. Once it was down, Zoe leaned out the window and
tried to make out the color of the townhouse, pale blue, not hers,
but at least she now knew that she only had two more houses to
go.

Just as she was pulling back, a car
sped past her, crashing through a large puddle and further soaking
Zoe. This day could not get any worse, she thought, wiping mud out
of her eyes and jumping when somebody behind her blasted the horn.
With a resigned sigh she started driving once again, but apparently
not fast enough for the people behind her, who accompanied her
twenty yard drive with continuous horn blasting.

After the day she had she wasn't too
surprised to find Trevor's pickup truck parked in the middle of
their short double wide driveway. With a groan she did her best to
park across the street, trying to ignore the cars that sped past
her, telling her off, and adding a special blast of the horn just
in case she didn't quite get the message the first time.

When she tried to close the window she
received another little surprise when the window slid up
noiselessly. Well, that's a relief, she thought, grabbing her purse
and climbing out of the car. She was really afraid she'd have to
pay three hundred dollars to have her windows fixed, again. She
closed the door and turned to walk across the street when an odd
swooshing sound caught her attention.

Praying that is was just her
imagination, Zoe turned around and frowned. Why did her window look
weird? She pushed her wet hair out of her face and leaned forward
to get a better look. It didn't take long before she realized that
her window had come off its tracks.

She wiped her wet hands on her soaked
skirt and gripped the edge of the window and tried to pull it up
only to have the window slip through her hands and slide further
down.

"Oh no you don't," she muttered,
dropping her purse and grabbing the window and doing her best to
yank it back up. The last thing she needed was for the window to
slide down into the door where it would have to stay until she
could scrounge up the money to have it fixed. With no job and no
prospects that wasn't happening any time soon and since there was a
very good chance that she'd be living out of her car soon she
wanted to keep it dry and mold free.

It took several minutes, but she
managed to pull the window up several inches. One last pull should
do it, she decided, gripping the window tightly and pulling as hard
as she could. When the window slid up easily she couldn't help but
chuckle. Finally things were-

Her hands slipped and before she could
grab the window it slid down quickly into the door and if the noise
that followed was any indication, cracked. She stared numbly at the
empty window for a long moment before she picked up her purse, not
at all surprised when the strap broke off, or when the heel on her
left shoe snapped off a minute later.

Clutching her ruined purse to her
chest, she wobbled towards the front door, only getting stuck in
the mud twice and losing one shoe, the right one, before she found
herself on the front stoop, searching her purse for her keys. By
the time she found them she was shivering violently from the cold
and close to crying for the first time in five years.