The House Next Door by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

After her scuffle with that horde of reporters outside the courtroom—which ended only thanks to her white knight, Detective McGrath—Ellen thought her war against the press was over.

She had no idea it was about to get worse.

By the following morning, even more members of the media appeared in front of her home. The courthouse episode seemed to energize them, not discourage them. They took to knocking on Ellen’s door at all hours of the day and night, preventing her from getting any decent sleep. (Maybe this was a deliberate tactic to wear her down.) Even just opening the blinds to peek outside for a few seconds subjected her to a hail of screams and taunts.

If Ellen was afraid to leave her house before, now she was terrified.

On more than one occasion, she thought about calling McGrath. She assumed he hadn’t been serious about his threat, but she figured he would at least keep an eye on her place. Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard from him since that day. Had he gotten too busy? Had he lost interest in her as a source of information? Or had the unexpected intimacy of their last conversation spooked him and pushed him away?

It doesn’t matter. With or without him, Ellen knows she can’t keep living this way, a prisoner in her own home. And as the start date of her husband’s trial draws closer, this hell will only get worse—unless she puts an end to it now. Herself.

Standing in her kitchen, so bone-tired that she’s brewing a rare pot of midday coffee, Ellen knows what she has to do. A simple act of defiance to show the press who’s boss. She flips off the gas, opens her freezer, and downs the remaining few gulps of Grey Goose straight from the bottle—a little liquid courage that she very much needs.

Then she unlocks her front door and steps outside.

“Mrs. Pierson! Any comment on your husband’s charges?”

“Will you ever apologize to the families of his victims?”

“Do you plan to stand by that monster’s side at trial or divorce the bastard?”

The questions come fast and hard, hurled like rocks and glass bottles by an angry mob. Ellen’s instinct is to duck and hurry back inside, but she resists it with every ounce of her strength.

“Will your husband be mounting an insanity defense, Mrs. Pierson?”

“Can you confirm reports he’s been put on suicide watch?”

“How could you live with him for so long and have no idea who he really was?”

Ellen still refuses to take the bait. I can do this, she thinks.

Keeping her head held high, she walks calmly down her driveway, past her car, then steps onto the sidewalk. Now that she’s on public property, the reporters swarm around her like vultures, surrounding her on all sides.

Still, she forges on, moving slowly and steadily down the block. But then the questions begin to get even worse. The reporters are growing frustrated by her silence and are desperate to get a rise out of her.

“How

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