Neighbors Read online

  Neighbors is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Danielle Steel

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DELACORTE PRESS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9781984821379

  Ebook ISBN 9781984821386

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Virginia Norey, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Scott Biel

  Cover images: Mark Owen/Arcangel Images (entranceway and gate); Lee Avison/Arcangel Images (mansion)

  ep_prh_5.6.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Dedication

  By Danielle Steel

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The massive stone mansion was hot even in the basement, as Debbie Speck bustled around the large, efficient kitchen, putting away the groceries that her husband, Jack, had just brought in. He was perspiring profusely. He was forty-four years old, somewhat overweight, with balding dark hair, and always reeked of aftershave that covered the faintly boozy smell of the cheap scotch he kept in his room and drank at night. It came through his pores the next day, when he exerted himself. Debbie usually joined him with a drink or two at night. She preferred gin and tonic or vodka she kept in the freezer in the basement apartment where their employer, Meredith White, never ventured. She respected their privacy, which was ideal for them. Debbie was also heavy and dyed her hair blond herself.

  They had been employed as property managers and live-in housekeeping couple by the famously reclusive, now retired movie star, for the past fifteen years. Meredith had still been working when she hired them. She was going from one movie to the next, frequently on location, and her husband, Scott Price, actor and producer, did the same. Sometimes they were apart for months, working on separate movies.

  It was the perfect job for Jack and Debbie, working for often absentee employers in an immense, luxurious home, where at least one of their employers was away most of the time, and busy when they were home. They didn’t have time to supervise Jack and Debbie too closely and trusted them. They’d been young then, just twenty-nine, but already knew the hidden benefits of that kind of job. The perks felt like plucking ripe fruit from the trees. The stores and workmen they patronized for whatever their employers needed kicked back handsome commissions to them or provided services, which were free to them, but unknowingly paid for by their employer, when bills were padded by dishonest suppliers. And there were plenty of those, as Jack and Debbie knew well. They had set up a whole network of profitable relationships within months of starting the job. It was common practice and Jack and Debbie had no qualms about ripping off their employers. They had done it before. They selected their employers by how profitable they would be, and how busy, distracted, or absent they were.

  Meredith had been one of the most highly paid actresses in the business when Jack and Debbie took the job, and she was generous with them. In the beginning, they occasionally had to drive her thirteen-year-old son, Justin, somewhere, but there were tutors to keep an eye on him and a young graduate student who stayed at the house and drove Justin to school when both his parents were away. His parents took care of him themselves when either one of them was at home. Their daughter, Kendall, had gone to college in New York seven years before and never came back to live in San Francisco. She was twenty-five years old when Debbie and Jack took the job, and she only came home for Christmas. She was married and had Julia, a little girl of her own, by then. Meredith and Scott were away so much it was hard to find a good time to see them when they weren’t busy.

  It was a perfect situation for Jack and Debbie. The mother-in-law apartment they were given had a separate entrance and was attractively furnished. The house was in Pacific Heights, the best residential neighborhood in San Francisco, and it was the biggest house in town. Working for two big movie stars was prestigious, and profitable for them. Meredith and Scott had moved to San Francisco when their son was born, and their daughter was twelve years old. They didn’t want to bring up another child in L.A., Meredith had told them. San Francisco was a smaller, conservative, wholesome city, with great schools for Justin and Kendall, good weather year-round, and the house and grounds gave them space and privacy, behind the tall hedge they had planted when they bought the house.

  * * *

  —

  Over the years, Debbie and Jack had taken full advantage of all the benefits of their job. They had an impressive nest egg saved up from the many years of commissions. A few treasures had also found their way into their apartment, particularly two very valuable small French paintings, which had disappeared from the main part of the house, and had hung in their bedroom for a dozen years now. Meredith had never noticed their disappearance. Debbie liked them so she “relocated” them to their quarters. In addition, Meredith had a bank account dedicated to paying household expenses. Debbie had volunteered years before to pay those bills and relieved Meredith of the tediousness of it. Debbie deposited small amounts to her own. The amounts were so minor that even Meredith’s accountant hadn’t questioned them. Debbie and Jack were clever thieves.

  Jack and Debbie were attentive to their employers’ every need, and appeared to be deeply sympathetic and kind when Meredith’s life fell apart fourteen years before. Her golden world unraveled rapidly after they arrived and lay in ashes at her feet within less than a year. It had made her less cautious about her accounts, and easily distracted.

  Fourteen years before, Meredith’s husband, Scott, had had a highly publicized affair with a young Italian actress who was starring in a movie with him. She was twenty-seven, and he was more than twice her age at fifty-five. His marriage to Meredith had seemed solid, when Jack and Debbie took the job. They seemed unusually stable for people in show business. They were devoted to each other and their children, from what Jack and Debbie had observed, and then Scott left for location in Bangkok for a picture. By the time he came back, their marriage was a shambles. Once he was home, he left Meredith for Silvana Rossi, and moved to New York with her.

  Meredith had been deeply wounded by the betrayal, but kept a brave face on for her children. Jack and Debbie were surprised that they never heard her maligning Scott to their son, but Debbie saw her crying alone in her bedroom more than once, and put her arms around her and gave her a warm hug.

  Humiliated by the stories about Scott and Silvana in the tabloids, Meredith stopped having any kind of social life, rarely went out, and turned her full attention to her son, driving him to school and sports practices, spending time with him, having dinner with him every night. Debbie overheard her turning down a movie she’d been offered. Meredith wanted to be at home with her son until the excitement over the scandal of the separati
on died down. Justin was very upset. He talked to Jack about it, and flew to New York to see his father several times. He came back every time saying how much he hated his soon-to-be stepmother. Scott was planning to marry her as soon as the divorce was final. At fourteen, Justin had called her a cheap whore when confiding in Jack about her, which Jack had reported to Debbie. Justin had said that his older sister, Kendall, didn’t like her either. Jack and Debbie hardly knew Kendall, since she had moved to New York before they arrived.

  Meredith refrained from talking about Silvana with Debbie. She was a dignified, discreet, respectful woman, although Debbie guessed that Meredith must have hated the young Italian starlet, and Scott was hell-bent on a divorce. Their previously, seemingly happy marriage had evaporated into thin air. Meredith put her massive career on pause, to spend all her time with her son. Although Debbie didn’t know her well at the time, she admired her for it.

  Jack and Debbie had no children of their own. They had worked in Palm Springs for an elderly couple, both of whom had died within months of each other. Jack and Debbie had met in rehab in San Diego two years before getting that job. They had both grown up in Southern California, but never met. He had had a number of arrests for petty crimes, mostly credit card fraud to support his drug habit. Debbie had been prosecuted for shoplifting, petty theft, stolen credit cards, and possession of marijuana with intent to sell. The courts had sent them to the same rehab program. They were both twenty-two at the time and spent six months there. While in rehab, they formulated a plan to work together, which ultimately turned into love, or harnessing their ambitions to the same wagon. They got married because they could get better jobs that way, as property manager and housekeeper, as a couple. Jack had suggested that working for rich people in their homes could be lucrative, and a rare opportunity for grander schemes in future. Debbie was adamant that she didn’t want to be a maid, scrub toilets, or wear a uniform, and he explained that as property managers, they would have the run of people’s fancy homes. They could do whatever they wanted, hire other people to clean toilets, the house, do the gardening, and skim a nice living off the top. They could even pocket a few valuables while their employers were away, blame someone else, and steal some cash, and at the same time earn a handsome salary for living well in someone else’s home. He made it sound so appealing that they tried it when they got out of rehab. They went to a reputable employment agency in L.A. with fake references Jack had written for them, on stationery he had made, allegedly written by a couple who had died, leaving no heirs to check their story with. The agency was cavalier about checking references and did no criminal check, unless the client requested it.

  They got fired from their first job, for general incompetence and not knowing what they were doing. They rapidly learned what was expected of them, and moved on to the job in Palm Springs, for the couple who really did die. They were so old that they paid little attention to what Jack and Debbie were doing. Their children were grateful to have friendly, caring, responsible people with their parents, and the couple even left them a small bequest when they died. This time, their references were genuine when they applied for the job with Scott and Meredith in San Francisco, who were looking through an L.A. agency they trusted and knew well. Jack and Debbie were in no hurry since they were living on the money they’d been left by the elderly couple. When they were offered the job with Scott and Meredith, neither of them could resist it. It was a major step up for them, and they knew what was expected of them by then. They understood how obsequious they had to be to ingratiate themselves into the lives of their employers. Scott hadn’t liked them when they started. He told Meredith he thought they were slimy, but it didn’t matter in the end, since less than a year later, Scott left for Bangkok, on location, and after that he was gone for good. Meredith bought their act more readily than he did.

  They’d been in the job for fifteen years now, and Meredith had become completely dependent on them to shield her from the outside world, and attend to whatever needs she had, which were minimal. She was not a demanding person, and spent most of her time reading in a study just off her bedroom, or sitting in the garden. She never entertained anymore. The world had passed her by in the past fourteen years, or more accurately, she had removed herself from it, and preferred to live a more quiet life than the one she had lived as a star. But the world had not forgotten her. She became a legend once she was a recluse.

  Six months after Scott moved to New York with Silvana, and filed for divorce so he could marry her, their son, Justin, went to stay with his father and Silvana at a house Scott had rented in Maine for the month of August. Kendall and her husband were going to come and stay with them, with their daughter, Julia, for the last two weeks of August. Kendall didn’t like Silvana any more than Justin did, but she was close to her father and adored her little brother. She was unhappy about the separation, but she was closer to her father than her mother, and happy he was living in New York now. Kendall was married to a successful investment banker, and they had a very nice life in New York.

  There was a speedboat Scott was looking forward to using at the house in Maine, and a small sailboat he knew Justin would love, since he had gone to sailing camp in Washington State two summers in a row. He was a fairly adept sailor for a boy of fourteen. Meredith had warned Scott that she didn’t want Justin sailing alone in the unfamiliar and unpredictable waters off the coast of Maine. Scott assured her that he would sail with him, but said that Justin was a better sailor than most men twice his age, and, it was a sport he loved. Justin always said he was going to buy a sailboat of his own one day and sail around the world.

  They had agreed to Justin spending the month of August with his father, he was looking forward to it, and spending two weeks with his sister, whom he idolized. He missed his father after he’d moved to New York, and the divorce was painful for him too. He loved the idea of a whole month with his father, in spite of Silvana’s presence. He said she was dumb, and crawled all over his father like a snake, which Justin found embarrassing. He did his best to ignore her. Her English wasn’t good, so he had an excuse not to talk to her.

  Ten days after Justin arrived in Maine, Scott was hungover one brilliantly sunny morning, after a party he and Silvana had gone to the night before at the home of new friends they’d made. Loath to get out of bed with a pounding headache, he let Justin take the small sailboat out. It was barely more than a dinghy, and Justin promised to stay close to the shore and come back in time for lunch.

  An hour later, a squall had come up, the ocean erupted in unexpected waves, and Justin was out farther than he’d meant to be, carried by the currents and battered by the waves in the small boat. Scott had called the Coast Guard when he got up at noon, saw the fierce waves and realized Justin hadn’t come home. There was no sign of the dinghy when Scott stood on the dock, with the knot in his stomach growing. It was too rough to take the speedboat out to look for him.

  The Coast Guard found the boat capsized that afternoon. There was no sign of Justin. His body washed up on the beach of one of the small neighboring islands two days later. Kendall had flown up to Maine by then to wait for news with her father, while Meredith sat by the phone and prayed in San Francisco. Her worst fears had come true. Scott was sobbing when he called Meredith the day it happened, and when they found Justin’s body. Kendall was distraught when she talked to her mother. They all were. Scott was devastated when he and Kendall flew to San Francisco with Justin’s body for the funeral Meredith had planned for their son. Kendall was deeply sympathetic to her father, knowing how guilty he felt, and she believed her mother was strong enough to weather it better. Scott wasn’t.

  Fourteen years later, it was a blur of memory, which still haunted all of them. Meredith had barely spoken to Scott since. Kendall felt sorry for him and had grown even closer to her father. She visited her mother once or twice a year, dutifully, for a few years after Justin’s death, but she blamed her mother for
how hard she’d been on Scott, and the toll it took on him. His own guilt had nearly destroyed him.

  Scott sank into a downward spiral of drugs and drink for a year or two after Justin died. He had finally gotten back on his feet with Kendall’s and Silvana’s help. Meredith had blamed him entirely for their son’s death, which Kendall thought was cruel. It had been an accident. He didn’t murder him. But it had been foolish and negligent and he’d broken his promise to Meredith, and Justin died as a result. Meredith had filed for divorce soon after.

  Scott had married Silvana when the divorce was final. He needed her more than ever then. Two years after Justin’s death, sober again, Scott resumed his career. Now, at sixty-nine, he produced and directed more than he acted, and was even more successful than he’d been before.

  Silvana’s fledgling career had tanked and she’d been forgotten before he got back to work. She lived the life of the wife of a successful Hollywood personality now, and was content with that, at forty-one. Her looks had faded, and she had gained weight. She was no longer beautiful and was a tiresome woman with no talent of her own. She was one of those people who looked as though she had probably been striking in her youth, but now she tried too hard, had had too much plastic surgery, and more than anything, looked cheap. But they were still together after thirteen years of marriage, and she loved her role as the wife of a famous actor and producer. They still lived in New York, where he was able to spend time with Kendall and his granddaughter. Meredith doubted that Scott was faithful to Silvana, but didn’t care anymore. She and Scott no longer had any reason to speak, with Kendall grown up and Justin gone. They hadn’t seen each other since Justin’s funeral, an agonizing memory for all of them. Scott had never forgiven himself for Justin’s death, and had never had more children with Silvana. She didn’t want any, and was content in the role of Scott’s child herself, with twenty-eight years between them. She played the role of baby doll, but didn’t look it.