Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead by Saralee Rosenberg Read Free Book Online

first to know?”
    “What the hell is going on with you? Do I look like I have time for games?”
    “No.” Her heart pounded as if she’d just missed her exit and hadn’t a clue how to get back to the highway. “See, here’s the thing . . . Dad . . . It’s times like this that I feel very unappreciated.
    Remember back when I first started? It would take you days to return calls to patients because everything was so disorganized.
    Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead
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    Now, thanks to me, lab reports get filed immediately and put in the right charts. And what about my great scheduling system?
    Patients love me because they know I’ll get them in right away and they won’t sit around the waiting room all day . . . And you do realize that because I handle so much of your phone work, you’re not losing time talking to people who just need their prescriptions refilled . . . Oh, and what about the other day when I figured out that Mrs. O’Hagan had early signs of temporal ar-teritis, and I made her go right to the emergency room? If she’d waited for you to come back from your golf game, she could have gone blind. So I was thinking . . . aren’t I entitled to a few hours off for all my hard work and dedication?”
    “No! You’re entitled to a paycheck!” Stan groused. “And you get a damn good one!”
    “Forget it.” Mindy headed out. “I hate when you’re like this!”
    Oh my God . . . Artie is going to kill me . . . not exactly the best way to start a family vacation he’s paying for.
    “Come back here,” he ordered.
    The obedient one stopped.
    “You have a helluva lot of nerve marching in here like this.”
    “I’m sorry. I just feel that—”
    “Let me finish, for Christ’s sake. I listened to you, now you listen to me. Go get my tux.” He reached for his wallet. “And then, I don’t know, go buy you and the kids some nice things to bring on the trip.”
    “Really?” Mindy stared at a wad of hundreds.
    “But we keep this between us.” He returned to his charts.
    “Understand?”
    “Deal!” She trotted to the door.
    “And Mindy? If you ever pull this shit again, don’t bother coming back.”
    “I know . . . although, hey, you’ve got to admit I was right about everything.”
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    Saralee Rosenberg
    “Not everything,” he grumbled. “Mrs. O’Hagan had dish de-tergent in her eye.”
    An hour later, tux in the trunk, she was searching the Roosevelt Field lot for a spot and could barely contain herself. She had time, she had money . . . she was Beth!
    But funny how the instant she thought of her neighbor, she spotted a small blue sedan with a rental sticker on the bumper that was just like the model Beth was driving. And the only reason Mindy knew that was because the second Beth had gotten home, she’d dragged Mindy outside to see the “piece of crap car” that was all her fault.
    Mindy said a quick prayer that they didn’t run into each other, only to head toward the mall entrance and spot a very familiar face sitting in a silver Mercedes coupe, next to an older man who was not her husband. Beth?
    Couldn’t be. Mindy’s new contact lens prescription needed an adjustment. Then again, she’d just seen the rental car parked by the exit. And when the woman waved her Streisand-long nails, f luffed her blond hair, and laughed with dramatic flair, Mindy knew there was no mistake.
    As if by telepathy, Beth sensed she was being watched and looked out. When their eyes locked, it was hard to tell whose face showed more fear.
    Would this be a bad time to remind you it’s your day to drive the kids home?
    Mindy thought about taking a picture with her cell. If she’d learned anything from watching CSI , it was the importance of the eyewitnesses at a crime scene committing details to memory in the event they were ever needed to testify. Instead, she f led as if she were the guilty party, but not before getting a glimpse of the man’s vanity plate.
    BODYDOC? Was he the guy repairing her car? No,