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Chapter 1

Legend

The glow of Pepper’s house comes into view as soon as I turn onto our street I wasn’t surprised when the day after Thanksgiving, her house was miraculously transformed into a psychedelic Christhts over every line and angle, a huge plastic Santa with reindeer on the roof, and speakers mounted in the trees that played Christ mechanical display of Frosty the Snowman that blows fake snow up into the air every few minutes

The pièce de résistance, though, is a life-size biblical er in the middle of her front yard, complete with Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, a donkey, two sheep, a cow, and three ca theround in front of it

I gritabout it because Pepper beatIt means I had to put my complaint to the homeowners’ association on hold as well, and so this holiday I’ all hts from her house

Of course, that doesn’telse to irritateup a flock of pink, plastic fla me crazy with her beautiful face and slammin’ body I shouldn’t think about her this much but I’ve never had someone fascinate me as much as annoy me before

I note that she has three cars in her drivehich isn’t unusual Pepper seems to have a myriad of people over at her house all the time She’s quite the social butterfly She’s even invited me over for her intimate little soirees but I’ve declined every time

The only other thing I’ve noticed of late is that Pepper and ether At least from what I can tell, and I’m not really sure how that ht stabs of jealousy when he was seeing her, because that would be ludicrous I can’t stand the woman

Giving one last, disgusted look at the Griswold house next door, I bring my Tahoe to a stop in the driveway and jab at the button to open the garage As it slowly rises, I glance over at my porch to my left

There’s what looks to be a package, although it’s hard to tell as I don’t have the porch light on It’s soone for the day and won’t be returning until evening, and Ilist of projects to install sohts

But wait…that doesn’t look like a package I peer through the gloohts from Pepper’s house don’t quite permeate, all the way over to my porch