Thin Walls Make Good Listeners

By Louise F. Karther

It is not always a good thing to be a good listener. In fact, sometimes it can be downright dangerous.
Dani Lynn Lambert is a spirited and determined twelve-year-old who has been forced into adverse circumstances by the abrupt death of her father. After she and her mother, Tess, move into a ghastly apartment in a dismal building, Tess struggles to keep the two of them from becoming homeless. While Dani battles a different obstacle, she suddenly finds herself drawn into a world of mystery and intrigue. Someone is determined to keep Dani from ruining a careful plan. Just when things take a turn for the worse, Dani and Tess find an unexpected ally who wants more than just friendship. Will their new ally be the protector they hope for or transform into someone else they cannot trust?
In this exciting young adult novel, a girl is forced to endure less than ideal circumstances after her father dies, leaving her and her mother vulnerable to a scary world and a stranger with dark intentions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480891692

Louise F. Karther

Louise F. Karther is a long-time public school, university, and Sunday School educator who loves mysteries. Her writing is inspired by her unique perspective of human nature. Louise currently resides in Wilder, Idaho. This is her first published book.

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Copyright © 2020 Louise F. Karther.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover imagined by Hannah Houts. Many, many thanks to my young friend.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9170-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9168-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9169-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020913342

Archway Publishing rev. date: 8/24/2020

Contents

Prologue

1. Some Days Are Like That

2. Another Bad Day

3. An Unexpected Wrinkle

4. Not All Days Are Bad

5. A Little Visit from Smitty

6. Raymond’s Turn

7. Just Not in the Cards This Time

8. Who Knew a Banker Could Sing?

9. Good for Tess, Not So Much for Dani

10. A Very Unsettling Morning

11. Not All Hot Water Is Heated

12. Who Called This Meeting?

13. Under Suspicion

14. An Alliance Made Where?

For Autumn,

a girl of unfailing wisdom.

Prologue

A slightly stooped man with graying hair, a man used to a certain kind of surveillance, watched the spectacle from a dirty window on the third floor. He watched the garbage truck pull up to the dumpster, watched a woman wheel out her garbage can, and heard her apologize to the truck driver for being late with the garbage. He watched the driver move behind the dumpster and roll the garbage can back out. He watched as the woman walked back with the can toward the apartment building.

The truck driver was unaware of his watcher’s attention. Had he been aware, he might have acted differently and perhaps changed his plan so there were no witnesses to his actions. He was not aware of the dirty window or of the special properties it possessed, such as a video camera set discreetly in one corner, which recorded every movement the driver made as easily as the woman moved the garbage can.

Still, there might have been something about the apartment building—something that made him think about the girl who lived there, the girl in apartment 310. The girl who found out the hard way that though thin walls made good listeners, it was not always a good thing to be a good listener. No, sometimes it could be dangerous. Very dangerous indeed.

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1 Some Days Are Like That

It was not a good day. Dani Lynn Lambert had spent the morning watching the movers bring the Lamberts’ skimpy load of furniture up in the elevator to the third floor and then into the worst apartment she had ever seen. Now it was all just sitting there, waiting to be arranged into some kind of usable order. The movers, basically friends from church with a pickup, had left quickly enough once the last chair and box were inside.

Tess, Dani’s mother, had thanked them for being so kind, tried to pay them some of the few dollars she had in her purse, thanked them again when they refused, and bid them well as they left. Dani wondered how she could be so pleasant about it—about the move and about being in that horrible apartment. Besides, it was all happening on a Saturday, her one day to sleep in and veg out.

To Dani, it was all totally unthinkable.

I hate it. Just hate it, Dani fumed petulantly, stomping her way into the bedroom. Mama, it’s so ugly. I just hate it. She tossed her brown hair, which she wore in one long braid down her back, and frowned at her mother, her blue eyes begging her to do something about that awful place.

I do too, Dani, her mother said quietly, but it’s the best we can do until I can get a better job. We’ll just have to accept it as our home until we can do better. Complaining about it won’t make it any easier.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, her daughter responded in disgust as she flounced back into the everything-else room of the apartment and plunked down on the threadbare sofa.

The whole thing was more than the twelve-year-old girl could bear, the ghastly apartment in a dismal building in the poorest section of Portland.

It hadn’t always been that way, Dani remembered. Once upon a time, back in what seemed a lifetime ago, back when she had been ten and eleven years old, they had lived in a nice house, their own house with a nice yard in Culvers Hill. Theirs hadn’t been quite as nice as some of the really rich people’s, but it still had been lovely. She’d had her own room with white furniture and a blue comforter.

Daddy had worked for a well-known outdoor supply company then, making lots of money, so Mama could be a stay-at-home mom, someone who kept their house and everything else in perfect order. They’d had lots to eat; they had taken vacations and gone on trips. Best of all, Dani had had a nice, fat allowance instead of the measly five dollars her mother gave her every month, which was not nearly enough to even bother going shopping.

Best of all, she’d had beautiful clothes to wear back then, which had made her the envy of all her friends at school.

Oh, Dani, they’d said when she wore a new skirt or sweater in the latest hot color they all loved. This is so beautiful. I wish I had a sweater like that. And that skirt! And those boots are the coolest!

Her teachers too had often complimented her. You have the nicest things, Dani. What a lucky girl you are.

But now her beautiful clothes were a thing of the past, and she was beginning to look just like all the other girls who wore T-shirts and pants or plain old white blouses with plain old skirts. She hated that; it had been much more fun to look as good as the really rich girls, like Crystal Stimple, and to see them eying her up and down, comparing the way she dressed with their own clothes. Besides, she was cuter than they were, and the cute clothes had made her look even cuter.

Now she was no better than anybody else, and her teachers never commented on her appearance anymore.

Her mom had even begun shopping in thrift stores. That had been the last straw. Everything was used—worn and thrown away by someone else. She’d refused to wear somebody else’s old stuff.

Don’t make me, Mama, she’d pleaded the first time Tess had suggested visiting the Twice Used but Never Abused thrift store. I’d just die if someone saw me there. She’d cried so hard that her mother finally had given up trying to convince her.

These are nice things, Dani, Tess had said resignedly. They’re much nicer than what we can afford right now. If you want newer, different things for school, you will just have to accept something from here.

In the end, Dani had given in enough to accept an undergarment, a slip that no one would ever see, except in gym class. That wouldn’t be too bad. After all, who paid attention to underwear? Even so, since then, her clothes had come from BiMart or Walmart on sale or from the mail-order catalog for which Tess got an employee discount. I’m a Mason’s by Mail girl now, Dani thought bitterly, but at least the clothes were new.

It had been even worse when school started the year she was eleven. Still in their home in Culvers Hill for a little longer, her mother had received a discreet letter from the principal suggesting she might like to apply for some financial assistance. The letter had said a few families each year received scholarships that covered lunches and any incidentals, such as after-school sports or band instruments. Dani had seen the letter.

You’re not going to do that, are you, Mama? I just can’t, Mama. I just can’t go through the poor kids’ lunch line. Please, Mama. Please. I couldn’t stand all my friends making fun of me. I’d just die.

I doubt that, Dani, her mother had said dryly. You know we have to cut everywhere we can.

Dani had burst into tears, so Tess had given in, as usual, and Dani had continued taking meat sandwiches and chips as well as other special treats. Never thinking of her mother as an indulgent parent or herself as a prideful, selfish daughter, Dani was unaware that Tess herself took a single apple or sometimes a couple of bread slices for lunch. She had no way of knowing that her mother had volunteered to take the lunch shift, answering any phone calls and eating by herself while the others were on their breaks.

Nor did Dani know that Tess had accepted the school’s offer of a sports scholarship. With her thin, wiry body and long legs giving her great speed, Dani played soccer and basketball and ran track as one of the stars of the girls’ sports program.

Reveling in her self-pity and telling herself that all the good things in life were now in the past, nothing would ever be the same again, and they would always be poor and live in junky places like that crummy room, Dani burst into tears again.

Why, Mama, she cried, do we have to live in this awful place? I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it. I’ll never have any friends in this horrible apartment. I’ll just die here, and nobody will care.

With another loud sob, she rushed back into the bedroom, slammed the door, and flopped onto the bed. She continued to sob, crouched against the wall with her pillow clutched in her lap. She was sure no one had ever suffered so much.

Her sobs were interrupted by a loud voice from the apartment next to theirs. If that kid doesn’t stop bawling, I’m going to bash her head in, a male voice growled.

Sh! She’ll hear you. You’re not supposed to be here, remember? This place is only for women with children. I had to say I had two kids off with their dad to get this place. Now, come on. Let’s go over the plan again. When’s the drop supposed to happen? And how?

Stunned into silence, Dani picked up snatches of conversation as the people next door moved about their apartment.

"Next Saturday … Rose Festival parade … Watching the parade, paying no attention … Garbage truck, even if … Saturday … Off schedule because