Watched Read Online Free Page B

doing something useful.”
    The long-winded woman stopped to take a breath, and Alexandra seized a chance to sneak a word in edgewise. “It’s all right, so did you need something?” She knew better than to interrupt, it always confused the older woman, but today she didn’t care.
    “Hm? Need something?” Spectacles shifted as the old woman tried to keep up with her own conversation. “Well yes, I suppose I must have, now let me think, oh yes, I wanted to ask you if you’d been hearing some humming noises of late, maybe more like a whistle but definitely with some humming involved.”
    Not again. Alexandra opened her mouth to answer no, she hadn’t heard anything, but the old woman kept talking. “Gail was over, you know my friend from book club, and she said she heard the most dreadfully high pitched whistling hum, and you know I said that same thing about a week after you moved in, when that nice man came over with his work crew to repaint your walls.”
    Alexandra tried not to sigh. She had explained to the old woman a hundred times - no crew of men had repainted anything in her apartment. It was all the exact same color it had been before. Hunter handled maintenance and upgrades himself unless he needed expert advice, so there were rarely visits from work crews.
    No one else had seen the supposed group of wall repairmen but Mrs. Dail, on the one week Alexandra had spent away since she moved in. She’d taken a trip with Simon to collect the rest of their belongings from their old home. The drive had been grueling, but John had honored his promise to keep his distance for a few days, leaving her and Simon to pack in peace.
    When she got back, Mrs. Dail began a campaign against sounds she claimed to hear coming through the walls, night and day. The sweet old lady cajoled, threatened and fumed, but there was nothing more Alexandra could do. She and Hunter had checked every inch of her apartment, searching for a source of humming or whistling which was nowhere to be found. Mrs. Dail’s complaints about phantom noises and odd visitors were famous among the other tenants, some of them thought it was a way of hazing the new folks.
    “That hum hasn’t stopped you know, and I’ve been polite and thought maybe it was me, but Gail heard it too this time, and I know you’ve checked for the sound and I’m so grateful you’ve checked everything, but would you be a dear and just take a quick look around one more time,” Mrs. Dail prattled, her impressive lungs once again spitting out a sentence beyond human ability, “I don’t mind taking my hearing aids out for some peace and quiet, but then I can’t hear my phone, and my son just gets so upset when he can’t call me.”
    After promises of an apartment sweep to match the pride of any investigative team and a declined offer of milk and cookies, Alexandra slammed the door with more force than she’d intended, then leaned against it.
    Alexandra massaged her shoulders. Mrs. Dail would talk to Hunter next anyway, so she had about an hour before he knocked on her door. He would have to look around and reassure Mrs. Dail they had searched for the sound. Alexandra groaned. An hour alone with Hunter while they tried to find a phantom humming noise was exactly what she didn’t need. If she saw him right now she would babble and stare at him. What would it accomplish? They needed to talk, to salvage the friendship she had come to depend on, but she had no idea what to say.
    Then again, she could just kiss him again.
    She dismissed the idea with a shake of her head. She knew better than to think his affection was anything but friendship gone wrong. He’d turned her happiness into a personal project for years. It had been sweet before, but now it was out of hand. He couldn’t just kiss her and make everything all better. This was ridiculous. He needed to move on with his life, not spend his time worrying about her self-esteem.
    Of course, the question was how she would tell