The brick came through the window on a Tuesday night, at 2:14 a.m.
Ethan was asleep in his bedroom when he heard the crash. It was not a small sound. It was not the sound of a glass tipping over, or a branch brushing a window. It was the sound of glass breaking and something heavy landing on the floor, a sound that cut through sleep like an alarm.
He sat up in bed, heart pounding. For a second, he did not know where he was. Then he heard the second sound: glass tinkling as it fell from the frame onto the carpet, and a faint rolling sound, as if something had bounced and settled.
He grabbed his phone and his flashlight from the nightstand and ran to the living room. He did not turn on the lights. He did not want to be a silhouette in a broken window.
The front window was shattered. The lower pane was gone. Jagged shards still clung to the frame, catching the streetlight. Glass was everywhere — on the sill, on the carpet, on the coffee table. Cold air came through the hole, smelling of night and wet leaves.
On the floor, next to his coffee table, was a red brick. Tied to the brick with a rubber band was a piece of paper. On the paper, in the same block letters as the note on his door, were two words: LAST WARNING.
Ethan did not touch the brick. He did not touch the paper. He stood in the doorway of his living room, in his pajamas, holding a flashlight, breathing hard, waiting for his hands to stop shaking.
He called 911. His voice was calm when he gave his address, but he could hear the tightness in it. He said someone had thrown a brick through his window. He said he was alone. He said he did not see who did it. The dispatcher told him to stay inside, to lock the doors, to wait for officers.
He stayed in the hallway, away from the window, and watched the front yard through the peephole. The street was empty. A car passed, slow, then sped up. A dog barked two houses down and then went quiet. Nothing moved.
When the officers arrived, they came with flashlights and gloves. One was Officer Patel, whom Ethan had met before. The other was a younger officer Ethan did not know. They photographed the brick, the paper, and the window from inside and outside. They put the brick and the paper into evidence bags. They walked the yard, looking for footprints, tire marks, anything that might show where the person had stood.
Officer Patel asked Ethan if he had seen anyone, if he had heard a car, if he had any idea who might have done it.
"I didn't see anyone," Ethan said. "I heard the crash. That's it."
"Do you have cameras?" she asked.
Ethan nodded and showed her the footage on his phone. The front camera had caught a dark sedan pulling up at 2:13 a.m., stopping with its lights off, a figure getting out, throwing something, and driving away. The license plate was blurred by the streetlight and the angle, but the car was visible — a four-door sedan, dark blue or black, with a dent on the rear bumper.
Officer Patel took a copy of the video. She said they would try to enhance the plate and check for other cameras on the street. She said the department took this seriously, especially after the earlier reports.
After the police left, Ethan sat on his couch, surrounded by glass, and called Tom. Tom answered on the second ring, voice thick with sleep.
"Tom, someone threw a brick through my window," Ethan said.
"I'm coming," Tom said. "Don't touch anything."
Tom arrived in ten minutes, wearing a jacket over his pajamas, carrying a broom and a piece of plywood from his garage. He did not ask questions. He helped Ethan sweep up the glass, carefully, into a dustpan. They worked in silence, the broom scratching softly on the floor. When the glass was cleared, they nailed the plywood over the window frame, from the inside, to keep out the cold and anyone who might try to come back.
At dawn, Ethan swept up the last of the glass. He looked at the plywood where his window had been and felt something he had not felt since Laura died: a deep, helpless anger, mixed with a kind of grief. He had done everything right. He had followed the rules. He had kept his paperwork. He had installed cameras. He had called the police. And someone had still thrown a brick through his window for it.
He made coffee and sat at the kitchen table. His hands were still shaking a little. He opened his notebook and wrote down everything he remembered: 2:14 a.m., brick, LAST WARNING, dark sedan, dented bumper. Date, time, observations. No conclusions. That was his rule.
Later that morning, he called his insurance company and filed a claim. The adjuster said the window would be covered, but the deductible was five hundred dollars. Ethan wrote that down too.
He also called Sarah Kim, the lawyer. She listened without interrupting, then said, "This changes things. This is no longer just an HOA dispute. This is criminal mischief, harassment, and intimidation. We need to move faster."
Ethan agreed. He was done being polite. He was done waiting for the next letter, the next knock, the next threat. He had a brick in an evidence bag, a video of a car, and a pattern that anyone could see.
That night, he slept on the couch, away from the front of the house, with his phone beside him and the camera alerts on. He did not sleep well. Every time a car passed, he woke up. Every time the house settled, he woke up.
But in the morning, when the sun came up and Tom knocked on the door with coffee and a bag of bagels, Ethan felt something else under the anger: determination.
He was not going to take down the shed. He was not going to move out.
He was going to see this through.