Chapter 9
The white county vehicle turned onto Willow Lane less than three minutes later.
I checked my watch and then checked it again. I had not called anyone. The trail camera had sent its movement alert, I had walked outside recording Grace throwing the bag over the fence, and in all that time nobody had dialed the county. Yet Curtis Lane stepped out of his car with a sealed folder tucked under his arm and walked straight toward my yard like a man keeping an appointment.
He took in the burst bag scattered across my patio. He took in my phone, held high.
"You recorded this?" he asked.
"Yes."
He glanced past me at Grace, who stood on her side of the fence with her hands pressed against the top rail.
"You were told to wait until tonight," he said to her.
Grace went pale. Curtis realized what he had just said the moment it left his mouth. His jaw tightened, but the words were already in my phone, already saved. I held the phone higher.
"Keep talking," I said.
Curtis came around the end of the fence toward me. "Give me that phone."
"You just confirmed this was planned."
"This property is under county supervision."
"This property belongs to me."
He reached over the fence for the phone. Grace caught his wrist and held it.
"Leave him alone," she said.
Curtis shoved her hand away hard enough that she stumbled a step. "You had one job."
Grace looked at me across the scattered trash, and I saw something in her face I had not seen in two months of neighborly smiles. Not guilt. Fear. Real, focused fear.
"Open the bag," she said.
Curtis turned on her. "Stop."
"Open it, Thomas."
I set my phone on the fence post so the lens pointed at us and tore the black plastic open. Under the food containers and wrappers were folders wrapped in clear plastic. I pulled them out one at a time, and the air went out of me with each name.
Pauline Marsh. Henry Marsh. Five other former homeowners on Willow Lane. And mine.
I opened Pauline's folder first. Sanitation notices. Medical evaluations. A signed declaration stating she could no longer maintain her property, that her home was a health hazard, that she agreed to the county's intervention. The signature at the bottom belonged to a doctor who died six months before the form was dated.
Henry's folder held photographs of garbage inside his basement. Black bags piled against a washer. Rotten food on the concrete. The bags were identical to the ones that had been appearing inside my house β the same plastic, the same knots, the same torn labels.
My folder held a property-transfer agreement. Eastbrook Property Partners was listed as the buyer. The purchase price was less than a third of what the house was worth. The closing date was Friday. Two days away. My signature had already been added at the bottom of the last page, in ink that looked like mine and was not mine.
I opened the five remaining folders. Each one belonged to a house on Willow Lane, each one carried the same pattern: a sanitation violation, a medical evaluation or a declaration of incapacity, a sale to Eastbrook Property Partners at a fraction of the property's worth. I recognized three of the addresses without thinking. Houses I walked past every day. One of them still had a child's swing set in the side yard, rusting in the weeds since the family left.
I compared the signature on my agreement with the declaration in Pauline's folder. The strokes were the same. The same hand had signed my name and the dead doctor's name.
"They forge everything," I said, and my voice sounded strange to me, too flat, like someone else was speaking.
"Not everything," Grace said quietly. "Just enough."
Curtis grabbed for the folder. Grace stepped between us.
"Run, Thomas," she said.
Instead of running, I picked up my phone and called the police. Curtis laughed.
"Who do you think sent Paula away?" he said.
A black SUV stopped behind the county vehicle. Two men in private-security uniforms stepped out and started up my walk. Curtis walked to my side gate and produced a key. I had changed that lock three weeks earlier. I had done it myself, with a new deadbolt from the hardware store. His key turned. The gate swung open.
I looked at Grace. She was already climbing the fence, her good shoes slipping on the rail, her perfect hair coming loose. She landed on my side and grabbed my arm.
"Do not go through the front door," she said.
"Why?"
"Because that is how the bags get inside."