Patricia slammed her gavel repeatedly. "Lies! This is defamation! Turn that off!"
Daniel clicked the remote. The screen changed to the financial ledgers, highlighting the shell companies. "She used your money to fund Vance Development, her husband's company. And the reason she wants my house so badly is that it's the only way her husband can run a sewer line to his new forty-million-dollar project."
Neighbors were standing up now, reading the packets. Mrs. Gable looked up, tears in her eyes. "She fined me two thousand dollars for painting my door the wrong shade of blue... and she stole it?"
Daniel clicked the remote one last time, zooming in on the boundary map.
"But the best part," Daniel said, a triumphant smile on his face, "is that Patricia Hale doesn't even live in Cedar Grove. Her house is built outside the legal HOA boundary. She has been illegally imposing fines, collecting dues, and acting as president for a decade."
The gavel slipped from Patricia's hand and clattered to the floor.
Total chaos ensued. The lawyer sitting next to Patricia quietly closed his briefcase, stood up, and walked out the back door without saying a word.
"You can't do this to me!" Patricia shrieked, tears of rage ruining her makeup. "I built this neighborhood! I kept the trash out! I made your property values soar!"
"You made our lives a living hell!" yelled a man from the third row.