"Is this your property, sir?" the officer asked.
"Yes, officer. Closed on it three weeks ago."
"Did you invite this woman into your backyard?"
"No. I asked her to leave, and she refused. Then she called you."
The officer let out a heavy sigh, turning back to Patricia. "Ma’am, the homeowner has asked you to leave the premises."
Patricia’s jaw dropped. "But I’m the HOA president! I have a right to inspect the properties in my jurisdiction!"
"Being on a neighborhood board doesn’t give you the legal authority to trespass," the officer said firmly. "You need to exit the property now, or I will cite you."
Humiliation flushed Patricia’s neck red. She spun on her heel, marching toward the gate. Just before she stepped onto the sidewalk, she turned and looked dead into Daniel’s eyes. "You’re going to deeply regret moving here."
Daniel thought it was just the wounded pride of a neighborhood tyrant. But that night, unable to sleep, he pulled up the footage from his newly installed security cameras to see how she had opened his locked gate.
His blood ran cold. The timestamp showed 3:15 PM. Patricia hadn’t just walked in. The black-and-white night vision camera had caught her standing perfectly still in the narrow alleyway behind his fence for nearly an hour. But she wasn't looking at the grill. She was obsessively pacing, using a tape measure to calculate the exact distance from his property line to the old, boarded-up storage shed sitting in the corner of his yard. She was looking for something.