When the cruisers finally left, neighbors retreated toward
their doors. Some offered Marcus awkward nods. None crossed
the street except Ava and Eli.
“I’m sorry,” Ava said.
“You didn’t spray me.”
“I watched for too long.”
“You came forward.”
Eli held up his phone. “I can send you the original.”
“Send it to the evidence address Officer Daniels gave you first.
Keep your copy. Don’t post it.”
The boy looked disappointed. “Why not? People should see.”
G ET O U T O F T H IS N EI G H B O R H O O D
11
“They may need to,” Marcus said. “But once it becomes
entertainment, people stop asking what is useful and start asking
what is exciting. Preserve it before you publish it.”
Eli considered that, then nodded.
Ava noticed the water pooling near the garage. “Do you need
towels?”
“I own towels.”
“That was not exactly my question.”
For the first time since Susan walked up the driveway, Marcus
smiled. “Then yes. Thank you.”
Inside 814, he changed clothes and hung the wet shirt over the
utility sink. The house smelled of cardboard boxes, lemon
cleaner, and old wood. In the front room, late sunlight fell across
the empty place where he planned to put a reading chair.
He sat on one unopened box and listened to the silence.
Retirement had taught him that silence was not always peace.
Sometimes it was only the absence of witnesses willing to speak.
His phone rang. The caller was his daughter, Nia.
“Dad,” she said without greeting, “why did Officer Daniels just
text me to ask whether you were all right?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
He had forgotten that Daniels’s wife worked with Nia at the
county library.
“I had a disagreement with a neighbor.”
“What kind of disagreement requires three cruisers?”
“The kind involving a hose and an inaccurate emergency call.”
There was a pause. “I’m coming over.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I know. That’s what makes it my decision.”
He almost told her no again. Then he looked around the halfunpacked house and thought of Ava’s question.
G ET O U T O F T H IS N EI G H B O R H O O D
12
“All right,” he said. “Bring food.”
After the call, he opened the front door. Across the street, Eli
had gone inside. Susan stood at the end of her own driveway four
houses down, speaking into her phone and looking toward 814.
Marcus met her gaze.
She turned away first.
G ET O U T O F T H IS N EI G H B O R H O O D
13
N
C H A P T E R 2
The Man at 814
ia Reed arrived with two containers of carryout, a cordless
drill Marcus had lent her six months before, and the
expression she had worn since childhood whenever she
believed her father was withholding information for her
protection.
She was thirty-one, a librarian by profession and an organizer
by instinct. Her hair was braided close to her scalp, her glasses
had red frames, and her patience with euphemism was limited.
“A disagreement?” she said after watching Eli’s video.
Marcus opened the container of rice. “That is technically
accurate.”
“So is ‘the Titanic developed a moisture problem.’”
He pointed his fork at her. “That is why I do not tell you things
before dinner.”
Nia did not smile. She replayed the moment Susan raised the
nozzle. “Are you pressing charges?”
“I’m considering options.”
“You used to hate that phrase.”
“I used to hear it from people who had no options.”
“And now?”
“Now I have too many.”
G ET O U T O F T H IS N EI G H B O R H O O D
14
Marcus had not bought 814 on an impulse. He had searched
for eleven months. After his wife, Renee, died of ovarian cancer
seven years earlier, the apartment where they had raised Nia
became crowded with absence. Marcus stayed because leaving
felt disloyal. Then retirement stripped away his schedule, and the
rooms became a museum to a life he could no longer enter.
Nia had urged him to find a house with a workshop. He
wanted a porch, mature trees, and enough room for guests
without owning more space than he could care for. The graybrick colonial on Hawthorne Lane had all of it: a shaded back
garden, a detached corner of the garage perfect for
woodworking, and a small room upstairs that Nia immediately
claimed as hers despite living twenty minutes away.
The seller, Alice Bennett, had moved to assisted living near her
son. Marcus never met her in person. Their negotiations passed
through agents, inspectors, attorneys, and signatures. The
settlement was ordinary. Only later would he learn how many
people believed ordinary transactions required their permission.
Nia helped him connect the doorbell camera. Its stored clip
matched Eli’s recording and captured more of the exchange. It