That plan steadied him. The yard was still a mess, the flower beds were still ruined, the basement still needed drying, and the foundation insulation would need to be checked and probably replaced, and none of that would be fixed by a video. But the video changed what the morning meant. Without it, Dana's complaint might have stood on its own, supported by mud and angry neighbors and official paperwork, and Colin would have spent the day defending a system he had not broken. With it, the complaint became something else, a document filed less than an hour after the damage it described, by the person who had caused that damage, and the mud became not proof of his failure but proof of hers. Colin looked at his son, standing beside him in muddy pajamas, and at the house behind them, solid and ordinary in the morning light, its old oak floors and three bedrooms and roof that would need replacing within five years, and he felt the promise he had made to Alex settle back into place, firm and uncomplicated. They would remain until they chose to leave. No hammer, no flood, and no folder full of complaints was going to change that, not while he had a video that told the truth in Dana's own movements, strike by strike, photograph by photograph, smile by smile. Dana had wanted a scene. She had wanted mud and flooding and an official complaint, and she had gotten all of that. But she had also gotten herself on camera, holding the hammer, walking through his gate, striking his sprinkler three times, and smiling as she left. She had wanted people to see a failed system. Instead, if the inspector watched the video before she decided what the scene meant, people were going to see something else entirely. They were going to see Dana Mercer, and they were going to see exactly what she had done, and Colin intended to make sure that happened, no matter how many folders she carried or how many complaints she filed.
By late morning the side yard had begun to dry in patches, but the damage still showed everywhere Colin looked. The mulch had washed into ridges along the fence line. The soil around the broken sprinkler head lay dark and sunken, and the flower beds nearest the house were flattened into mud. Alex had gone back inside to finish moving boxes away from the basement wall.
At 11:47 a white municipal vehicle pulled up to the curb. Colin recognized the shape of it at once, a plain city car with a small seal on the door, and he felt his stomach tighten. He had been expecting Miriam Ortega, but he had not expected her to arrive with a procession. Dana Mercer came behind her, walking with the brisk confidence of someone who believed the morning was going her way. She carried a red folder against her chest. Her beige pants were clean, and she wore rubber boots, the kind of boots a person puts on when they expect to walk through mud. Colin noticed that detail and stored it away.
Behind Dana came Leonard Shaw, the HOA president, holding a camera in both hands as though he were documenting a crime scene rather than a neighbor dispute. Brenda Lowe, the HOA treasurer, followed with a clipboard pressed to her side. And behind them came Martin and Cheryl Boone from across the street, their faces set in the hard, unhappy expressions of people who had already decided what they thought. Colin had known the Boones for two years. Now they walked toward his ruined lawn as though they were coming to judge him.
Dana did not wait for introductions. She pointed at Colin's lawn, at the mud and the flattened beds and the broken sprinkler head still lying in its shallow crater of wet soil, and she said, "This is what we've been warning about."
Miriam Ortega stepped forward before Colin could answer. She was a woman in her forties with a calm, practiced manner, and she carried herself like someone used to being the only steady voice in a loud room. "Let me inspect before anyone makes conclusions," she said.
Dana ignored her. She turned to face Colin directly, and her voice sharpened. "You've caused enough trouble here."