"Do not open that door," Elena warned.
Ignoring her, Nancy turned the handle and stepped one foot into Elena's kitchen.
Sofia stood up. "You need to leave. You are inside my daughter’s home."
Elena pulled out her phone. "I’m calling the police."
Nancy backed out onto the patio, her chest heaving. "Good. I was going to call them myself." She crossed the lawn, dialing 911 before Elena could even unlock her screen.
By the time Officer Daniel Reyes arrived at Hawthorne Ridge, the leaf blower had been turned off for nearly twenty minutes. The machine sat abandoned on the patio of Unit 58. Elena stood near the sliding door, rubbing her arm where three distinct red marks crossed the skin above her wrist.
Across the lawn, Nancy paced beside the community mailbox. "She attacked me first," Nancy said rapidly into her phone as the squad car pulled up. "Not physically, but deliberately. There are rules here."
Officer Reyes stepped out, closing the door of his cruiser. He sent his partner, Officer Lena Foster, to check on the woman with the injured arm while he approached the pacing woman in the blue cardigan. Her expensive shoes were soaked from the grass, and she held herself with a rigid, forced authority.
"You’re the police?" she asked.
"Yes. Officer Reyes. What’s your name?"
"Nancy Rosenberg. I called you. They were making that noise again." She began walking toward her unit. "My husband is inside. I need to tell him—"