series of bright neon pink wooden stakes into the ground, marking the true legal property line. I followed the
line of pink stakes with my eyes.
The line started at the main road, cut through the woods, bypassed the old elm trees, and marched straight
into Oakridge Estates. It crossed Richard Vance's pristine, manicured lawn. It went straight through his
imported Italian marble patio. It sliced directly across his infinity pool.
And it didn't stop there. The property line went straight through the western wing of Richard Vance's
twelve-thousand-square-foot mansion. According to the absolute, legally binding county coordinates, roughly
thirty-five feet of Vance's multi-million-dollar house—including his master bedroom, his home theater, and his
three-car garage—was sitting squarely on my land.
"When Oakridge was developed," Elias explained, spitting a sunflower seed into the grass, "they used a
cheap, fly-by-night surveying firm. They assumed the old livestock fence was the property line and didn't
bother digging for the original bedrock pins. Vance built his house right up to the setback limit of what he
thought was his land. But his land started eighty feet further east."
I didn't go to Vance. I went to my lawyer. When I laid Elias Thorne's certified survey on her desk, she
stared at it in absolute silence for two full minutes. Then, a slow, predatory smile spread across her face. "Oh,"