Cody looked at his mother.
Apparently, this was news to him.
Darnell noticed.
And for the first time, he understood that the grocery bags were not the real problem.
The real problem was what Bettina believed she was entitled to do.
And she was about to find out exactly how far that entitlement could take her.
Meadowlark Estates
Fourteen months earlier, Meadowlark Estates had looked like exactly the kind of place Darnell believed he needed.
The development sat just outside Ridgecroft, Tennessee.
Wide streets curved through dogwoods and carefully trimmed lawns.
There were 174 homes.
Brick houses.
Two-story houses.
Small cottages.
Large homes with three-car garages.
Everything looked orderly.
Almost peaceful.
Darnell had spent twenty-two years in law enforcement.
Eight months before buying the house at 14 Brierwood Court, he had been appointed chief of the Ridgecroft Police Department.
He was forty-nine.
Divorced.
Father to a twenty-five-year-old daughter named Simone.
And exhausted.
His therapist had once told him that sleeping in an apartment overlooking a police parking garage did not count as having a life outside work.
So Darnell bought a house.
Not because it was perfect.
Because it wasn't.
The rear deck needed work.
The kitchen cabinets needed new hinges.
A dogwood near the front walk had been pruned so aggressively that it looked like a collection of sticks tied together by stubbornness.
Darnell liked that.
Problems with visible endings comforted him.
Sand the board.
Replace the hinge.
Water the tree.
Problem smaller.
He didn't realize Meadowlark had a different philosophy.