CHAPTER 1
The brick left Linda Mercer’s hand before anyone could stop her.
It struck the large living-room window with a violent crack, sending a white spiderweb of fractures across the glass. A second later, several small pieces dropped inward onto the floor.
For one stunned heartbeat, the suburban street went completely quiet.
Linda stood beside the low hedge separating the two properties, breathing hard. Her short red hair was disheveled, her face flushed, and both hands were still clenched from anger.
Across the yard, Thomas Reed stared at the ruined window.
He was sixty-seven, a retired school administrator who had lived in the house for almost twenty years. Until that moment, he had been trying to understand why his neighbor had been shouting at him from outside his fence.
Now he understood one thing perfectly.
She had just broken his window.
“What did you just do?” Thomas asked.
Linda pointed toward the small camera beside his front door.
“I know you’re using that camera to watch me!”
Thomas looked at the camera.
Then at Linda.
Then back at the broken window.
“You’re standing right in front of a camera you knew was recording.”
Linda’s expression hardened.
“That camera points right at my property.”
“It points at my front walk.”
“You can see my whole yard from there.”
Thomas took one step onto the porch but stopped before approaching the broken glass.
“You just broke my window.”
Linda seemed ready with another accusation, but the small red indicator on the doorbell camera caught her attention.
Her eyes shifted toward it.
For the first time since she had entered his yard, she looked uncertain.
Thomas noticed.
He reached toward his phone.
Linda’s voice dropped.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking the recording.”
Her shoulders tightened.
Thomas tapped the screen.
The footage appeared instantly.
There was Linda entering the yard.
There was Linda pointing toward the house.
And there was Linda picking up the brick.
Thomas turned the phone so she could see.
Linda stared at the screen.
The anger on her face remained, but something else had entered it now.
Calculation.
She looked from the phone to the camera.
Then slowly lowered her hand.
CHAPTER 2