Near evening, Malcolm arrived with shelf brackets despite the weather. He found Elias studying the plan.
“Are we building shelves or a courthouse?”
“Shelves.”
“Good. I know where the studs are. The rest is your department.”
They worked until the guest room held two straight shelves and a slightly crooked collection of books.
Outside, the rain finally stopped.
The water at Frank's curb continued moving, carrying leaves toward a drain that had needed attention all along.
The offer for Elias's house arrived on cream paper inside an envelope with no stamp.
It had been placed beneath his front door mat while he was at work. His porch camera recorded a man in a dark windbreaker walking up, bending, and leaving. Elias did not recognize him.
The letter introduced Darren Carver as a property adviser representing Larkspur Holdings.
He was Vivian's cousin.
Elias knew because the association newsletter had once thanked Darren for sponsoring its spring landscaping event. There had been a photograph of the two of them holding ceremonial shovels beside a young tree.
Now Darren wanted to know whether Elias would consider “a straightforward solution to the complications of ownership.”
The proposed figure was below what Elias had paid three weeks earlier.
He read the letter once standing up and again at the table. Beside it lay a hardware receipt for the curtain rail and a list of plants he wanted to buy when the garden dried out. Darren's figure reduced the place to a transaction Elias had not invited. The contrast unsettled him more than the number itself. Someone else had seen an opportunity in the same rooms where he was finally learning how the morning light moved across the floor.
At the bottom, Darren wrote that unresolved access issues could affect marketability. There was no explanation of how he knew Elias had received access complaints.
Elias photographed the envelope and saved the camera clip. Then he called Mara.
“I don't want to sell.”
“You don't have to negotiate because someone sent an offer.”
“He knows about the notices.”
“We'll ask how, and what relationship exists between his work and the association's decisions.”
He heard paper moving on her desk.
“This is important, Elias. An unwelcome offer isn't itself proof of a crime. A family relationship isn't proof either. We need the communications, disclosures, decisions, and actual conduct.”
“I understand.”
He did. He also wanted to put the letter in Vivian's mailbox with a sentence written across it in marker.
Instead, he put it in the growing file.
At the next routine board session, held online, Elias asked whether any officer or director had communicated with prospective buyers concerning lots seventeen or eighteen. He kept his question brief and requested that the answer appear in the minutes.
Vivian said individual real estate matters were private.
“I didn't ask about private purchase decisions,” Elias replied. “I asked about association communications.”
Treasurer Gordon Pike looked down at something off screen. Secretary June Ellis moved her microphone closer.
“It's a reasonable records question,” she said.
Vivian told her the special meeting would address Elias's concerns.
“Then please record the question today,” June answered.
It was the first disagreement Elias had seen among the board members.
Afterward, June sent him the approved process for requesting association records. She did not attach confidential correspondence she had no authority to release. She told him to submit the request through management so it could be handled consistently.
He did.
Mara added requests for the basis of the notices, related board authorizations, conflict disclosures, and material concerning access proposals affecting his lot. She also sent a preservation letter identifying the dispute and the kinds of records that needed to be retained.
The next morning, Vivian posted an announcement for the special meeting.
Agenda item one: Resident conduct and community safety.
Agenda item two: Rear drainage access improvements.
Agenda item three: Enforcement procedures concerning noncompliance.
Elias read the three lines together.
The backyard, the strip, the letters. What had seemed like separate problems were being assembled into the same meeting.
That evening, Rafael came over after his shift. He wore ordinary clothes, not a uniform. He brought grocery store cookies and asked whether Elias wanted to talk or watch a bad movie.
“I keep wondering what would have happened if the officers had believed her first version,” Elias said.
“They listened to everyone.”
“This time.”