Chapter 1: The Woman at the Water
The first thing I noticed was the orange light moving across my lawn.
I had been rinsing a coffee cup when that narrow glow crossed the kitchen window like a warning signal.
My backyard was enclosed by a cedar fence, and nobody had permission to enter it.
I set down the cup and walked toward the sliding door.
An older woman in a cream cardigan was crossing the grass toward my swimming pool.
She held a long black cord in one hand, and its end gave off an unnatural amber glow.
I recognized her before I recognized the object.
Her name was Judith Kessler, and she lived three houses away on Alder Court.
I also recognized the man standing near my gate with his phone raised.
He was my next-door neighbor, Grant Mercer.
Grant had complained about my pool so often that I could have recited his arguments from memory.
He believed every splash was too loud, every visitor was suspicious, and every repair truck was evidence that I intended to turn my home into a commercial resort.
Now he stood perfectly still while Judith approached the water with that glowing cord.
He did not warn her to stop.
He simply recorded.
I shoved open the back door and ran outside.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
Judith stopped at the pool’s edge with the illuminated end suspended over the surface.
She straightened slowly and looked at me with an expression that was more tired than angry.
“Stay out of this,” she said.
I looked toward Grant and his phone.
“You’re recording this?”
“Every second,” he replied.
He said it with the satisfaction of a man who had finally obtained something he had been waiting for.
My eyes went back to the cord.
I could not tell whether it carried electricity,
and I had no intention of finding out by touching it.
“Put that down and move away from the pool,” I told Judith.
Grant stepped sideways to keep both of us inside his frame.
“Don’t tell her what to do,” he said.
“This is my property,” I answered.
Judith’s fingers tightened around the black cable.
“Mara, please listen to me,” she began.
Grant interrupted before she could finish.
“Just show her what you brought, Judith.”
Something in his tone made the older woman flinch.
I had heard Grant speak sharply to delivery drivers and contractors, but I had never heard him use that particular mixture of command and reassurance.
He sounded like a director speaking to an actor who had forgotten a line.
Judith lowered the glowing end another inch.
I backed toward the house and told them I was calling the police.
“Go ahead,” Grant said.
His phone never moved.
When I looked at Judith again, I saw moisture on her cheeks.
Her mouth formed two silent words.
I could not be sure, but I thought she said, “I’m sorry.”
Then the glow went out.
Judith dropped the cable onto the dry concrete, and she staggered backward.
Grant swore under his breath.
The entire confrontation had lasted less than a minute.
It was enough to change my life for months.
