CHAPTER FIVE: THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW

Evelyn did not come outside for two days.
On the third morning, Trevor saw a moving truck stop at her curb.
It was not large enough for a household move.
Two men carried out six sealed plastic tubs and loaded them beneath a folded blanket.
Trevor called Ruiz and reported only what he could see.
She told him not to follow the truck.
He watched it leave anyway.
A little later, Evelyn appeared on her porch holding a garden hose.
She watered the same dry patch of earth for nearly ten minutes.
Then she looked at Trevor.


“You’ve caused quite a spectacle,” she called.
He stepped outside.
“I didn’t submit those forwarding requests.”
“You don’t understand what you started.”
“Then explain it.”
Evelyn shut off the hose.
“There are people on these streets who have no idea what their own relatives are doing.”
“You don’t get to read their mail to find out.”
“Sometimes somebody has to notice the warning signs.”
“What warning signs?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
A car slowed at the intersection.
Evelyn glanced at it and stepped back into her house.
Trevor stood on the sidewalk with the uneasy sense that her fear had not been caused by the inspectors alone.

CHAPTER SIX: THE RETURN ADDRESS

Mara arrived that evening with a folder of her own.
She had collected copies of letters sent to her previous apartment after she moved to Calder Street.
The clinic had continued using the old address for one insurance notification.
Someone had submitted a change request that sent it to a private mailbox service near the interstate.
“I never rented a mailbox there,” she said.
Trevor compared the dates.
The request had been submitted two days after Evelyn hosted a neighborhood safety meeting.
“Did you attend?” he asked.
“For ten minutes,” Mara said.
“She made everybody sign a sheet so she could distribute emergency information.

”
“What was on it?”
“Names, addresses, phone numbers, and whether we owned or rented.”
Trevor felt his stomach tighten.
“Did she ask for previous addresses?”
“She called them emergency relocation contacts.”
Mara sat down slowly.
“I gave her mine.”
“A lot of people probably did.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
She pulled another page from the folder.
It showed a photocopy of a mailing label from the private mailbox service.
The account holder was listed as Calder Neighborhood Preparedness Office.
There was no such public office.
Trevor had seen that name before.
It appeared on a laminated notice Evelyn once taped to the grocery store door.


The notice claimed that residents should report unfamiliar visitors to her house.
Sima had removed it after someone complained.
“This wasn’t just curiosity,” Mara said.
“She built a place for our letters to go.”
Trevor looked at the label again.
“Maybe,” he said.
“But why would she want so many different kinds of mail?”