Chapter 1: Three Swings
The first swing came before anyone on the block had time to understand what was happening.
Linda Mercer stormed onto the sidewalk in a turquoise satin blouse, lime-green ruffled sleeves flashing beneath a deep-purple vest. Her towering cobalt-blue hair seemed almost to vibrate with anger. In both hands she gripped a bright red foam baseball bat.
She stopped beneath the small camera mounted beside the property and looked directly into its lens.
“You’ve been watching me long enough!”
Then she swung.
WHUMP.
The lightweight camera housing shook.
Linda swung again.
WHUMP.
A neighbor’s front door opened down the block.
On the third swing, the bracket gave way exactly as designed. The little camera dropped onto the sidewalk and separated into several harmless plastic pieces.
Linda stood over it, breathing hard.
“That’s what you get!”
For one brief second, she looked triumphant.
Then David Harper came hurrying around the corner.
David was in his early forties, dressed in a charcoal polo and tan work pants, and he had the permanently patient expression of a man who had spent years fixing other people’s mistakes.
He looked at the pieces on the sidewalk.
Then he looked at Linda.
Then he looked up.
The real security camera was mounted several feet higher, untouched.
Linda followed his gaze.
Her face tightened.
David pointed upward.
“That wasn’t the real camera.”
Linda stared.
The realization arrived slowly enough to hurt.
She had not destroyed the camera.
She had performed for it.
“There’s another one?!” she demanded.
“Yes,” David said. “And it recorded everything.”
Linda’s anger changed shape. The triumph disappeared, replaced by something sharper.
She stepped toward the functioning camera until her face filled its wide-angle view.
“Good!” she snapped. “Then let everyone see who’s really wrong here!”
She raised the foam bat onto her shoulder.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then David noticed something on the sidewalk beside the broken prop.
A small red indicator light was blinking.
The camera was not merely recording.
It was sending the footage somewhere.
And Linda had just given the neighborhood something it had never had before: a clear record of what happened.
