Chapter 4: The Angle
David brought a folding chair into Linda’s driveway and opened the camera settings on his phone.
He showed her the actual field of view.
The lens covered the sidewalk, the driveway, and the street.
It could not see through her windows.
It could not see her living room.
It could not record inside her house.
Linda stared at the diagram.
“But when I’m outside, it sees me.”
“Yes.”
“And it saves it?”
“For a limited period.”
She looked away.
That answer seemed to frighten her more than the camera itself.
Then David noticed something she had said earlier.
“You said someone had been watching your house before the camera was installed.”
Linda nodded.
“Twice.”
She described a dark sedan parked near her mailbox on two separate evenings.
She had never gotten a license plate.
She had told Tom about it before he died.
David asked whether she had reported it.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t prove anything.”
That sentence stayed with him.
They reviewed the old recordings.
Nothing appeared on the first night.
Nothing appeared on the second.
Then David noticed a vehicle that looked similar passing the property several times.
Not parked.
Passing.
The footage did not prove who was driving.
But it established something important: Linda’s fear had not come entirely from nowhere.
David told her that did not justify attacking the prop.
Linda accepted that without argument.
It was the first time she had done so.
Then she surprised him.
“I want to see the video.”
David knew exactly which video she meant.
The one where she had swung the bat.
He showed it to her.
Linda watched herself march into frame.
She watched herself strike the fake camera.
She watched herself celebrate.
When the real camera appeared above her, her shoulders sank.
She covered her mouth.
“Oh, Lord.”
David turned the screen away.
“You don’t have to watch.”
“No.”
She took the phone back.
“I need to.”
The footage ended.
Linda stared at the black screen.
“I look ridiculous.”
“You look angry.”
“That isn’t better.”
“No,” David said. “But it’s honest.”
Linda sat silently for a long time.
Then she asked the question neither of them had expected.
“Can you help me take the camera down?”
David could have said no.
Instead, he asked why.
“Because I don’t want to live afraid of it,” she said.
But before David could answer, his phone rang.
It was Rebecca.
Someone had broken into a garage two streets away.
And the police wanted to know whether David’s camera had captured a vehicle leaving the neighborhood.
