Chapter 6: The Person Nobody Was Watching
The investigation moved away from the HOA.
That was exactly what whoever started the scheme had wanted.
The original tracker had been placed inside the police department’s parking area.
Security footage eventually showed a man approaching the cruiser before Reed’s shift.
He wasn’t a stranger.
He was a civilian contractor who serviced police vehicles.
His name was Victor Lane.
Victor had access to the parking lot.
He also had a financial connection to the private HOA contractor that had been conducting the property inspections.
The pieces finally began to fit.
The HOA contractor wanted more business.
The more violations discovered, the more inspections were ordered.
The more inspections ordered, the more money the contractor made.
But Mara’s questions had threatened to expose how those inspections were being conducted.
Victor had helped install tracking devices on several vehicles used by officers responding to neighborhood complaints.
He claimed it was merely “testing equipment.”
But the evidence told a different story.
Derek had been hired to create a distraction.
Glenn had provided access to the clubhouse.
Victor had provided information about police movements.
The fingerprints were the final piece.
They were meant to make the cruiser appear personally targeted by a homeowner.
Mara had been chosen because she was already involved in a public dispute with the HOA.
It was a convenient story.
Too convenient.
When Reed told Mara what investigators had discovered, she sat quietly at her kitchen table.
She thought about all the moments she had nearly doubted herself.
The letters.
The accusations.
The neighbors turning away.
The morning Reed had looked at her as though she were guilty.
She understood now how easily a person’s reputation could become evidence against them.
Mara looked toward the window.
“Are they going to arrest Derek?”
“If the evidence supports it.”
“And Glenn?”
“The same.”
She nodded.
Then she asked the question that mattered most to her.
“What about Tyler?”
Reed’s expression softened.
“He did nothing wrong.”
Mara finally exhaled.
The small handprint that had terrified everyone had become the detail that broke the entire story open.
But Mara wasn’t interested in revenge.
She wanted the photographs destroyed.
She wanted the homeowners informed.
And she wanted the HOA to acknowledge what had happened.
Not privately.
Publicly.
