Chapter 1: The Smoke at the Mailbox
Orange light flickered through a cloud of smoke beside the public community mailbox just after ten on a quiet Tuesday morning.
Karen stood over it with her enormous metallic-purple handbag hanging from one arm, her electric-blue hair catching the sunlight like a warning sign. For a woman who had spent months complaining about the mailbox, she looked almost pleased with herself.
“There!” she snapped. “Now maybe they’ll finally replace this ugly thing!”
The mailbox stood intact beneath the smoke, but the sight was enough to bring Daniel Harper running from across the sidewalk.
“Karen! That’s public property!”
She turned on him.
“Don’t you dare lecture me!”
Daniel stopped several feet away. He had known Karen long enough to recognize the particular look on her face—the look that meant she believed the conversation was already over because she had decided she was right.
Karen pointed toward the mailbox.
“I live here! I pay taxes here! I’ll decide what happens on this street!”
Daniel glanced at the mailbox, then at the small security camera mounted on a pole nearby.
“You forgot about one thing.”
Karen followed his gaze.
The camera’s indicator light was blinking.
For the first time, her expression changed.
Daniel pulled out his phone.
On the screen was a security-camera recording. Karen approaching the mailbox. Karen leaning toward it. Karen standing beside the rising smoke.
He didn’t need to explain much.
“Someone was watching.”
Karen’s smugness vanished.
“That proves nothing!” she said quickly. “You people just want someone to blame!”
Several neighbors had gathered at a distance. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to.
Karen looked from their faces to the camera.
Daniel kept the phone raised.
“Then explain why the camera recorded you.”
She stared at the lens.
Then her voice hardened.
“So what? It’s only a mailbox. Why should anyone care?”
The question landed differently than she expected.
Because Daniel wasn’t looking at the mailbox anymore.
He was looking at the smoke detector mounted on the nearby community center.
And that was when Karen realized the mailbox wasn’t the only thing that had been recorded.
