Rebecca stepped closer.
“What exactly did you give the inspector?”
“Ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I know.”
Her jaw tightened.
Then she smiled.
It was the first time I saw the version of Rebecca that would later destroy my phone.
Not the cheerful neighbor.
Not the woman with lemon bars.
Someone colder.
“You should be careful, Daniel.”
“With what?”
“People might start thinking grief has affected you.”
The sentence hit exactly where she intended.
My wife.
My isolation.
The fact that everyone knew I lived alone.
Rebecca saw my expression and understood she had found a weak spot.
“I’m concerned about you,” she added softly.
“No, you’re not.”
“Maybe all this recording isn’t healthy.”
I opened my door.
“Good night, Rebecca.”
She looked past me into the house.
Toward the hallway.
Toward my desk.
Then she walked away.
I locked the door.
And for the first time, I became afraid.
Not of Rebecca physically.
Of the story she was preparing to tell about me.
Two days later, I received a certified letter from the HOA.
NOTICE OF NEIGHBOR COMPLAINT.
It accused me of surveillance harassment.
It claimed my cameras violated neighborhood privacy standards.
The complaint was signed by Martin Voss.
I read the HOA bylaws twice.
My cameras were legal.
They pointed entirely at my own property.
I responded by email with screenshots showing the camera angles.
Martin wrote back.
Thank you. We will review.
That same evening, my garage camera lost power.
The cable had been cut.
I stood under it staring at the clean slice.
Someone had reached over the fence from the side yard.
Fortunately, I had installed a second battery camera after Mrs. Holloway’s warning.
It captured Rebecca entering my side yard at 2:03 a.m.
But Rebecca wasn’t alone.
A man stood on the sidewalk.
Too far from the camera to identify clearly.
He wore a baseball cap.
He never entered my property.
He simply watched while Rebecca approached the garage.
At one point, she looked back at him.
He lifted one hand.
A signal.
Rebecca cut the cable.
Then they left.
I downloaded the footage immediately.
The next morning, I called the police non-emergency line.
Officer Elena Ruiz arrived around ten.
She watched the video.
“Can you identify the man?”
“No.”
“Neighbor?”
“I don’t think so.”
She paused the frame.
“Could be.”
I told her about Martin.
The calls.
The HOA complaint.
His strange questions.
Ruiz took notes.
“Any reason the HOA treasurer would help her?”
“No.”
“Money between them?”
“Not that I know.”
“Relationship?”
“I have no idea.”
Ruiz nodded.
“Don’t confront either of them.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Back this footage up somewhere off-site.”
“I already have.”
She looked pleased.
“Good.”
That afternoon, I created another backup.
Then another.
My work made me cautious about data.
There is a saying in IT: if something exists in only one place, it does not exist safely.
I copied every relevant video, photograph, email, text message, and HOA document into an encrypted archive.
I uploaded one version to a secure storage account.
A second copy went onto a drive stored in my sister Megan’s safe twenty miles away.
A third went to an attorney I knew from work.
The phone contained copies.
Only copies.
But Rebecca did not know that.
Neither, apparently, did Martin.
The harassment changed after the police visit.
It became quieter.
No more garbage.
No more midnight trespassing.
Instead, Rebecca began appearing whenever I was outside.
If I checked the mail, she did too.
If I trimmed the hedge, she watered flowers.
If I walked to Mrs. Holloway’s house, Rebecca found a reason to stand on her porch.
And she kept asking about my phone.
One Saturday morning, she called over the fence.
“Still recording everything?”
I ignored her.
“Must take a lot of storage.”
I looked at her.
Rebecca smiled.
“Just curious.”
Another afternoon she said, “Phones break, you know.”
I stopped walking.
“What?”
She shrugged.
“They get lost. Dropped in water. Stolen.”
I stared at her.
Rebecca gave me that friendly neighborhood smile.
“You should enjoy life more, Daniel.”
I started recording every interaction.
Not secretly.
Openly.
That made her furious.
But it also made her careful.
Until the Tuesday she decided to destroy the phone.
After I saw Martin Voss’s email on the access alert, I called Officer Ruiz.
I did not call Martin.
I did not call Rebecca.
Ruiz arrived forty minutes later.
Mrs. Holloway gave a statement confirming she had seen Rebecca destroy my phone.
I showed Ruiz the access alert.
She read it twice.
“Martin’s email?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“He’s emailed me from that address.”
“Could somebody else have entered it?”
“Possible.”
Ruiz looked at me.
“But?”
“But they would need to know the storage service existed.”
“Who knew?”
“My sister. My attorney. You. Me.”
“And Rebecca?”
“She knew I had backups generally. I never told her where.”
Ruiz looked toward the Sloan house.
“Maybe somebody saw you access it.”
“Maybe.”
“Or someone already had access to your other accounts.”
That possibility bothered me.
Ruiz asked me to preserve the alert and not change anything until I had screenshots.
Then she asked, “What’s in those hidden files that someone is this desperate to delete?”
I told her.
Most of it she already knew.
Garbage dumping.
Trespassing.
Camera sabotage.
The mysterious man.
But there was one recording I had not yet shown anyone except my attorney.
The recording from four nights earlier.
I opened the encrypted folder.
Ruiz pulled a chair closer.
At 12:46 a.m., my side-yard camera had captured Rebecca and the unidentified man beside her garage.
The camera microphone was sensitive.
Their voices carried.
Rebecca said, “He still has the videos.”
The man answered, “Then get the phone.”
“I can’t just take it.”
“Break it.”
“What if it uploads?”
“He doesn’t know enough to do that.”
Ruiz glanced at me.
I almost smiled.
The irony was obvious.
On the recording, Rebecca said, “And the inspector?”
“I handled it.”
“How?”
“Same way I handled the HOA complaint.”
The man stepped slightly closer to the light.
For one frame, his face became visible.