Let me back up a bit. My name is Elias Thorne. Six months before the incident, I was sitting in a corner office overlooking the Chicago skyline, feeling like my heart was going to explode. The doctors called it extreme burnout. I called it a wake-up call. I sold the condo, cashed out the partnership equity, and went looking for the quietest place on Earth.
I found it in Blackwood Shores, or so I thought. It was a dusty, forgotten estate sale, a cabin that had been in the same family since the 1800s, sold as is with everything inside. That Tuesday morning was supposed to be the start of my new life. Just me, the water, and silence.
When the police cruiser finally crunched down my gravel driveway, kicking up dust, I almost felt sorry for the deputy. He looked young, maybe twenty-five, and he had that exhausted look of a man who deals with petty neighborhood squabbles way too often. Cynthia practically threw herself at the patrol car before he could even put it in park. “Officer, thank God. Arrest him. He’s trespassing. He’s destroying the ecosystem.”
The deputy, Officer Miller, I caught his name tag, stepped out, adjusted his belt, and looked past her to where I was leaning against the railing of my deck. “Ma’am,” he said, “is that the gentleman?” “Yes. Look at him. He refuses to leave.” Miller walked over to me, ignoring Cynthia’s frantic hand gestures. “Morning, sir. You live here?”
“Morning, officer,” I said, setting my coffee down. “I do. Bought the place in February. Here’s the deed. Fishing license is in my back pocket.” I handed him the paperwork I’d preemptively grabbed from the kitchen counter because, again, former lawyer, I document everything. Miller looked at the deed. He looked at my license. He looked at the cabin behind me, full of my furniture. Then he turned to Cynthia.
“Ma’am, this is his house. He’s fishing on his property. This is a civil matter at best, but honestly, it’s not even that. It’s just a man fishing.” Cynthia’s face went a color I’ve only seen on boiled lobsters. “You don’t understand. The HOA voted. We have exclusive rights to the water column. I have the paperwork.” She shoved a binder at him.
Miller didn’t even open it. “Ma’am, unless you have a court order signed by a judge telling me to remove a homeowner from his own deck, I suggest you step off his property before he decides to press charges for trespassing against you.” That silenced her for about three seconds. She glared at me, her eyes narrowing into slits. “You think you’ve won,” she hissed, low enough so the deputy couldn’t hear. “But you have no idea who you’re dealing with. I built this community. I own this lake. You’ll be gone in a month.”
She spun on her heel, marched back to her white G-Wagon, and peeled out, spraying gravel all over my freshly painted fence. Officer Miller sighed, tipping his hat. “Sorry about that, Mr. Thorne. She calls us about twice a week. Usually it’s about someone’s grass being half an inch too high. Just ignore her.” “I plan to,” I lied, because I knew women like Cynthia. They don’t stop. They escalate.