Nobody questioned her. Nobody asked him whether he wanted a witness. Instead, the man beside the SUV looked away when David caught his eye, and the woman with the coffee mug lowered her head as if examining the pavement. The silence was familiar in a way David had hoped never to experience again.
Clare ended the call and pocketed the phone. "The police are coming."
"Good," David said.
She frowned. "Good?"
"They can verify the registration and property records. I would like to get back to my move."
He pressed the key and opened the passenger door. A soft electronic chirp sounded, and the glove compartment was only a step away. Clare immediately raised her voice. "Don't touch anything!"
David stopped. "My registration is inside."
"You could be reaching for something else."
He straightened, slowly closed the car door, and held both hands where she could see them. He was suddenly aware of the attention focused on every movement he made, as though even his obedience might be judged suspicious if he performed it incorrectly. Across the street, Helen Carter, the sixty-seven-year-old woman holding the coffee mug, watched his hands and then looked quickly away.
"I've lived in places like this my entire life," Clare said. "People work hard to keep them safe. We don't need strangers wandering around acting as if they belong."
David looked at the boxes entering his home. One contained his mother's cast-iron skillet, another held a collection of worn engineering textbooks, and a third carried framed photographs rescued from apartments and offices he no longer occupied. "I worked my whole life, too," he said.
The woman seemed briefly disarmed, then recovered. "That doesn't answer my question."
"It wasn't a question."
A sprinkler began clicking behind the hedge, releasing an even arc of water over Clare's lawn. The sound gave David something ordinary to focus on while he waited. He let the compass rest against his palm and ran his thumb over its scratched lid, feeling the shallow dent near the hinge. The object had survived years when he could barely afford gasoline, and its presence steadied him more than the expensive car beside him.
"What is that thing, anyway?" Clare demanded.
"A reminder."
"Of what?"
David looked at her, his expression more tired than angry. "That people aren't always what strangers decide they are."
The distant rumble of an approaching engine interrupted her response. A black-and-white patrol cruiser turned into Hawthorne Ridge, its blue emergency lights flashing against stone mailboxes and polished windows. Several neighbors moved closer to the road for a better view, and Clare's shoulders relaxed as if reinforcements had arrived for a battle she had invented.
"Now they'll find out who you really are," she said.
David hoped they would simply verify the facts. He watched the cruiser stop behind the moving truck, noticed the driver's measured glance toward the Ferrari, and felt his stomach tighten when the older officer emerged already looking at David rather than the woman who had placed the call. A small body camera sat at the center of the officer's uniform, and a red indicator flickered on as he approached.
"Sir, take your hand out of your pocket," the officer said.
David obeyed immediately. "Of course, Officer."