Chapter 1: The Truck Sandra Said Would Be Gone Sandra Moore took six photographs of Robert Ramirez’s food truck before she said a word to him. She stood at the edge of his driveway with her phone held upright, moving two careful steps to the left so the lens could capture the truck’s bright orange…

Chapter 1: The Complaint Arrived Before the Garage Door Closed Karen Wright took the photograph before Robert Hall could lower the garage door another foot. The flash struck the clear plastic sheet covering the far wall and threw a hard white glare across the map beneath it. Robert stopped with one hand on the wall…

Chapter 1: The Morning Patricia Came for the Clock The contractor’s removal tag hung from the brass handle of the clock’s lower door, twisting each time the pendulum passed behind the glass. Daniel Rivera stood on the damp grass with one hand around a mug he had forgotten to drink from. The tag was fluorescent…

Chapter 1: The Violation Notice Beside the Missing Piece Pamela Clark took the photograph just as Matthew Hall folded the clear weather cover against his chest. The plastic crackled between his hands. Behind him, the wooden table filled half the driveway, and the nearly completed puzzle spread across it in thousands of interlocking pieces. A…

Chapter 1: The Whiteboard Nobody Had Approved Patricia Thompson slapped the red-bordered notice against the whiteboard so hard that two markers jumped from their clips and landed in the grass. Joshua Rivera looked down at the yellow and blue cylinders near his shoes, then back at Patricia’s hand. Her palm remained pressed against the paper…

Chapter 1: The Orange Waiting Before Sunrise The black-gloved hand vanished from Joshua Lee’s porch just as he opened the front door. He caught only a retreating shape beyond the railing—a dark sleeve, a slight bend in one shoulder, then nothing but the clipped hedge and the pale strip of sidewalk before sunrise. At his…

Chapter 1: The Note Taped to Catherine’s Mailbox The note was taped crookedly across Catherine Miller’s mailbox door, blocking the brass handle as if whoever had placed it there wanted to make certain she could not collect her mail without touching it. FIND THE HIDDEN BLUE ROCK. WIN A SURPRISE. Beneath the words was a…

Chapter 1: The Chair Appeared at Three Forty-Two The red notice was already taped to Robert Miller’s chair when he carried it out of the garage. It hung from the top slat like a warning flag, its plastic sleeve flashing in the afternoon sun. Robert stopped halfway down the driveway, one hand gripping the worn…

Chapter 1: The Notice Beside the New Cedar Bed Angela Roberts pressed a white envelope against the damp cedar board as if she were pinning evidence to a wall. “Move it today,” she said. James Hall stopped with a shovel in his hand. The new raised bed ran twelve feet along the side yard, square…

Chapter 1: The Morning They Measured the Garden for Removal The measuring tape snapped across Jason Lewis’s tomato bed before he understood why two strangers were standing inside his gate. Its metal edge struck a cedar board, bounced over a branch heavy with green fruit, and stopped against his boot. “Seven feet, four inches,” the…