Chapter 6
Three days passed in absolute silence between the two properties. The gray skies had given way to brilliant, unrelenting sunshine, but the warmth did not penetrate the gloom inside Eleanor’s house. She had not stepped outside once, subsisting on canned soup and crackers while she obsessively reviewed every real estate transaction recorded in the county database over the past thirty years, searching for a loophole, a clerical error, a forgotten covenant that could overturn Arthur’s verdict. By Monday afternoon, the strain of total isolation began to fray her nerves. Her head throbbed with a persistent tension migraine, and the white button-down shirt she had worn for two days felt stiff and confining. She walked into the kitchen to pour a glass of water, and through the side window, she saw something that made her hand freeze on the faucet handle. The small black gate connecting the two yards—a gate Eleanor had kept locked with a heavy brass padlock for five years—was swinging wide open. Through the gap, she saw a basket of fresh lemons sitting on her back patio stone, right next to a handwritten note folded neatly beneath a smooth river stone. Eleanor’s pulse spiked. How had someone opened her lock? She owned the only key. She marched over to the backdoor, unlocked it with a sharp twist of her wrist, and stepped out onto the sunlit patio. The heat hit her like a physical wave, but she ignored it, her eyes fixed on the basket of lemons. She walked over, ignoring the note for a moment, and inspected the padlock still hanging from the latch. The lock wasn’t broken; it was unlocked, the shackle resting loosely in the housing. Next to it lay the note. With trembling fingers, Eleanor picked up the folded piece of thick cream paper and unfolded it. Sarah’s neat, sloping handwriting filled the page. “Eleanor, the spare key was left in the breaker box by the previous owners. I didn’t use it maliciously, but the maintenance man needed access to shut off the main water valve during the street repairs this morning. I thought you might want some lemons from the tree in the back. They’re extra sweet this year.” Eleanor crushed the paper in her fist, her breath catching in her throat. A maintenance man? Street repairs? She hadn’t heard any street repairs because her windows had been sealed shut against the world. She looked up toward Sarah’s house, half expecting to see her neighbor standing on the patio, gloating. But the yard was completely empty. Only the sparkling water of the pool rippled gently in the breeze, reflecting the bright afternoon sky.
