Just wanted to make sure you received your welcome packet with all our community guidelines.”

“I had received it, all forty seven pages of it.

I noticed your moving truck blocked the Henderson’s driveway for about twenty minutes yesterday,” she continued.

That smile, never wavering.

“Just a friendly reminder that we have very strict parking regulations.

I’d hate for you to receive a citation on your first week.

A citation for a moving truck that was temporarily parked while unloading my entire life.

I’ll keep that in mind,” I’d said, keeping my tone neutral.

Years in my profession had taught me to read people, and I was reading Karen loud and clear. control freak, power- hungry, the type who needed to establish dominance immediately.

What I didn’t mention to her, what I didn’t mention to anyone was my actual job.

I’d learned early in my career that telling people what I did for a living changed how they acted around me.

I wanted to be just another neighbor, not someone people felt they had to perform for, so I kept it vague.

Public service, I’d say if anyone asked, county work.

Technically, true.

That decision would turn out to be both my biggest mistake and my greatest advantage.

Karen’s son, Brandon, I met about a week later.

He was seventeen, drove a BMW.

His parents had gifted him for getting a C+ average and had apparently been raised to believe that rules were suggestions for other people.

I first encountered him when his music was rattling my windows at two in the morning on a Tuesday.

I’d gone over knocked politely and asked if he could turn it down.

Brandon had looked me up and down like I was something he’d scraped off his shoe.

Dude, it’s not even that late, he’d said, not moving to lower the volume.

Besides, my mom’s the HOA president.

We can do whatever we want.

That phrase, we can do whatever we want.

I’d hear it a lot over the next few months.

The thing about the Mitchell family was that they’d weaponized the HOA into their personal enforcement agency.

Karen had been president for three years, and in that time, she’d stacked the board with people who either owed her favors or were too intimidated to challenge her.

Every meeting was a performance where Karen decided who was in compliance and who wasn’t based entirely on whether she liked you.