I said I had discussed almost everything there.
She looked down at the complaint again.
Then she asked me to write a list of every confidential conversation I remembered having in that room since the inspection.
The list filled two pages.
Chapter 5: The First Witness
Aaron Bell knocked on my door at seven the following evening.
He had lived across the street for eleven years, but we had never spoken longer than a few minutes.
He worked nights at a distribution warehouse and usually kept his curtains closed during the day.
Now he stood on my porch with his hands buried in the pockets of a faded Ohio State sweatshirt.
He asked whether I had a minute.
I invited him inside, but he stayed near the doorway.
He said he had seen Patricia bring a young man into my house during the inspection.
I told him I remembered that much.
Aaron swallowed and said the man had returned two days later.
I felt the room grow suddenly cold.
Aaron explained that he had been home recovering from a back injury.
He had watched a gray service van stop near my driveway at about ten in the morning.
The young man from the inspection got out and walked toward my side gate.
Patricia met him beside the fence.
Aaron assumed they were checking the utility meters.
He had not thought about it again until he heard about the lawsuit.
I asked whether he had seen the man enter my house.
Aaron shook his head.
Then he said his doorbell camera might have captured the van.
We crossed the street together.
His wife, Jenna, sat at the kitchen table sorting receipts from a grocery bag.
She looked up when we entered and asked whether this was about Patricia.
Aaron said it was.
Jenna pressed her lips together and opened a laptop.
She explained that she had been saving clips for months because someone had repeatedly moved their trash cans into the street.
She searched the date of the inspection and then the following Monday.
At ten fourteen on Monday morning, a gray van appeared at the edge of the frame.
The young man stepped out carrying a narrow black case.
Patricia met him near my driveway.
She handed him something small and metallic.
Jenna paused the recording.
The object was difficult to see, but its shape looked exactly like a house key.
I had never given Patricia a key.
Chapter 6: The Locksmith
Simone reviewed Aaron’s video the next morning.
She asked him to preserve the original recording and document when it had been saved.
