I asked if she could identify Ruth in a photograph.
She said she had one of them together beside a kitchen window.
With her permission, I gave her the contact information for Simone’s agency and encouraged her to communicate directly.
June said she would ask Leonard to sit with her while she called.
Before hanging up, she told me one more thing.
“Vivian made us keep the curtains closed when visitors came.”
I turned toward the upstairs windows next door.
“Why?”
“She said the residents became agitated when they saw people outside enjoying themselves.”
I thought of Lucy swimming in the sun while someone watched from behind glass.
“That is what she told me,” June said.
“I no longer believe it.”
I spent the rest of Wednesday trying to work.
Every interview I edited sounded like it contained a hidden warning I was supposed to catch.
A recording of an older woman discussing a factory closure made me stop twice because her voice resembled June’s.
My coworker Sam called and offered to take the episode off my desk.
I admitted I was falling behind.
He suggested I spend a day away from the house with Lucy.
I said I would try.
At four, a delivery van arrived carrying a package I had not ordered.
The driver handed me a narrow cardboard box labeled as a security accessory.
Inside was a roll of privacy film for windows and a handwritten note.
The note said that my problems would end if I stopped watching Vivian’s family.
There was no return address beyond the distributor’s printed shipping label.
I photographed the contents, preserved the packing slip, and called the distributor to ask how I could obtain the purchase information through proper channels.
The representative said any records would have to be requested by the appropriate authorities.
I did not argue.
I gave the box to Deputy Brooks with another written statement.
By then she knew my voice well enough to greet me without asking my name.
“Something is being coordinated,” I said.
“Possibly,” she replied.
“We are checking.”
She looked at the privacy film.
“Whatever you do, don’t install this because somebody anonymous told you to.”
I managed to smile.
“That wasn’t on my list.”
At home, I found Tess Romero waiting beside her service truck.
She said the repeated debris had damaged the pump’s impeller and that replacing it would cost more than the earlier cleaning.
