Chapter 1: Caught With the Camera in Her Hands
The camera mount snapped with a sharp click.
Karen froze.
For one second, the heavyset woman stood on the wooden porch with the detached black security camera pressed against her chest, as though she could somehow hide what she had just done.
Then the front door flew open.
Mark Reynolds stepped outside.
He was sixty-two, lean and gray-haired, still wearing the navy T-shirt and work boots he had put on that morning. His eyes went immediately to the empty bracket above his front door, then to the camera in Karen’s hands.
His jaw tightened.
“Hey! Put my camera down—now!”
Karen’s eyebrows shot upward.
Instead of looking embarrassed, she lifted her chin.
“It was watching my house! I’m taking it!”
Mark stared at her.
His security camera had been mounted above his front door for nearly three years. It covered his porch, driveway, and the short stretch of sidewalk in front of his property. It did not point directly into Karen’s house.
And Karen knew that.
She had complained about it before.
But complaining was one thing.
Climbing onto a neighbor’s porch and ripping the camera from the wall was something else.
Mark stepped toward her.
“Give it to me.”
Karen backed away.
Her oversized beige cardigan swung around her broad frame as she tightened her grip. Her black handbag bounced against her left hip. The gold hoop earrings hanging from her ears trembled with every movement.
“Let go!” she snapped. “You’re not getting this back!”
Mark reached for the camera.
Karen yanked it violently against her chest.
For a moment, they struggled over the device.
Then Karen pulled harder.
Mark’s fingers slipped.
“You’re stealing it!” he shouted.
That was when Karen stopped arguing.
She turned and ran.
Her white sneakers struck the porch steps. Her handbag bounced wildly as she hurried down the walkway, clutching the camera with both hands.
“Hey! Come back!”
Mark followed.
Karen glanced over her shoulder.
Then she noticed something.
A tiny light on the camera was blinking.
A faint electronic beep sounded.
Karen slowed.
Her expression changed.
The anger disappeared.
For the first time, she looked frightened.
Across the yard, Mark’s phone buzzed in his hand.
He looked down.
The security application had opened automatically.
The live feed was still running.
And there, on his screen, was Karen.
Not only was she holding his camera.
The camera was still transmitting everything it could see.
Mark looked from the phone to Karen.
Karen looked at the blinking device.
Neither moved.
Then Mark noticed something else on the screen.
A few seconds earlier, before the camera had been ripped from the wall, it had recorded Karen standing directly beneath it.
And she had not been alone.
The footage had captured what she had been doing before she ever touched the camera.
