Chapter 3: The Missing Package
Mark did not answer Karen’s question.
He simply locked the camera inside his house.
Then he called the police.
Karen immediately protested.
She claimed it was a neighborhood misunderstanding. She said Mark had exaggerated everything. She said the camera had violated her privacy and that she had only removed it because she was tired of being watched.
But the more she explained, the less convincing it sounded.
An officer eventually arrived and listened to both sides.
Mark showed him the footage.
Karen stood on the porch with her arms crossed, refusing to look at the phone.
The officer watched the recording of her removing the camera.
Then he watched the earlier footage.
His expression changed when he saw the figure near Mark’s garage.
“Have you had anything missing?” he asked.
Mark thought about it.
He had assumed the missing items were his own mistakes.
A package of replacement filters.
A small tool set.
Two prescription refills that had been delivered while he was away for the afternoon.
Nothing valuable enough to report.
But suddenly, those little disappearances no longer seemed random.
Mark checked his delivery history.
Three packages had been marked delivered.
Only two had reached his front door.
He looked at Karen.
She immediately shook her head.
“I didn’t take anything.”
Mark said nothing.
The officer asked whether there were other cameras in the neighborhood.
There were.
A doorbell camera across the street.
A camera at the clubhouse.
One near the community mailbox.
That was when Mark realized the problem was bigger than his porch.
Someone had been moving through the neighborhood without wanting to be seen.
The officer asked Mark to preserve the footage.
Mark agreed.
Karen stood quietly nearby.
For the first time since the confrontation began, she looked less angry than worried.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her face tightened.
She rejected the call.
A few seconds later, the phone rang again.
She rejected it again.
The officer noticed.
“Everything okay?”
Karen shoved the phone into her handbag.
“Yes.”
But Mark saw the name briefly displayed before the screen went dark.
It was Darren.
The same name he remembered seeing on a neighborhood maintenance notice.
Mark had never met Darren.
But he knew Darren worked for a private property-service company that handled repairs in several nearby communities.
The officer left with the footage copied to a secure device.
Karen remained on the porch.
Before leaving, she turned toward Mark.
“You don’t understand what you’re involved in.”
Mark looked at her.
“Then explain it.”
Karen opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Instead, she walked away.
That night, Mark sat alone at his kitchen table and reviewed the footage again.
At 2:13 a.m., he noticed something he had missed earlier.
The person near his garage had not been carrying a package.
They had been carrying a small black device.
A device that looked remarkably similar to the camera Karen had tried to steal.
And in the next frame, the figure turned toward the house.
The face became visible for less than a second.
Mark froze the image.
It was not Karen.
