The delusion radiated off her like heat.
"Karen," I said calmly. "You cannot create fake councils to collect fees. You cannot demand keys to people's vehicles. You cannot fine shadows."
She smiled, a tight and brittle thing. "We'll see what the legal advisory panel thinks."
"Who's on the panel?" I asked.
She hesitated. "Me."
I almost choked. "So you created a council, appointed yourself coordinator, and then created a legal panel which is also you?"
She crossed her arms. "Someone has to take responsibility."
"And that someone is always you?"
"Exactly."
I rubbed my forehead. "Karen, do you hear how strange that sounds?"
"I hear how necessary it sounds."
This woman needed not an HOA, but a hobby.
Before I could respond, she thrust a clipboard toward me. "Sign the compliance acknowledgement."
I didn't touch it. "No."
"Very well." She scribbled something onto her pad. "Refusal to acknowledge notice. Additional fee: $13."
Not ten, not fifteen: thirteen dollars. Why thirteen? Because Karen operated on chaos math.
She walked off, smug as a cat who thought she'd caught a mouse. Except I wasn't the mouse; I was the sheriff. And she was stapling nonsense to her own downfall.
Inside my house, I spread everything out on the table: the packet, the fines, the barricade photos, the wheel clamp, screenshots from neighbors who texted me their own violations. There was enough evidence to wallpaper a courtroom.
I called the sheriff's office—not as the sheriff, but as a citizen filing a complaint, since I was directly involved. Protocol required that another deputy handle the case. Hernandez, reliable as ever, took the report.