One morning, Jolene buzzed me from the front office. "José," she said, "we've got a visitor. Says it's urgent."
I sighed. "Another HOA?"
"Not quite. She says her name's Emily Watson. Claims she used to live in Crescent Meadows."
I told her to send the woman in. Emily looked to be in her early thirties, polite but exhausted. She clutched a small notebook in her hands like it was her last line of defense.
"Mr. Flores," she said softly. "I don't mean to intrude, but I used to be Sarah Murphy's secretary for the HOA."
That got my attention. "Oh?"
She nodded quickly. "I'm not here to defend her. Quite the opposite. I quit after the investigation started. But there's something you should know."
She opened her notebook and slid a few papers across my desk: old HOA meeting minutes, signed invoices, and receipts for maintenance work. Every one of them was connected to the illegal water connection Sarah had authorized months before the theft was discovered.
"She tried to pin the whole thing on the contractors," Emily said. "But I found these in the archives. She signed every approval herself. She even wrote a memo saying, 'The water diversion plan will be reimbursed quietly once drought ends.'"
I flipped through the pages. The handwriting matched the letter she'd sent me weeks ago: same neat cursive, same arrogance hidden behind tidy pen strokes. I looked up. "Why bring this to me now?"
Emily hesitated. "Because I heard she's suing the county."
My eyebrows shot up. "You're joking."
"She's claiming her reputation was destroyed unfairly, that the water theft investigation was mishandled. She's blaming you, the county, and even Clearstream."
I sat back in my chair, letting out a long, tired laugh. That woman's got more nerve than a copperhead.
Emily shrugged. "I thought you'd want to know before it hits the news."
And she was right. By the following week, Sarah Murphy was back in the headlines—not as the villain, but as the self-proclaimed victim of corruption and conspiracy. Her new lawyer was some city hotshot named Blake Carson, famous for representing developers in environmental cases. He went on local TV and called me a "vindictive farmer abusing his corporate position."