I had been waiting for the day she finally crossed the line that paper couldn't fix. I just hadn't expected her to cross it with an excavator.
I should have known the orange notice on the tree wasn't the first time she'd nailed something to something that wasn't hers.
I drove straight from the access road to the Cedar Ridge clubhouse. I didn't speed. I didn't call anyone. I sat in my truck in the parking lot with the dashcam still rolling, watching the front door of a building that, four hours earlier, I'd been protecting without anyone in it knowing.
The clubhouse was locked. I waited.
I uploaded the morning's dashcam footage to a cloud drive while I waited: two copies, one to my own account and one to my daughter's, because I'd watched enough depositions in my career to know what happens to evidence that only lives in one place.
Karen pulled up around 2:15: Tom Briggs in the passenger seat, Diane Park, the treasurer, in the back. Karen got out laughing at something Tom had said. She still had the clipboard.
She saw me and didn't break stride. "You shouldn't be here," she said. "This is private property."
"It's the clubhouse," I said. "It's open to members."
"You're not a member."
"That's what I keep telling you."
She wanted to enjoy that one. She didn't.
She walked past me, unlocked the front door, and held it open for Tom and Diane, but not for me. Then she pulled a manila envelope out of her tote bag and held it out at arm's length, the way you hand a stranger a receipt.
"This is for you," she said. "Saves us a stamp."
I took it. Inside was an invoice: Cedar Ridge HOA, structural removal cost recovery, $48,000, stacked on top of the original $11,400. Total balance: $59,400, payable within 30 days. Failure to remit would result in the filing of a lien against Parcel 7A and the initiation of forced sale proceedings.
I looked at her. She was watching my face the way a cat watches a bird it has already decided is too slow.
"Karen," I said, "can you point me to the section of the HOA covenants that gives this board jurisdiction over parcels outside the recorded plat?"
I asked it flat, no emphasis. The dashcam was clipped to my shirt pocket now. She didn't notice or she didn't care.