I couldn't stop myself. "There are no bears on this side of the ridge."
"Shut up," she screamed at me, which only made her look worse.
The tall officer radioed something in, then motioned for her to stand aside while he photographed everything. Karen kept pacing, ranting about injustice and corrupt utility companies and how neighbors are supposed to help each other while simultaneously telling them she never met me before today. The contradiction didn't help her.
After the officers finished documenting the scene, they led her back up the hill. She kept insisting she'd done nothing wrong. Then the officers turned to me.
"Sir," the tall one said, "we're going to recommend charges for trespassing, utility theft, and filing a false report. We'll need a formal statement later."
Karen let out the kind of shriek usually reserved for horror movies. "You can't do this to me! I'm the victim! This is my mountain community!"
"No, ma'am," the officer replied. "This is his property, and you've got a lot to answer for."
As she protested, struggling, sputtering, the younger officer gently cuffed her hands behind her back. The sight of that orange cord lying limp on my porch behind her felt like poetic justice: a bright, tangled symbol of how entitlement always, always knots itself up in the end.
They guided her toward the cruiser. She screamed the whole way—something about lawyers, something about calling the mayor, something about suing me for emotional distress. But the moment the cruiser door closed and the locks clicked, the mountain went quiet again. Peaceful, just the way I intended when I bought the place.
They drove her off the mountain, her shrieks fading into the distance like some kind of unhinged wildlife call echoing through the trees.
You'd think the story would end there with Karen in the back of a cruiser, justice served, peace restored. But life in the mountains has a funny way of stretching things out. Nothing is ever that simple.
The officer stayed behind for a few minutes, taking additional photos and asking follow-up questions. The tall one, Officer Daniels, pulled out a small notebook and flipped to a fresh page.
"Sir, before we clear out, walk me through your timeline one more time," he said.
So I did: from the strange electric bills to the spinning meter, from killing the breakers to planning the stakeout, all the way up to catching Karen with the orange extension cord in hand. Daniels wrote everything down carefully, nodding occasionally, his expression shifting from neutral professionalism to something a little more annoyed—not at me, at her, at the nonsense they'd been dragged into.
"Just so we're clear," he said after I finished, "you never gave her permission to be on your property or to use your utilities."
"I wouldn't let a cousin borrow electricity," I said. "Let alone a stranger with a cord longer than most driveways."
The younger officer, Cole, I think his name was, snorted a laugh, but quickly pretended he hadn't.
Daniels closed his notebook. "All right, we'll file the initial report. The detective unit will follow up for formal statements. From what we saw, this is a pretty cut-and-dry case." He hesitated. "She may try to spin more stories. People like her tend to double down before they give in."
"Trust me," I said. "I already figured that out."
They got into their cruiser and began reversing down the driveway. I watched the taillights fade through the trees until the mountain swallowed the sound completely. Then, for the first time that day, I exhaled.
Silence. A real one. Not the Karen-enhanced, police-flavored chaos that had been dominating my morning.
But that silence also made something else ring loud inside me: this wasn't over. Not yet.
I walked back toward the cabin, stepping over the imprint of Karen's boots in the dirt. That damn orange cord still lay across the porch like the shed skin of some dead electric snake. I followed it back to the outlet and crouched beside it. There were scratches all around the plastic plate, tiny marks from repeated plugging and unplugging. She hadn't used it once or twice. She'd used it often.
I rubbed a thumb across the surface, trying to guess just how many weeks she'd been leeching off me. My bill history told one story, but my gut told me something bigger was happening here—something she wasn't clever enough to pull off alone.
What if she wasn't stealing just from me? What if she'd been stealing from other cabins, too?
The idea settled into me like a splinter, small but impossible to ignore. I stood and scanned the treeline. From this angle, you could see the slope leading down toward the other properties. There were old paths, game trails, and narrow walkable cuts between trees that locals used to move between homes when they didn't feel like taking the long route around the road. If she dragged that cord down one of those paths, maybe she dragged others from different homes. Maybe this wasn't her first rodeo.
I wanted answers, and I wanted them soon. But before I went hunting for more proof, I needed to secure my own place.
So I went inside, grabbed a pair of wire cutters, and headed back outside. The satisfying snip of the cord, cleanly separating, echoed across the porch. I tossed Karen's end into the woods—let her dig for it if she wanted. Then I unscrewed the exterior outlet cover and replaced it with a locking outdoor box, the kind that requires a key to open.
Was it overkill? Probably. But then again, I'd never had to protect my home from a full-grown woman acting like electricity belonged to the public domain.
After I finished, I went back inside and double-checked every breaker, appliance, and plug. Everything was off except the fridge and emergency lights. The meter outside slowed to a gentle crawl, finally reflecting the use of a normal, sane human being. For the first time since arriving, I felt my shoulders loosen.
I made myself a cup of coffee, sat on the porch, and tried to relax. But my brain wouldn't let go of the lingering question: Was Karen acting alone, or was I just the first one smart enough to catch her?
I didn't have to wait long to find out.
An hour later, I heard soft steps coming from the dirt road. I turned and saw an older man, maybe in his 70s, walking with the help of a wooden cane. He had the look of someone who'd lived in the mountains long enough to become part of them: suntan skin, weatherbeaten jacket, gray beard trimmed short.
"Morning," he said with a polite nod.
"Morning," I replied.
He paused at the edge of the porch. "Saw the police going through earlier. Everything all right up here?"
I chuckled bitterly. "Depends what you call all right."
He tapped his cane lightly on the ground. "Heard rumors Karen was up to something. She's been poking her nose around a lot of cabins lately."