Chapter 1 - THE HOUSE HER FATHER LEFT HER
Emily Carter never called 214 Willow Crest Drive a prize.
It was too small for the newer houses on the block, too old for the neighborhood Margaret Wilson wanted to pretend she ruled, and too full of memories to ever feel light.
But it had been her father’s house.
After he died, Emily moved back in with one suitcase, a laptop, a mountain of grief, and Buddy—a small golden puppy her father had picked out six months before the chemo got bad.
“Get a dog,” he had told her from his hospital bed. “That way somebody in this house will still make you laugh after I’m gone.”
Buddy had done exactly that.
He was friendly, clumsy, and so attached to Emily that he followed her from room to room like a furry shadow. He had one bad habit: whenever Margaret Wilson strutted past the fence in her beige cardigan and giant sunglasses, Buddy would growl.
Emily considered that one of his better instincts.
Margaret lived next door in a spotless cream-colored colonial with a circular driveway, manicured hedges, and an expression that always said she smelled something offensive. She hated noise. She hated leaves blowing across the sidewalk. She hated delivery trucks idling too long. And most of all, she hated Buddy.
“That mutt scratches at the fence,” she snapped one morning as Emily clipped Buddy’s leash on before a walk.
“He’s a puppy,” Emily replied.
“He’s badly trained.”
“He barks when you bang your cane on the fence.”
Margaret smiled thinly. “Then perhaps he should learn better manners.”
Emily had wanted to snap back harder, but she was tired. She worked remote customer accounts from home, paid the mortgage her father had nearly finished, and spent every spare hour trying to keep the place together.
Margaret, however, always seemed fresh, pressed, and eager for war.
That afternoon, Emily found a folded paper tucked under her front doormat.
A typed complaint.
DOG OFF LEASH NEAR PROPERTY LINE.
EXCESSIVE NOISE.
VISUAL NUISANCE.
No signature, but she didn’t need one.
Buddy nosed at the paper, then pawed at Emily’s shin until she laughed despite herself.
“You,” she said, rubbing his ears, “are apparently a public menace.”
He wagged so hard he toppled sideways.
That night, as the streetlights clicked on outside, Emily took Buddy into the garage to wipe mud from his paws. While she worked, a notification popped up on her phone from the security camera above the garage door.
Motion detected: side gate.
Emily frowned and opened the clip.
In the grainy dusk footage, Margaret stood by the edge of Emily’s property, looking through the fence slats toward the backyard.
And in her hand, she was holding something small.
Something that looked a lot like Buddy’s red chew toy.
Emily’s pulse ticked upward.
Why did Margaret have Buddy’s toy?
Before she could replay the video, another notification buzzed in.
Motion detected: front sidewalk.
May you like
When Emily looked up, Buddy was no longer beside her.
And the side gate was swinging open.
