Others showed my backyard from different angles.
Then they found something worse.
A notebook.
Inside were dates.
Times.
Notes about when I left the house.
When my wife went shopping.
When my daughter visited.
And beside several dates was the same sentence:
Daniel sits outside at 4:30.
My wife broke down when she saw it.
I didn't.
I was too angry.
But the investigation soon revealed that Marlene wasn't acting alone.
Her brother owned a construction company.
And that company had recently approached several homeowners in our neighborhood.
They wanted to buy properties cheaply.
The plan was to combine the lots and build a private development.
Our property was the final piece they needed.
If we refused to sell, the entire project would lose access to the road behind our house.
Marlene's brother had already received millions in financing.
The project was scheduled to begin within months.
They needed our property.
And they were willing to make us leave.
But there was another problem.
My wife discovered something hidden inside an old cabinet.
It was a letter from our previous neighbor.
He had sold his house to Marlene's brother two years earlier.
The letter contained a warning.
He claimed he had been pressured to sell after a series of strange incidents.
Broken windows.
Cut power lines.
Damage to his car.
And finally, a gas leak.
He had reported everything.
Nobody investigated.
Then he disappeared from the neighborhood.
That was when I understood.
We weren't the first.
We were simply the last obstacle.
The police arrested Marlene.
But her brother disappeared.
For three days, investigators searched for him.
Then he called me.
Not the police.
Me.
“You should have sold,” he said.
I recorded the conversation.
“Why?”
“Because now everyone loses.”
“You tried to kill me.”
There was silence.
Then he laughed.
“No. I tried to make you understand.”
“You weakened a five-hundred-kilogram tank above the place where I sit every day.”
“I knew you would move.”