A delivery.
Ben taking out the trash.
A maintenance visit Gretchen had already logged.
After a few months, I barely thought about the cameras anymore.
By February, Unit B was ready.
I had started discussing rental timing with Gretchen, but we had not listed it yet.
My mother’s birthday fell on a Tuesday.
I had a site review that morning and a compliance meeting that afternoon. By 4:30, I had been moving for nine hours and still had the drive from Charlotte to Greensboro ahead of me.
Two and a half hours if traffic cooperated.
I filled the gas tank, queued up a podcast, and headed north.
At 4:47, my phone chimed.
Motion detected. Front entrance.
I probably would have ignored it if another alert hadn’t followed almost immediately.
Unit B.
I took the next exit and pulled into a gas station parking lot.
Cars moved around me as I opened the security app.
At first, the image on the screen made no sense.
A man wearing a dark jacket stood in the doorway of Unit B.
Beside him, a woman held a phone at chest level and aimed it toward the kitchen.
I assumed Gretchen had arranged something and forgotten to tell me.
Then a third person stepped into frame.
Dileia.
My sister.
She was holding the door open.
For several seconds, I did absolutely nothing.
I just watched.
The woman walked toward the kitchen window and took a photograph.
The man scanned the living room with the same slow, evaluating look I recognized from property showings.
Dileia gestured toward the hallway.
I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
I didn’t need to.
They were touring my unit.
And Dileia had let them inside.
I replayed the footage once because some part of my brain was still searching for a harmless explanation.
There wasn’t one.
Dileia did not manage the property.
She had never worked with Gretchen.
She had never met Ben or Yolanda.
As far as she knew, I still lived in my one-bedroom apartment and worked too much.
Most importantly, I had never given her a key.
I stared at the tiny image of her hand wrapped around the door handle.
Then I called 911.
The dispatcher asked whether anyone was in immediate danger.
“No.”
“Do you own the property?”
“Yes.”
“Did you authorize the people inside?”
Continue reading on the next page →
