The camera was mounted high on Mrs.

Higgins’s roofline, aimed straight across the narrow lawn at the big bay window of my parents’ dining room.

“The camera is thirty feet from their window,” Mrs.

Higgins said.

I leaned closer to the monitor as the video played.

The bright late-afternoon sun bounced straight off the heavy glass, creating a sharp, brilliant white glare across the middle of the frame.

Faint figures moved behind the glass, but their faces and movements were completely washed out by the reflection.