My whole aim was to be boring, lawful, and thoroughly recorded.

It is not a dramatic aim.

It is simply the one that works.

Chapter 17 — The SUV at the Gate

Late in the afternoon, a motion alert pinged on the monitor, and I looked up and saw, on the camera covering the driveway, a large black SUV rolling to a stop in front of my gate.

I did not need the license plate to know whose it was.

My mother was standing just behind my chair, and I felt rather than saw the change in her, the way her whole body went rigid.