The clerk's office sent me a stamped copy of the withdrawal. The second mistake arrived on Friday at 1:00 in the afternoon. A Forsyth County code enforcement inspector knocked on my door. Polite, apologetic. He'd received an anonymous complaint that the property at my address was in significant disrepair and constituted a public nuisance under Georgia Title 41.
He walked the perimeter. He looked at the pine straw beds I'd raked the previous Sunday. He looked at the painted garage. He looked at my hostas. He went to his truck.
He came back. He had a no violation observed report in his clipboard. Chief, I'm sorry for the visit. I owed it to the complaint to walk it. Have a good afternoon.
He drove away. The third mistake came on Friday afternoon in the form of a Nextdoor post written by Hadley herself. The post described, without naming me, a resident who had been showing off his vehicles publicly to provoke neighbors and who was openly disregarding HOA leadership requests. The post invited residents to attend a special HOA meeting Saturday at 6:00 in the evening to discuss concerning patterns of community disruption. 47 residents commented.
I screenshotted the post. I sent it to Holt. Holt added it to the manifest. The fourth mistake was the one she did not see coming. That night at 9:15, my son Tate's phone rang.
The caller was Caspian Wells, Tate's friend from Lambert High School. Quiet kid, plays trumpet in marching band. Caspian had been one of Bryson Lockwood's casual friends from the country club pool. Tate took the call in the kitchen. I was at the counter with a cup of decaf.
I could only hear Tate's side of the call. Hey Cass. Uh-huh. Wait, what? Slow down.
Who did? Say that again. Cass, are you serious? No, no, I won't say anything. Cass, you should call my dad.
He looked at me. Dad, Caspian needs to talk to you. Caspian Wells was a 16-year-old boy with a wavering voice and a steady moral compass. He told me, in pieces, that Bryson Lockwood and Hadley had sat him down at the Lockwood kitchen island that afternoon and asked him to sign a witness statement on a typed document that said he had been present when Sterling Halloran sold the Mustang to Bryson Lockwood for $35,000 in cash on August 14th of this year. There had been no such sale.
Bryson had not paid for anything. The signature on the document was a forgery of mine. Caspian recognized it because his father had been a notary in Cumming for 22 years, and Caspian had grown up looking at signatures. Caspian had refused to sign. He'd told Hadley he had to go home for dinner.