Smoothed it against her knee.
Then peeled something from it.
A sticker.
She pressed the sticker onto the black package.
Walter leaned toward the screen.
“What is that?”
Mills rewound.
Played it again.
Diane’s hand covered most of the sticker.
But for perhaps half a second, the camera caught it.
White rectangle.
Black lettering.
A barcode.
And my name.
MARTIN HALE
My address was beneath it.
I recognized the label immediately.
“That came from my recycling.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What?” Mills asked.
“I got a package two days ago. Cabinet hinges. I threw the shipping box in my recycling bin.”
My recycling containers sat behind the side fence.
Diane had taken the shipping label.
She had saved it.
Then she brought it back.
Officer Mills replayed the moment.
Once.
Twice.
The second time he zoomed.
There was my name.
There was my address.
And there was Diane’s gloved thumb pressing the label onto the package she had carried into my backyard.
That was the detail that destroyed everything.
Because until that moment, Diane still had room to lie.
She could have claimed she found the package near my gate.
She could have claimed she entered because she was concerned.
She could have claimed she picked it up and moved it.
She could have claimed Walter misunderstood what he recorded.
But the shipping label changed the meaning of every movement.
She hadn’t just placed a package.
She had deliberately marked it as mine.
Seconds later in the video, she slid the package beneath the edge of the shed.
Then she pulled out a small cloth.
She wiped the package.
She wiped the shed handle even though she had never opened the shed.
She wiped the gate latch on her way out.
Officer Mills stopped the video.
Silence.
Then he looked across the street.
Diane must have known from his face.
She took one step backward.
“Officer, you need to understand—”
“Ms. Holloway, don’t leave.”
“I wasn’t leaving.”
“Stay where you are.”
“I was trying to help.”
Mills crossed the street.
I could hear Diane’s voice rising.
“This is being completely misinterpreted.”
Walter came out of the garage.
He stood beside me.
Emma had moved closer.
I put my arm around her shoulders.
She whispered, “She put something in our yard?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I couldn’t answer that without saying something I didn’t want my daughter to learn about people yet.
So I said, “Because she made a very bad decision.”
Across the street, Diane kept talking.
“I received an anonymous tip.”
Mills asked, “That told you to enter Mr. Hale’s property?”
“No.”
“To cut his lock?”
“I did not cut—”
“We have video of you entering immediately after the gate was forced.”
“I found it open.”
Walter muttered, “That’s unfortunate.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“My other camera has the bolt cutters.”
Diane heard him.
Her face went completely still.
I would later learn that during her emergency call, Diane told dispatch she had never entered my property.
She said she had seen “unusual activity” through the fence and believed she saw a suspicious package near my shed.
Then she told officers she had noticed it while walking.
That was why she had been so confident.
She believed the package would be found under my shed.