She was right.
Still, I added the notation to our growing timeline.
Chapter 14: The Man in the Windbreaker
The man who had posed as an insurance adjuster returned on Wednesday.
This time he approached me in the grocery-store parking lot.
He wore the same windbreaker and carried no clipboard.
I had just loaded two bags into my trunk when he stopped beside the next car.
“Mr. Bell, I owe you an explanation.”
I kept my distance.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Owen Marsh.”
“Why did you come to my house?”
“I work for a private investigative contractor.”
He claimed his employer had asked him to verify the condition of a mailbox post.
The job order listed a real estate dispute rather than an insurance claim.
He had introduced himself incorrectly because he believed the homeowner would refuse the inspection.
“You were right about that,” I said.
He nodded.
“I shouldn’t have lied.”
I asked who hired him.
“The contract came through Pike Heritage.”
I took out my phone and asked whether he would repeat his explanation on a recording.
He declined.
I told him I would document the encounter myself.
He gave me a business card and asked me not to contact him outside office hours.
“Did you put anything in my mailbox?”
“No.”
“Did somebody else?”
“I can’t tell you what another subcontractor did.”
He then made an admission that was almost embarrassing in its smallness.
He said Pike Heritage had wanted photographs showing the mailbox post before and after a scheduled installation.
Owen believed the post would carry a temporary survey marker.
He had not been told who owned the property or whether anyone had approved the work.
He ended the conversation when a grocery cart rolled between us.
I watched him drive away in an ordinary sedan.
That evening Naomi contacted his company and requested preservation of the assignment records.
I expected the request to vanish into a corporate inbox.
Instead, the manager replied within an hour and confirmed a preservation hold.
It was the first sign that the people around Adrian might not all be willing to protect him.
Chapter 15: The Photograph on the Refrigerator
Hazel taped a photograph of the old pink mailbox to the refrigerator.
She had taken the image on the day we installed it.
In the picture, the mailbox stood straight, the paint was fresh, and my hands were stained pink from helping her finish.
“I want you to remember it wasn’t always broken,” she said.
