“Emily Turner. How long are you planning to keep this chaos going? Enough is enough.”
The voice on the line was so close, so furious, it felt like it had crawled out of the dark and grabbed me by the collar.
I jolted upright at 2:00 a.m., knocking a sweating glass of iced tea off my nightstand. It hit the floor with a soft crack, the lemon slice skidding under my bed like it was trying to hide. My phone kept buzzing in my hand.
Caller ID: Daniel Brooks. Daniel—my Laguna Beach neighbor with the polite smile, the golden retriever, and the kind of calm that wealthy coastal streets advertise like a luxury amenity. The last time we spoke, he’d pointed to my driveway and said, approvingly, “Nice to see a young owner who values peace.” I remember smiling and glancing at the tiny American flag magnet I’d stuck on the kitchen fridge of my city apartment—something cheesy I bought at closing, because I finally wanted a symbol that said I made it.
Now his voice was a weapon. “Mr. Brooks?” I whispered.
“Don’t do that. Don’t act confused,” he snapped. “There are cars everywhere.
Music is shaking my windows. People are yelling. It’s a circus.
Stop throwing parties at your house every night. Enough is enough.”
For a beat, I honestly thought I was still dreaming. “My house?”
“Yes.
Your house. Lakeshore Drive. The white stone place with the glass terrace.”
A cold thread slid down my spine.
“I’m not in Laguna,” I said. “I’m at my primary place in the city.”
“Then someone is in your place,” he said, voice trembling with rage. “Ten—maybe more—young people.
Sports cars blocking the street like it’s a movie set. If you don’t shut it down in thirty minutes, I’m calling the police.”
The line went dead. And the quiet I’d worked ten years to buy disappeared in the space of one click.
I sat there, barefoot, listening to my heart hammer in my ears. The iced tea pooled on the floor, sticky and cold. Somewhere outside my window, the city kept breathing—distant sirens, a passing car, the hum of life that never sleeps.
Laguna Beach was supposed to be the opposite of this. That’s why I bought it. That was the deal I made with myself.
I grabbed my phone again—hands steady enough to scare me—and opened the home security app. It took a few seconds to load. Those seconds felt like hours.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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