Maya sat at her kitchen island, the silence of the house amplifying the humming of her laptop fan. The scrap of red silk and the Ziploc bag of poisoned soil sat on the counter next to her, physical artifacts of a history that refused to stay buried.
She typed Gables Gazette Archive into the search bar.
The newsletter had digitized its back catalog three years ago—a vanity project funded, ironically, by the current HOA board to “celebrate our heritage.” Maya had never looked at it before. She usually threw the physical copy into the recycling bin before she even reached the front door.
Now, it was her only window into the past.
She navigated to the folder labeled 1994.
The files were PDFs, scanned from the original paper copies. The resolution was grainy, the text searchable but riddled with OCR errors. Maya scrolled through the months. January. February. March.
She was looking for faces. She was looking for names. She was looking for the “Blue Suits.”
Arthur Henderson had described them as “The Enforcers.” Rich men. Important men. Men who measured grass with rulers and morals with a ledger.
She clicked on July 1994. One month before the murder.
The front page featured a story about the new irrigation system for the golf course. Page two was a recipe for ambrosia salad. Page three was the “Community Standards” column.
Maya scanned the text.
“The Board reminds residents that visual harmony is the cornerstone of property value. Deviations from the approved aesthetic will be addressed swiftly. We are a family, and families follow rules.”
The tone was paternalistic, bordering on menacing. It sounded like Elias, but with sharper teeth.
She turned to page four. And there it was.
A half-page photograph. The caption read: The 1994 Board of Directors: Guardians of the Gables.
Maya zoomed in. The pixels blurred, then sharpened as the software rendered the image.
Five men stood in the center of the community gazebo—the same gazebo where the red dress had hung yesterday. They stood with their hands clasped behind their backs, legs spread in a power stance. They weren’t smiling. They looked like generals surveying a battlefield they had already conquered.
And they were all wearing the same thing.
Dark blazers. Crisp white shirts. Striped ties.
Even in black and white, the uniformity was striking. It wasn’t just a style; it was a livery. A uniform.
Maya leaned closer to the screen, dissecting the faces.
The man in the center was tall, skeletal, with wire-rimmed glasses that glinted in the flashbulb. He looked like a raptor. The caption identified him as President Marcus Thorne.
Elias’s father.
Maya could see the resemblance. Elias had inherited the glasses and the narrow jaw, but Marcus had a hardness that Elias lacked. Elias was a bureaucrat; Marcus looked like an executioner.
To his right stood a broad, heavyset man with a thick neck and a jaw like a bulldozer. Vice President Richard Vance Sr.
Rick’s father. The man who had owned Chloe’s house. The man Arthur described as “loud.”
To the left was a man with a perfect, polished smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Secretary Dr. Anthony Russo.
Elena’s father-in-law. The dentist. The man Arthur claimed had taken the rat poison.
Maya’s breath hitched. She looked at the other two men. One was identified as Treasurer William Gable—the father of the current resident at Number 6, whose dog had just eaten the poison. The last man was Director of Security Robert Lin.
Maya froze. Lin?
She stared at the name. No relation. Lin was a common name. But the coincidence made her skin crawl. It felt like the neighborhood was mocking her.
She focused back on the blazers. On the breast pocket of each jacket, there was a patch. A crest. It was the Gables logo—the intertwined “G” and oak tree—embroidered in light thread against the dark wool.
“The Blue Suits,” Maya whispered.
Sarah hadn’t seen a specific man in a blue suit that night. She had seen the Blue Suit. She had seen the uniform of the HOA Board.
In the rain, in the dark, with the adrenaline of her affair clouding her vision, Sarah had seen a silhouette wearing the symbol of authority. It could have been any of them.
Or it could have been all of them.
Maya scanned the background of the photo. Standing just outside the gazebo, slightly out of focus, was a younger man in a police uniform. He was leaning against a patrol car, watching the Board with an expression of hungry reverence. He wasn’t wearing a blazer, but his posture mirrored theirs.
The caption didn’t name him, but Maya knew that jawline. She knew those eyes.
Officer Thomas Garrett.
“He wanted to be a Blue Suit so bad he would have polished their shoes with his tongue,” Arthur had said.
Maya sat back, the leather of the barstool creaking. The narrative was shifting.
The podcast wanted them to believe it was a crime of passion. A lover scorned. A secret pregnancy.
But this photo suggested something colder. Something systemic.
If Juniper Black was pregnant, and if the father was one of these men—or one of their sons—she wasn’t just a social liability. She was a threat to the dynasty.
“They decided she had to go,” Arthur had told her. “Mr. Thorne said, ‘We handle it in-house.’”
In-house.
The murder wasn’t an anomaly. It was an HOA enforcement action. They didn’t hire a hitman. They didn’t need to. They were the Enforcers.
Maya looked at the date of the newsletter again. July 1994.
Juniper died in August.
This photo was taken at the height of their power, weeks before they decided to liquidate the problem at Number 4.
Maya grabbed her phone. She took a picture of the screen, capturing the grim faces of the fathers. She opened the group chat.
Maya: [Image Sent]
Maya: The Blue Suit wasn’t a person. It was a uniform. The 1994 Board members all wore them.
Chloe: Is that… is that Rick’s dad? The big one?
Maya: Yes. And Elias’s dad. And Elena’s father-in-law.
Elena: My father-in-law? Anthony? He died ten years ago. He was a dentist.
Maya: He was the Secretary of the Board. And according to the Gardener, he was the one who bought the Blue Death poison.
Sarah: Oh my god. Tom… Tom told me he was wearing a blue suit that night. He wasn’t on duty. He was wearing the blazer.
Maya: Why would he wear the blazer if he wasn’t on the Board?
Sarah: Because they let him in. That night. He told me he finally ‘got the nod.’ I thought he meant a promotion.
Maya stared at the text. Got the nod.
Garrett earned his blazer that night. By doing what? By cleaning up the mess? Or by making it?
The vibration of the phone in her hand felt like a warning.
Maya: We need to talk to the sons. We need to know what they remember about their fathers that summer.
Chloe: Rick doesn’t talk about his dad. He hated him. Said he was a tyrant.
Maya: Tyrants keep records. Elias was checking the files. The Gardener kept a shrine. Someone else has proof.
She looked at the face of Marcus Thorne again. The eyes were cold, intelligent, and utterly devoid of mercy. He looked like a man who believed that rules were more important than people.
Elias was a pale imitation of this man. Elias gambled online and fussed over trash cans. Marcus Thorne looked like he would bury a body under the gazebo and sleep soundly that night.
Maya closed the laptop. The image of the five men vanished, replaced by her own reflection in the black screen.
She wasn’t just fighting a killer. She was fighting a legacy. The cul-de-sac wasn’t built on a swamp; it was built on a pact. And the sons had inherited the debt.
She walked to the sliding glass door and looked out at the empty house next door—Number 5. The Thorne house.
If Marcus Thorne was the ringleader, the secrets weren’t in the HOA shed. They were in that house.
“We’re going in,” Maya whispered to the glass. “Tonight.”