Victoria shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. That's impossible.”
“It's not.”
“He's a pet.”
Claire spoke quietly.
“He lives with us.”
The agent nodded.
“He does.”
Victoria looked confused.
“Then how is he federal property?”
The agent crouched near Atlas.
“Because sometimes a working dog can be both family and federal personnel.”
Victoria stared.
The agent stood again.
“And because you attempted to take him by force.”
The neighborhood had begun to notice.
A curtain moved across the street.
A garage door stopped halfway open.
A man walking a small terrier froze at the sidewalk.
A teenage boy came out of the neighboring house holding his phone.
Victoria saw all of them.
She straightened her blouse.
“You're making this look much worse than it is.”
The agent looked at the broken box.
“You did that.”
“I was inspecting it.”
“With a bat.”
“It was malfunctioning.”
“And you threatened the dog.”
“I was enforcing HOA regulations.”
The agent's expression remained neutral.
“You don't have jurisdiction over federal personnel.”
Victoria's face reddened.
“This is my neighborhood.”
“No.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“This is a private residential neighborhood.”
“Yes.”
“And this property belongs to the Morgan family.”
“Yes.”
“So you don't own the property.”
Victoria's jaw tightened.
“I enforce the association rules.”
“That's different.”
“I have legal authority.”
“Within the limits of your association documents and applicable law.”
Victoria stared at him.
The agent continued.
“Not over federal personnel.”
A second agent approached from behind.
“We've secured the perimeter.”
The first nodded.
“Good.”
Victoria looked at the gate.
“Why was the gate open?”
Claire answered.
“Because I opened it.”
Victoria turned.
“You?”
Claire nodded.
“Atlas alerted me that someone was approaching.”
“You called them?”
“No.”
Claire looked at the whistle.
“They were already nearby.”
Victoria looked toward the agents.
“Why?”
The lead agent answered.
“Because Atlas was scheduled for a security exercise.”
Victoria stared.
“A security exercise?”
Claire nodded.
“That's why he was wearing the monitoring collar.”
Victoria looked at Atlas's neck.
Only now did she notice the small black device beneath his fur.
She had mistaken it for a tracking collar.
It was more sophisticated than that.
The agent touched the device.
“This transmits biometric and location data.”
Victoria's eyes widened.
“So you were monitoring him?”
“Yes.”
“During all of this?”
“Yes.”
Victoria looked horrified.
“You heard everything?”
The agent nodded.
“Everything.”
Silence.
The teenage boy across the street lowered his phone.
The neighbor with the terrier stared.
Claire slowly pushed herself upright.