No violations found.
Another exhibit.
Then came the anonymous Facebook posts.
Someone accused me of interfering with community resources.
Someone called me a non-cooperative property owner.
Vern sent me a screenshot.
One sentence accompanied it:
She's scared.
He was right.
Because when people have real authority, they don't need rumors.
Renata had run out of authority.
So she was manufacturing fear instead.
The Offer to Beaumont
February brought the evidence I had been waiting for.
Renata tried to persuade Beaumont to support her.
The offer was simple.
A forty-percent reduction in HOA dues for three years.
In exchange, Beaumont would withdraw his objection to the boundary expansion and sign a statement supporting the HOA.
Beaumont didn't accept.
He didn't even argue.
He wrote everything down.
Date.
Time.
Words.
Names.
Then he sent the memorandum to Clifton and me.
When Beaumont called, his voice was unusually quiet.
"Is this what I think it is?"
Clifton read the memorandum.
"It could be viewed as an inducement to provide false testimony."
That was enough.
The document became another exhibit.
The coalition grew.
Fourteen people became nineteen.
Three HOA homeowners discovered that reserve funds intended for roads and common maintenance had apparently been used toward the lakefront feasibility study.
Suddenly, this wasn't Garrett Pruitt versus Renata Carr.
It was becoming the entire community asking one question:
What had Renata been doing with their money?
Delphine called me in mid-February.
"I have enough for the article."
"Wait."
"For what?"
"The meeting."
There was a pause.
Then she understood.
"You're going to put everything on the record."
"Exactly."
The public meeting was scheduled for the first Saturday in March.
I had one month of evidence.
Renata had two weeks.
And she knew something was coming.
The Last Desperate Moves
Renata hired a real attorney.
Her lawyer sent Clifton a proposal.
The HOA would pay me five hundred dollars a year if I agreed to let them formally access my garage.
Clifton declined.
Then Renata tried another angle.
She argued that my garage was somehow a "non-residential structure."
That didn't work either.
Finally, she called the county commissioner and tried to have my public-meeting agenda item removed.
The commissioner refused.
Renata had run out of doors to close.
I prepared my evidence.
The original 1971 deed.
The HOA plat.
The 2019 amendment.
My permit records.
The three vehicle reports.
The storage invoices.
The certified-mail receipts.
The Mercer Capital documents.
Renata's $40,000 consulting disclosure.
The draft easement.
Beaumont's memorandum.
Nineteen exhibits.
I placed them in a folder.
Then I labeled every tab.
I wasn't angry anymore.
I was calm.
That was when I knew Renata was in trouble.
Across the room at the meeting, she sat beside her attorney.
No reflective vest this time.
No clipboard.
Just a woman who had finally realized that paperwork worked both ways.
Delphine sat at the back.
Vern sat beside her.
Beaumont crossed his arms.
The county commissioner called the meeting to order.