He strolled the slate walk between the houses. The grass around the stones was as dead and brown as the rest of Gateways South; the foundation plantings along the base of the smooth stucco exterior of his father’s place looked thirsty but not as wilted as what he’d seen along the way. Jack suspected him of sneaking them a little water during the night.

Then again, maybe not. His father was such a stickler for rules that he just might watch all his plants die before breaking one.

Jack tried to peek through the windows but the shades were drawn. As he backed away from a window he glanced over at Anya’s and stopped dead in his tracks.

Her place looked like a rain forest. Lush greens and reds and yellows of every imaginable tropical plant concealed most of the side of her house, not merely surviving, but thriving. A grapefruit tree, heavy with fruit, stood at a corner. And her grass…a rich, thick, pool-table green.

A little surreptitious sprinkling was one thing, but Anya seemed to be thumbing her nose at the water restrictions.

He noticed a small forest of ornaments dotting her lawn: the usual elves and pink flamingos and pinwheels of various models, but in among them were strange little things that looked homemade, like painted tin cans and bits of cloth on slim tree branches that had been stuck into the ground.

He spotted a name plaque on the side of the house. He stepped closer until he could read it. MUNDY.

He walked on to the front of his father’s place. The front yards of the two bungalows sloped down to a pond, roughly round, maybe fifty feet in diameter. As he approached for a look he heard a number of splashes as frogs leaped off the bank for the safety of the water. A black bird stood on the far bank, its chevroned wings spread and held toward the sun as if storing up solar power. The pond stood full and clear, its perimeter rimmed with healthy looking grass and reeds. Beyond it lay a grassy marsh that seemed to stretch forever north and south, but ended at a stand of tall cypresses about a mile due west. Jack knew it was west because the sun was dipping behind the treetops.

He turned and checked out the front of his dad’s place. A front porch, covered but open, held a small round table and a pair of chairs, all white. Some sort of flowering vine was trying to crawl up the supporting columns. The floor of the front porch was bluestone slate. A picture window dominated the wall to the left of the door, but vertical blinds hid the interior. He pulled open the screen and tried the front door. Locked, just like the rear.

“Here’s the key,” Anya said.