He called my lakefront home a “gold mine” and offered me the back room. I stayed calm, documented everything, and set a lawful surprise to meet him—and his guests—right at the door. I’d bought the place for quiet—cedar boards and morning glass on the bay, ferries sliding south toward Seattle when the sky opens, gulls tracing the same white loops over the dock. After thirty-seven years of night shifts and holidays in a pharmacy smock, the Pacific Northwest finally sounded like a clock that only t