When my grandma died, she left me her paid-off house in a neighborhood that felt a little too watchful. I moved in to grieve and clean out drawers. Then I found five sealed envelopes labeled with the neighbors’ names and a note that said, “After I’m gone, deliver these.”

My grandma lived in the same small brick house for 42 years.

The porch steps had started to dipped where she sat with iced tea, watching the block every day.

Two weeks after her funeral, I moved in. I told everyone it was purely practical, but really I couldn’t bear strangers buying her place and changing everything about the house that reminded me of my Gran.

The neighborhood looked trimmed and polite, like a brochure. Still, curtains shifted when I carried things inside, and the air felt watched.

Her wind chimes hung under the porch roof, perfectly still.

Mrs. Keller lived across the street in a beige house with flawless flower beds. Grandma used to call her “the mayor” when she thought nobody could hear.

That morning Keller stood in her doorway with a stern look on her face.

“You must be the grandson,” she called, voice tight. “We like things kept tidy around here.”

I could already see conflict brewing. “I’m just moving in.

I’m not here to start problems.”

Her eyes swept my yard, over the bins and the hedges. “Your grandmother had… habits,” she said, and with that she marched off.

That night I ate a half-hearted lasagna for dinner, and every car headlight that slid across the walls made me jump.

It was difficult to get used to the house without Grandma being there.

The next morning I searched Grandma’s dresser for towels and found five sealed envelopes instead. Each one had a neighbor’s name in her neat handwriting. On top sat a small note:

I stared at the names in disbelief.

Mrs.

Keller, Don down the street, Lydia around the corner, Jared, and Marnie. Grandma had complained about them, but I didn’t think she’d have words for them after her death.

“What did you do?” I whispered to the empty room.

I promised myself I wouldn’t open them. It felt like reading her diary, and she deserved privacy even in death.

Still, she’d asked, and I couldn’t get myself to ignore her request.

Around midmorning, I walked across the street with Keller’s envelope. The sun was shining brightly, which made the foreboding in my chest even worse. Keller opened the door before I knocked.

“This is from my grandmother,” I said, holding it out.

“She asked me to deliver it.” Keller’s gaze dropped to the handwriting, and something sharp crossed her face. “That’s… unexpected,” she said, and took it with two fingers.

The door shut without another word.

I stood there, embarrassed by how much my hands shook. Back home, I decided I’d deliver the other four after lunch and be done.

Less than an hour later, sirens cut through the street. Two squad cars pulled up in front of Keller’s house.

My stomach dropped as soon as I heard them soaring down the street.

I walked onto the sidewalk and approached an officer. “What happened?” I asked. He looked me over and said, “You live here?”

He looked incredibly stern after that.

“Did you deliver a letter to the woman across the street?”

My mouth went dry. “Yes. It was sealed.”

“Well, she called 911.

She says it had documents and a flash drive. She reported it as threatening.”

“A flash drive? I didn’t put anything in it, officer.

It’s just one of the letters I was asked to deliver.”

I could tell he was debating whether I was telling the truth. “Don’t deliver any more letters until a detective speaks with you,” he said. “Do you understand?”

I nodded too fast and went inside.

The dresser drawer looked innocent, but my skin prickled near it. After a long breath, I opened Don’s envelope.

Inside was a clipped stack of papers and a USB drive in a plastic bag. The top page read, in Grandma’s handwriting, “Timeline of incidents.” Dates ran down the page, meticulously taken down.

I flipped through and felt sick.

Copies of complaint reports. Screenshots of neighborhood messages. Photos of our yard from angles that meant someone had been inside the fence.

I opened Lydia’s envelope next.

“Missing items,” the first sheet said, followed by a list: jewelry box, silver spoon, medication organizer. Next to several entries Grandma had written, “Last seen after Lydia arranged contractor visit.”

I sat on the carpet. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I wondered out loud.

The next envelope held what looked like a forged petition, Grandma’s signature copied and circled in red ink.

Jared’s envelope had a hand-drawn map of the side path between our fences. Arrows showed where someone could step without triggering the old porch light. In the margin she wrote, “They think I’m stupid.

I’m not.”

Marnie’s envelope began with one sentence: “If anything happens to me, this is why.” My hands shook hard enough to rattle the paper. I called the number the officer gave me and said, “There are more letters, and they’re evidence.”

Detective Rios arrived and sat at Grandma’s kitchen table, eyes sharp and tired. “Start from the beginning,” she said.

When I told her about delivering Keller’s envelope, she didn’t scold me, but her jaw set.

“Your grandmother documented a pattern,” Rios said, tapping the timeline. “Some dates match prior calls. Some were dismissed as neighbor disputes.”

Rios met my eyes.

“Without proof, people minimize. We need proof to do anything.” She pointed at the remaining envelopes. “You don’t deliver anything else.

You don’t confront anyone alone.”

That night I heard a scrape near the side gate. When I checked, it was open and swaying gently. The next morning my trash bin sat crooked, lid half raised, with a bag I didn’t recognize resting on top.

I called Rios.

“I think they know,” I said.

That afternoon, Mrs. Keller appeared on my porch with Don and Lydia by her side. Don’s eyes slid past me into the house.

Lydia smiled.

“We wanted to offer condolences.”

“We heard about letters,” Don said. “Your grandmother was upset near the end.”

Keller leaned in. “We don’t want misunderstandings spreading.

Show us what she wrote, and we can move on.”

I kept my hand on the screen door. “No.”

Keller’s smile thinned. “That’s not very neighborly.”

“We were protecting the neighborhood.” Lydia had obviously prepared for these accusations.

“You could have dealt with things in much better ways.” I shut the door before they could retort.

Rios stepped out from behind the living room wall and said, “Good.

They’re nervous. Do you have any cameras to watch the places where there had been activity?”

“No. I’ve never needed anything like that before.”

So I walked outside and stared at the birdhouse near the feeder.

After some investigation, I spotted a tiny lens staring back at me from a knothole.

When Rios arrived, she nodded once. “That helps.”