The blinking started as a tiny itch in the corner of my wife’s eye. We were two nights into a long weekend, half-asleep on an unfamiliar mattress, when Pilar sat up and whispered, “Why is the smoke detector flashing?”
I dragged a chair over, unscrewed the plastic dome, and felt my stomach slip. There it was: a tiny lens where there shouldn’t be one.
We didn’t argue. We packed like people fleeing a fire—chargers yanked from walls, toiletries tossed as-is into a tote, zipper teeth grinding over clothes that didn’t belong together. Ten minutes later we were in the car with the dome in a grocery bag, parked under fluorescent gas station lights, drinking warm Cokes because our hands needed something to do.
I posted a review. Short, furious, shaking: “Hidden camera in the bedroom. Unsafe.” Ten minutes later, a reply arrived through the platform, blue check and all:
“You fool, this is a felony, and you’ve just tampered with an active police sting.”
I wanted to laugh it off as a scare tactic. Except it was too fast, too specific. Pilar read it three times, then asked, “Is this, like… FBI?” We’re not FBI people. I teach middle school science. She’s a doula and throws clay on weekends. The closest I get to law enforcement is separating two eighth graders arguing about whose turn it is to feed the bearded dragon.
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