Chapter 1

The old family apartment had been sitting empty, yet in just the last two weeks, the drain had clogged three times. Since everyone there had been my grandma's old neighbors, I paid out of pocket to have it cleared every single time.

But the neighbor across from me would not let it go. "Can you stop throwing trash down the drain? Because of your place, the whole building keeps losing water." I tried to explain that I did not even live there, but nobody listened.

Even the property manager came over to play mediator. "Ms. Foster, why don't you just move out?"

I glanced at all the shared amenities I'd paid to install for the building and let out a cold laugh. "Fine. Then I'll really move out."

I crouched by the kitchen door of Unit 101, staring at the drain that had just been cleared. Dirty water stains still streaked the floor, and the fishy stench mixed with the damp smell of the old apartment and drilled straight into my nose.

My grandma had left this apartment to me. She had lived here her whole life, and after she passed, I stopped staying here regularly. I only came back once in a while to look around and sort through the things she had left behind.

But over the past two weeks, the main drain line had clogged three times. Every time it backed up, the whole building lost water, and sewage poured into my first-floor apartment. Since they were all my grandma's old neighbors, I kept quiet and paid for plumbers myself, nearly 700 dollars in total.

I had not expected that right after the drain was cleared, someone would start pounding on my door like crazy. When I opened it, Linda Mayfield from Unit 102 was standing there with her hands on her hips, with two upstairs neighbors right behind her.

"Emily Foster, do you have any sense of decency at all?" Linda snapped, spittle flying. "The drain was just cleared, and now it's clogged again. The whole building's water is out again."

I frowned. "I just had a plumber come by. The blockage isn't on my end."

"If it's not your place, whose is it?" Linda stepped closer, her voice turning even shriller. "You're the only one on the first floor. If the main line is clogged and we don't blame you, who are we supposed to blame? And who knows what kind of crap you've been throwing down there?"

I looked at her and felt a chill run through me. Last month, she said her husband was bedridden and could not get around, so I paid about 1,700 dollars to build the wheelchair ramp on the first floor. In winter, I spent another 2,700 dollars replacing the drafty entry door. She had forgotten all of it.

"Aunt Linda, this apartment has been empty the whole time. Nobody's living here. I haven't even turned on the stove once. How would I be dumping stuff into the drain?"

"Nobody's living here? Then why would the drain clog?" the older woman from the third floor cut in at once. When she could not scrape together her grandson's tuition before, I was the one who covered it for her. Now she was here accusing me too. "Exactly. It's obviously your problem, so quit denying it. You keep making the whole building lose water. Aren't you ashamed?"

They crowded around me, all talking over one another like a pack of mad dogs snarling at me. I took a deep breath and forced down my anger. "Fine. I'll still cover the unclogging fee this time, but I'm hiring professionals to inspect the pipes. Whoever caused it will take responsibility."

Linda rolled her eyes at once. "What's there to inspect? It's obviously you. You're just trying to dodge the bill and make excuses."

Someone else chimed in, "You can spend money on all kinds of things, but now you're too cheap to pay a little plumbing fee?" I didn't waste another word on them. I shut the door and left all their curses outside.

I took out my phone and looked up the best pipe inspection company in town. I booked them for the next day to check the blockage with a scope camera. I wanted to see exactly who had been making the whole building miserable, and who had treated my kindness like dirt.

Early the next morning, the inspection tech showed up with his equipment. The camera went into the main drain line and slowly worked its way upward. The screen showed the inside of the pipe clearly, and the section connected to my place was spotless, without a bit of debris.

The tech kept going until he reached around the fifth floor, and suddenly the image changed. A thick mass of black grease had hardened inside the pipe, nearly sealing off the whole main line. He stopped the equipment and said firmly, "Ms. Foster, we found the blockage. It's in the main line around the fifth floor. It's all hardened animal grease, packed solid. Your first-floor unit only takes the sewage when the line backs up."

One look at the screen, and I understood. Susan Baker from Unit 502 ran a fried skewer stall, and I had once caught her dumping leftover oil down her bathroom drain after closing up. When I warned her that kitchen grease would clog the pipes, she had rolled her eyes. "Why the hell is that your business?"

The tech gave me an official inspection report along with clear photos and videos. After thanking him, I sent every bit of evidence to the building residents' group chat, followed by one more message: [The blockage is in the main line around the fifth floor. It's hardened grease. I've already paid for the first three drain-clearing jobs. This time, the responsibility isn't mine.]

The second my message went out, Susan blew up. One voice message after another flooded the chat, her sharp voice practically screaming through the screen. [Emily Foster, cut the crap. Stop pinning this on me. What grease? I've never poured oil down the drain. This is obviously your place clogging up, and now you're trying to frame me with some garbage report.]

Linda jumped in to back her up right away. [Exactly. Susan would never do something like that. Don't try to fool us with some fake report. How do we know you didn't doctor it yourself?]