To maximize all this prime real estate, the home lots were small, hence the houses were close together. Back in the day, presumably the community planners assumed vacationers wouldn’t mind the close quarters. In modern times, the result was that the year-round residents inside the cheek-by-jowl Victorians, Craftsman cottages, and suburban ranches lived in a cozy, nosy community.

Everyone had always known her business, from the day in first grade when Jeremy Barger had kissed her, to the day she’d been caught kissing-

What the heck is that?

As she accelerated around the next corner, she could see a radioactive glow up the next block. The block of her childhood home. Spooked by the strange light, Bailey braked and peered into the distance. Maybe things had changed recently. One end of Coronado was fenced off as the North Island Naval Air Station. Perhaps the military had moved in on the residential community and built a new runway or something. Up ahead it was just that bright.

With a gentle foot on the accelerator, Bailey moved cautiously forward. At the corner of Walnut and Sixth, she stopped again, dazzled. Lights were everywhere. On mailboxes, flowerpots, bicycles. Across bushes like fishnets, rimming rooflines, marching up tree trunks, running over anything that didn’t move. Make that things that moved too. A cat skipped past, wearing a collar studded with red and green Christmas bulbs.

And music. Piped out of windows and doors and from the mouths of plastic carolers, cardboard snowmen, and poster-painted plywood angels. “Hark the Herald” clashed with “Silent Night” clashed with “O Tannenbaum.”

“Oh, ton of crud,” Bailey cursed. They’d turned her block into Christmas Central. Giant-sized presents were stacked on porches. Overstuffed Santa butts were heading down chimneys. Reindeer pawed at patches of grass.