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Welcome to Maple Hollow. Population: 4,512. Home of the Annual Blossom Festival.

It's surrounded by painted flowers and enough decorative vines to look less like a municipal marker and more like a greeting card, and I examine it through the windshield for a moment before pulling back onto the road. This is going to be a long assignment.

The town remains stubbornly cheerful as I drive through it — orchards preparing for spring bloom, storefronts painted in colors that suggest nobody here has ever had a bad day. I already miss the city, not because I particularly like it, but because cities understand professionalism.

Cities don't decorate everything or hold festivals for flowers or know everyone's business before noon. The file on the passenger seat contains everything I need to survive the next few months: temporary assignment, compliance review, inspection oversight, then promotion. The promotion matters. The assignment doesn't. At least that's what I told myself when I accepted it.

The town hall sits at the center of Main Street, and I park and collect my files and head inside, and the receptionist points me toward the mayor's office before I can even introduce myself. Apparently news travels fast here. A woman with silver-streaked hair and calm authority rises from behind her desk as I enter.

"Mr. Winn."

"Mayor Hawthorne." Her handshake is firm and professional, which is promising.

"I appreciate you coming on such short notice," she says, gesturing toward a chair.

"I was available," I reply, and a corner of her mouth twitches.

"That's one way to describe being assigned." I don't bother denying it. She studies me briefly with the look of someone conducting their own quiet assessment, and I've spent enough years doing inspections to recognize another observer when I meet one.

"Before we begin," she says, "I should warn you that Maple Hollow isn't particularly exciting."

"That's supposed to be reassuring?"

"It usually is," she answers, and I tell her that it depends on what she's hiding, and her laugh is quiet.

"You'll fit in better than I expected." I doubt that. Nothing about me fits into towns like this. Mayor Hawthorne reaches for a folder. "The majority of your responsibilities are routine — annual reviews, building compliance, safety inspections. Nothing unusual."

"Not usually," she adds, and the pause that follows catches my attention immediately. I wait, and eventually she continues. "We've had a series of complaints over the past several months. Several businesses, but one in particular."

I open my notebook. "Anonymous?"

"Mostly. Some used names that couldn't be verified." False identities are rarely a good sign.

She slides a folder across the desk and I open it to find several reports inside, most appearing ordinary until I notice a detail that keeps repeating — the same business surfacing again and again throughout the file. Sweetbell Bakery. Complaint, review, inquiry, concern, inspection request, all pointing to the same address.

"How many formal complaints?" I ask.

"Twenty reviews," she responds. "And counting."

"That's excessive." "That was my opinion as well," she says, and I continue reading through the file. Health concerns, safety concerns, permit concerns — the accusations vary but the target remains identical, and nothing in the paperwork has been substantiated. No violations, no confirmed infractions, nothing that explains why the complaints keep coming.

"Tell me about the owner," I say, and Mayor Hawthorne's expression shifts into something that looks almost like amusement.

"Juniper Bell owns Sweetbell Bakery," she replies. "If I ask ten residents about her, eight of them will probably try feeding me pastries before answering."

I gaze at her. "That's not helpful."

"It tells you everything you need to know," she retorts, and I disagree entirely but write it down anyway. The meeting continues for another twenty minutes covering inspection schedules and reporting procedures, and by the time I leave town hall I have enough information to begin working and one question I can't quite dismiss — why does every complaint lead back to the same bakery?

Outside, Maple Hollow remains irritatingly pleasant. People smile at each other, store owners chat on sidewalks, and someone waves at me from across the street without knowing who I am. I make it halfway down Main Street before two women sitting outside a café stop talking as I pass, then resume at a volume clearly designed to be overheard.

"The new inspector?"

"Has to be."

"Think he'll investigate Sweetbell?"

"Poor Juniper."