Chapter 12 - The Empty Stove
Mateo didn’t answer.
I called again.
Then June called the kitchen.
Then Ruth called someone at the club.
Ten minutes stretched until I could feel every second in my teeth.
Finally, Mateo’s number appeared.
I answered so hard I nearly dropped the phone.
“Where are you?”
“At urgent care.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing you’re thinking.
Two men came to my apartment.
One shoved me into the door.
My stitches opened.”
His voice was tired.
“They said I should take a vacation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t give me that.
I’m the one who told you this job would be a fresh start.”
I laughed once, horribly.
He continued.
“I saw the wine room before I left.
They moved the old ledgers again.”
“Where?”
“The service elevator.
They were taking them to the penthouse office.”
I wrote it down.
“The closing’s happening there?”
“Yes.”
I passed the information to Ruiz.
His team was already preparing applications and coordinating with prosecutors.
Now they had Malcolm’s statement, the documented threats, and a location for the records.
He called back that evening.
“We have the warrant.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
For the first time, Adrian’s confidence wasn’t the strongest thing in the room.
“Then you don’t need me to go.”
“No,” Ruiz said.
“We do not need you to go.”
I looked at the packet Mom had mailed.
Her careful handwriting.
The pages she had gathered while dying.
The truth she had finally pushed outside her own fear.
“What happens if he leaves before you get there?”
“We have a plan for that.”
“And the records?”
“We have a plan for those too.”
I wanted to believe that plans could make everything safe.
They couldn’t.
But neither could a billionaire with a frightened daughter and a lifetime of bad habits.
I canceled the meeting.
Adrian called immediately.
I let it ring.
Then he sent a photograph.
The canvas bag from June’s apartment sat open on a desk.
Mom’s recorder lay beside a metal trash can.
His message read:
Last chance to collect your mother’s voice.
I stared at it until the screen dimmed.
Then I forwarded it to Ruiz.
I would not trade a living person for an object.
Not even one that sounded like her.
May you like
A minute later, Ruiz called.
“That photograph tells us exactly which office he’s in.”
