Chapter 13 - The Cost of a Witness
I arrived while neighborhood security was still speaking to Leo.
Luz stood inside her locked gate.
She was wearing slippers.
The sight nearly undid me.
Leo turned when he saw my car.
“Finally.”
I stopped several feet away.
“What are you doing here?”
“Trying to talk to the woman poisoning my wife against me.”
Luz gripped the bars.
“I saw you.”
“You saw nothing.”
Security asked him to lower his voice.
He ignored them.
I held up my phone.
“Elena is on the line.”
“Of course she is.”
“Leave.”
He laughed.
“You hide behind lawyers now?”
“No. I hire them.”
His face changed.
For the first time, I saw how much he hated hearing me say something he couldn’t turn into an apology.
“You want your old files back?” he asked.
My stomach dropped.
“I thought you didn’t have them.”
“Maybe I know where they are.”
Elena spoke through the phone.
“Leo, any demand involving property you’re withholding should go through counsel.”
He leaned toward me.
“Withdraw the complaint. Stop the review. Then maybe your mother’s notebooks don’t end up in a landfill.”
One security officer stepped between us.
“You need to leave.”
Leo looked from him to Luz.
“She started this.”
“No,” I said.
He turned back.
“You did. She answered the phone.”
He drove away too fast.
I stayed until Luz’s niece arrived.
Then I sat at her kitchen table and apologized.
“I brought this to your door.”
She pushed a cup toward me.
“He brought himself.”
“You shouldn’t have had to deal with him.”
“I agree.”
The bluntness startled me.
Luz sat down.
“That doesn’t mean I should have stayed quiet.”
I wrapped my hands around the cup.
“My students used to think telling the truth guaranteed people would thank them,” she said.
“What did you tell them?”
“Sometimes it only guarantees you can sleep.”
Outside, a security patrol slowed past the house.
Elena arranged to preserve the available footage and statements about Leo’s visit.
I moved Luz and her niece into a hotel for the next two nights.
Luz complained about the price.
I ignored her.
That evening, the gala venue called.
A representative of Leo’s had requested access to the audiovisual system.
Using a letter that claimed he still had executive authority.
The event manager asked whether the request was valid.
I looked at Elena.
Then at the anniversary program on her desk.
May you like
“No,” I said.
“And nobody changes tomorrow’s presentation without my approval.”
