Chapter 4 - Twenty-Four Hours With Mateo Valente
Mateo refused to tell me the name.
Which meant I spent the next thirty minutes following him through his house demanding it.
“Harper.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“You’re protecting somebody.”
“I’m confirming information.”
“You looked like someone punched you.”
“That is an exaggerated interpretation.”
“You literally stopped blinking.”
He entered the kitchen.
I followed.
“You need food.”
“I need answers.”
“You’ve had coffee and half a wedding canapé in twenty hours.”
“How do you know about the canapé?”
“You told the police.”
“You listened to my statement?”
“I was ten feet away.”
Rosa placed eggs and toast on the counter.
“Eat.”
I looked from her to Mateo.
“Is everyone in this house bossy?”
“Yes,” Rosa said.
“No,” Mateo said simultaneously.
Rosa smiled.
I ate.
Halfway through, exhaustion won.
I woke two hours later on a sofa with a blanket over me.
Mateo sat across the room reading documents.
“You stayed?”
He looked up.
“It’s my house.”
“I mean here.”
He returned to the papers.
“You talk in your sleep.”
I sat upright.
“What did I say?”
“You threatened someone named Brianna with a tray of champagne glasses.”
“She deserved it.”
“Wedding?”
“Bridesmaid.”
“I assumed.”
Then I remembered.
“Grant’s payments.”
Mateo closed the folder.
“Made through a shell corporation.”
“Owned by?”
“A charity.”
“What charity?”
His gaze met mine.
“The Elena Valente Foundation.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Who is Elena?”
“My mother.”
I went silent.
Mateo stood and walked toward a window.
“She died eleven years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded once.
“The foundation funds shelters, food programs, scholarships.”
“And someone used it to pay Grant?”
“Yes.”
“Can anyone access the accounts?”
“Three people.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
I waited.
“Luca.”
Another pause.
“And my uncle Dominic.”
I remembered the surname from newspapers.
Dominic Valente had helped Mateo build his transportation company.
“So one of three people paid Grant?”
“Or someone compromised the accounts.”
“You believe that?”
“I believe evidence can be manufactured.”
I studied him.
“You don’t want it to be one of them.”
His expression hardened.
“Trust is expensive in my world.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“I didn’t say it for sympathy.”
“I wasn’t offering any.”
That almost-smile again.
It was becoming a problem.
Luca entered.
“We got street-camera footage from the hotel.”
He placed a tablet down.
At 2:11 a.m., Grant appeared in a hallway.
He carried something.
A screwdriver.
He removed the plaque from room 716.
Then switched it with 714.
My stomach tightened.
“He did it.”
Luca advanced the footage.
At 2:16 Grant entered the service elevator.
He met Sarah.
They spoke.
Then Grant handed her a key.
“The master key,” I whispered.
Next clip.
Grant standing near the employee lockers.
Watching.
Waiting.
At 2:19 I appeared.
Hair messy.
Uniform wrinkled.
Carrying a plate with leftover cake.
Grant watched me.
He watched Sarah speak to me.
Then I entered the elevator.
Mateo froze the video.
“Why you?”
I stared at my own exhausted face.
“I don’t know.”
Luca said, “Grant requested Harper’s employment file eight months ago.”
The room went silent.
“What?”
“Human resources records. Emergency contact. Address. Employment history.”
My stomach turned.
“Why?”
“That’s what we need to determine.”
I pushed away from the table.
“I’m going home.”
Mateo blocked me.
“No.”
“My apartment may have answers.”
“So my people will search it.”
“My things.”
“Harper—”
“I have a box of documents from my father.”
Mateo stopped.
“My father worked in shipping.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Where?”
“Mercer Freight.”
Luca looked at Mateo.
I noticed.
“What?”
Mateo asked, “When?”
“Almost twenty years.”
“Until?”
“He died.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Mateo’s expression changed again.
“Where?”
“I-90 near Rockford.”
I stared at him.
“Why are you asking?”
Luca spoke quietly.
“Mercer Freight was purchased by Valente Transportation seven years ago.”
I swallowed.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
Mateo didn’t answer.
Suddenly I remembered something.
My father had hated the acquisition.
He’d spent months complaining about missing cargo records.
Strange invoices.
Trucks being rerouted.
Then he died.
I had barely thought about those details in years.
“There’s a box,” I whispered.
“What’s inside?” Mateo asked.
“Paperwork. His old notebooks. I never looked through everything.”
Mateo reached for his coat.
“Luca.”
“Already arranging the cars.”
I stared.
“You’re coming?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mateo looked directly at me.
“Because Grant didn’t choose a random catering employee.”
His voice lowered.
“He chose Robert Jenkins’s daughter.”
May you like
And suddenly the conspiracy surrounding Mateo Valente had reached six years backward into my own life.
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