Chapter 6 - The Woman With the Account
The account belonged to Ava Reyes, a former accountant for one of Marco's hotel contractors. She had resigned after reporting irregularities in the vacant-room expenses. Records showed she had also filed a sworn statement in a labor dispute connected to Westgate Staffing. Sofia recognized her name from a list Mateo kept in the storage cabinet.
Ava had been receiving irregular small deposits from a source investigators were still tracing. She denied knowing where Mateo lived but acknowledged he'd contacted her after she left the hotel. He had asked whether she could protect copies of the payroll records and send them to counsel if anything happened to him. She agreed because she'd watched managers make workers disappear from computer schedules when complaints were filed.
"Disappear from a schedule," Sofia repeated to Chen. "Not from their lives?"
"Correct. Ava described record manipulation. She didn't say people were kidnapped. We need to keep those categories distinct."
Sofia looked at the old photograph of Mateo. She had begun to fear that every missing line in a spreadsheet represented a missing person. Chen reminded her that the evidence supported wage and housing concerns, though other wrongdoing could still emerge. Sofia wanted the truth, not a more frightening version of the story than the facts could bear.
Ava agreed to meet Sofia only after consulting her attorney. They sat at a neighborhood library, with Chen nearby. Ava said Mateo had called her shortly before the date of the photograph. He sounded worried because he believed his phone calls were being monitored through hotel security tools he had helped maintain. She told him to stop using that network and seek formal protection if he was threatened.
"Did he?" Sofia asked.
"I don't know. He said he had to finish something first."
"He always said that."
Ava looked at her with sympathy. "I never meant to ask him to risk himself. He chose to help because he saw what was happening. I wish I'd known what to say to get him to stop before it cost him everything."
Sofia didn't tell her it wasn't her fault. She had begun to see how many people made difficult decisions around Mateo without knowing their consequences. She asked for the last verified contact date and gave Chen the details to check. Ava had kept copies of messages in her attorney's case file; they were being preserved through appropriate procedures.
The investigators traced the deposits to a trust account used to pay for witness-related travel and temporary housing in a separate civil proceeding. Mateo's name was not on the beneficiary list. That didn't prove he was a protected witness, and nobody promised such a status. It did suggest somebody had paid to help a person relocate after the hotel dispute.
Sofia wondered whether Mateo had gone somewhere to start over. The possibility hurt more than she expected. If he chose not to contact them, perhaps he'd decided his mother and sister were safer without him, or perhaps he simply wanted another life. She couldn't know without hearing it from him.
Her appeal concerning the hotel termination moved forward. A review found that the original service request had been genuine and that Sofia had promptly reported a potential connection to a missing-person case. Management maintained that recording a guest violated policy; Sofia acknowledged her decision and explained why she feared being trapped in the room. The hotel offered reinstatement with conditions and updated training. She had a week to decide.
One night Elena asked Sofia whether she would go back. Sofia said she wasn't sure. The Bellweather had been her professional home for nine years, but walking through its doors now meant passing the room where Marco stood between her and the exit. Elena told her the job could be part of her past without deciding her future.
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Before Sofia could answer the hotel, Chen called with the first recent lead to Mateo's physical location. A bus station video from six weeks earlier showed a man matching his height and gait boarding a regional bus under an unfamiliar name. The image wasn't clear enough to identify him. But the ticket had been paid for through the same travel account linked to Ava.
The destination was a small city four hours away, where a community legal clinic had recently received a packet of hotel payroll records.
