Chapter 6 - Locker 47
The steel door rolled upward with a scream of old metal.
Dust rolled out across Daniel's shoes.
Mateo stepped in first.
"Careful," Ortiz said. "Nobody touches anything until we photograph it."
Locker 47 was deeper than it looked from outside.
Cardboard boxes rose in uneven stacks beneath a buzzing fluorescent tube. A rusted file cabinet stood against the back wall beside an old drafting table.
Daniel stared at the Mercer Development logo printed on several boxes.
"Those haven't been used in twenty years."
Ortiz glanced at him. "Somebody has been paying to keep them."
She opened the first cabinet with gloved hands.
Old payroll records.
Inspection sheets.
Canceled checks.
Mateo stood behind her as she pulled a thin folder labeled REYES, LUIS.
His chest tightened.
Inside were six safety complaints signed by his father.
EXPOSED LIVE WIRING.
UNAUTHORIZED NIGHT CREW.
MISSING HARNESS EQUIPMENT.
Each complaint carried the same handwritten notation.
CLOSED — NO ACTION.
Initials: T.M.
Mateo looked at Daniel.
"Still think it's a project code?"
Daniel didn't answer.
Ortiz opened another folder.
Invoices filled the table.
Payments to companies Mateo had never heard of.
Broadway Structural LLC.
East Harbor Materials.
Hudson Inspection Partners.
Daniel stared at the routing numbers.
"Those weren't our vendors."
Ortiz pointed to the approval signature.
DANIEL MERCER.
Daniel grabbed the page.
"I didn't sign this."
"Looks like you did."
"It's copied."
He pulled out his driver's license and set it beside the check.
The signature looked almost perfect.
Mateo remembered the insurance documents.
Same wide D.
Same sharp hook at the end of Mercer.
"Same person," he said.
Daniel looked at him.
"What?"
"Whoever forged the insurance papers learned on these."
A box shifted behind them.
Mateo spun.
Nothing moved.
Ortiz drew her weapon anyway.
"Officer?"
One of the uniforms checked the rear corner.
"Clear. Just unstable boxes."
Mateo exhaled and crouched beside the stack.
Something metallic glinted beneath a folder.
A microcassette recorder.
"Detective."
Ortiz photographed it, then lifted it with gloves.
A tape was already inside.
She pressed PLAY.
Static snapped from the tiny speaker.
Then a man's voice.
Young.
Tired.
Mateo had never heard his father speak, but he knew before Elena's name came from the recording.
"If Elena ever hears this, I'm sorry."
Mateo's knees weakened.
Daniel looked away.
Luis continued.
"If you're hearing this, Thomas already knows I found the accounts. The money isn't missing by accident."
Mateo stepped closer.
The tape clicked.
Footsteps sounded in the old recording.
Then another voice.
Daniel's voice.
Twenty-one years younger, but unmistakable.
"Luis, you need to stop digging."
Mateo slowly turned his head.
Daniel did not move.
The recorder kept playing.
Luis said, "If I stop, he gets away with it."
Daniel answered:
May you like
"Then let him."
