Chapter 3 - Someone Entered Mateo’s Locker
Harbor Point police arrived shortly after midnight.
By one in the morning, the maintenance corridor was sealed with yellow evidence tape.
Mateo sat beside Leo inside Emma’s office while Detective Nora Walsh questioned them separately.
Charles had offered to send them home with private security.
Mateo refused.
“I don’t want his employees knowing where we live.”
Charles heard him.
He did not argue.
Leo noticed that.
Bradley would have argued.
Bradley would have explained why being afraid of him was insulting.
Charles simply nodded.
Detective Walsh entered.
“We pulled the electronic lock records.”
Emma turned.
“And?”
“Mateo’s locker hallway was accessed at 11:41 p.m. with a marina management credential.”
Emma stiffened.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Everyone looked at her.
Emma stared.
“I was on the main dock at 11:41.”
“I know,” Walsh said. “It’s on twelve cameras.”
“Then someone cloned my credential.”
“Or used your master code.”
Only four people knew the master code.
Emma.
Greg Pritchard.
The marina’s general manager.
And corporate IT.
Greg had disappeared from Charles’s yacht immediately after the confrontation.
Emma called him.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Mateo stood.
“You said he was still on site.”
“He should be.”
Detective Walsh raised a hand.
“Do not go looking for him.”
Mateo ignored her.
“Three years ago he buried my report.”
“And tonight somebody accessed your locker.”
“Exactly.”
“That makes him a person I want to talk to,” Walsh said. “Not somebody I want you confronting.”
Leo’s gaze drifted toward the coat hooks.
His soaked jacket was gone.
He stood abruptly.
“Where’s my jacket?”
Mateo turned.
“What?”
“My jacket.”
Emma checked beneath the desk.
“It was hanging there.”
“I put it there myself.”
They searched the room.
Nothing.
Detective Walsh immediately called the evidence technician.
“When did you last see it?”
“Maybe twenty minutes ago.”
Mateo went pale.
“Was anything inside?”
Leo thought.
His phone had been left in his father’s toolbox before the yacht event.
His keys were at home.
Then he remembered something.
When he had been swimming toward the briefcase, he had felt two objects against his fingers.
The folded page.
And something hard.
Small.
Metallic.
He had grabbed both.
The folded page went into his jacket pocket.
The metal object had slipped through his fingers.
Or had it?
Leo closed his eyes.
“What?” Mateo asked.
“There might have been something else.”
Charles came closer.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Leo described it.
Emma frowned.
“Like a key?”
“Maybe.”
Susan asked, “Did Bradley see you reach into your pocket?”
“He saw me pull out the paper.”
Mateo’s voice hardened.
“So somebody took the jacket because they thought there was more.”
Walsh sent an officer to review internal camera footage.
Five minutes later, he returned.
“The camera covering the operations hallway went offline at 12:38.”
Emma swore under her breath.
“Two separate camera failures.”
Charles looked at her.
“Can that happen remotely?”
“Yes.”
“Who can do it?”
“IT. Senior management. Anyone who compromises the network.”
Charles called his security chief.
“Find Greg Pritchard.”
Susan interrupted.
“Charles, carefully.”
“I said find him. Not abduct him.”
Leo almost smiled.
Nobody else did.
At 1:27 a.m., Greg finally answered Emma’s call.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“You left without checking out.”
“I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Someone broke into Mateo’s locker.”
A pause.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You tell me.”
“Emma, I’m hanging up.”
“Bradley Sterling used my master credential.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You do?”
Silence.
Emma lowered her voice.
“Greg, what was in Charles Kent’s briefcase?”
The line went dead.
Mateo whispered, “He knows.”
Emma called again.
The phone was off.
Charles looked at Susan.
“Freeze his access.”
Emma hesitated.
“I need authorization from the general manager.”
“I own the company that owns sixty-one percent of Harbor Point Holdings.”
“That gives you influence, not operating authority.”
Charles’s eyes narrowed.
Emma held her ground.
“You want this done legally, or you want Bradley’s attorneys tearing it apart tomorrow?”
After a moment, Charles nodded.
“Legally.”
Leo watched the exchange with fascination.
Emma had just told a billionaire no.
And he had listened.
At two in the morning, Detective Walsh let Mateo and Leo leave.
Charles insisted on providing an unmarked security car.
This time Mateo accepted.
Their apartment sat above a laundromat twelve minutes from the marina.
When they reached the second-floor landing, Mateo stopped.
The front door was open.
Leo whispered, “Dad.”
Mateo pushed him behind him.
The police escort came up the stairs.
Inside, drawers had been emptied.
Cushions slashed.
The kitchen cabinets stood open.
Nothing expensive was missing.
Mateo rushed to his bedroom.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed.
Pulled out an old wooden toolbox.
Opened it.
His face collapsed.
“What?” Leo asked.
Mateo looked up.
“The ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“Three years ago, after Pier Nine, I copied the nighttime maintenance log before Greg could change it.”
Leo felt cold again.
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
On the mattress lay something that had not been there before.
Leo’s soaked jacket.
Neatly folded.
On top of it was the marina towel Bradley had shoved at him.
May you like
And beneath the towel was a handwritten note.
NEXT TIME, LET IT SINK.
