Chapter 65: The Accident That Wasn’t

They didn’t discuss Matteo Mercer in the parking lot.

Alexander made that decision almost immediately.

Within minutes, Giovanni had arranged for them to use the small private room at the rear of Matteo’s, normally reserved for management discussions.

Elias joined them.

The dinner he’d ordered remained untouched outside.

Nobody seemed particularly hungry anymore.

Giovanni sat across from him.

"Tell me what you remember."

Elias rubbed his palms together once.

"I wasn’t part of the investigation."

"I understand."

"I was a driver for Calderon. I sometimes helped the mechanics when they were short-handed, but mostly I transported personnel, equipment, and parts."

Alexander asked, "What did Calderon handle?"

"Maintenance and safety servicing for heavy equipment."

He paused.

"The machine involved in Mr. Mercer’s accident was an articulating boom lift."

Giovanni leaned forward.

"The basket."

"Yes."

Elias described it simply. A personnel platform at the end of a hydraulic boom, designed to raise workers safely enough for inspections and elevated work.

"My father boarded it with a foreman."

"That’s what I remember."

"And Calderon serviced it?"

"Yes."

"Recently?"

Elias nodded.

"That’s what caused so much trouble afterward."

Giovanni’s face hardened.

The official report had always bothered him for exactly that reason.

Machines failed.

That wasn’t impossible.

What had never made sense was that the lift had supposedly passed a safety inspection shortly before his father climbed into it.

"What happened?"

"Your father and the foreman went up. I don’t remember exactly what they were inspecting."

"Structural work."

"Probably."

The lift raised normally.

Then the personnel platform separated from the boom assembly.

Both men fell.

The foreman survived.

Matteo did not.

Giovanni already knew that part.

He remembered the phone call.

His mother’s face. She collapsed.

The awful certainty that someone who’d left home that morning would never walk through the door again.

"The foreman was investigated," Elias continued.

"I know."

"People at Calderon suspected that would happen because he’d been with your father before they used the lift."

Alexander frowned.

"But he climbed into the same platform."

"Exactly."

That had always weakened the theory.

Sabotaging something you intended to use yourself made very little sense.

Unless the failure had occurred at a time the foreman hadn’t expected.

After recovering, the man resigned.

"By courier," Elias said. "He said he couldn’t work around heavy equipment anymore."

"What was his name?"

Elias closed his eyes.

"I don’t remember."

"Try."

"I will."

Giovanni forced himself not to press.

"What happened to the person who inspected the lift?"

That Elias remembered.

"He disappeared."

Alexander looked up.

"How soon?"

"Very soon."

"After the accident?"

"Yes."

"Before investigators questioned him?"

"I think he’d already been interviewed once. After that, nobody at Calderon could reach him."

"The address?"

"Empty."

Giovanni’s hands tightened beneath the table.

"He signed the safety clearance."

"Yes."

"So he certified the equipment as fit for use. It catastrophically failed..."

"And then he vanished."

Silence.

That was why Calderon never recovered.

Clients canceled contracts.

Lawsuits followed.

Insurance disputes dragged on while the company’s reputation collapsed.

Within months, Elias was looking for another job.

Alexander asked, "Was sabotage proven?"

"No."

"Suspected?"

"People talked."

"What did the mechanics say?"

Elias hesitated.

"I wasn’t an inspector. I don’t want to repeat gossip as fact."

"Then tell us exactly what you heard."

Elias considered his wording.

"That the platform attachment shouldn’t have failed the way it did if the inspection had actually been performed properly."

Giovanni went still.

That was more than he’d ever heard.

The old report had ended with equipment failure and potentially defective maintenance.

No provable criminal responsibility.

Then the case simply cooled.

Alexander continued.

"What happened to Calderon afterward?"

"Most of the assets were sold."

"To whom?"

"I don’t remember the original company. Ownership changed again later."

"Eventually?"

"A logistics subsidiary."

Giovanni looked at Alexander.

Elias continued.

"One that later became connected to Sebastian Group."

There it was.

Again.

Sebastian.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Alexander said:

"That acquisition happened after Matteo’s death."

"Years afterward," Elias confirmed.

"Then we’re not blaming Sebastian Group for an accident simply because it later acquired assets from a failed contractor."

Giovanni looked at him.

"I wasn’t."

"Good."

That distinction mattered.

Especially now that someone seemed determined to make every road point toward the Sebastians.

Alexander asked, "Is that where you met Maribel?"

"Later, yes."

Elias explained that he’d occasionally made deliveries to the Sebastian residence after joining the logistics company.

Some legitimate business.

Some obviously personal household errands scheduled through company vehicles.

That was how Maribel Ortega entered his life.

Giovanni looked down at the table.

Calderon.

Matteo.

The disappearing inspector.

The later Sebastian acquisition.

Elias.

Maribel.

Then the anonymous photographs.

Alexander followed the same chain.

"Andrei receives a photograph of Elias."

Giovanni looked up.

"Victoria and Dominic receive one announcing he got the job."

"Elias receives Maribel’s photograph and is told to stay quiet."

"Everyone gets pointed toward Sebastian."

Alexander nodded.

"Everyone except you."

The room went quiet.

Giovanni’s expression changed.

"If someone sent me Calderon’s name..."

"You’d immediately start looking into your father’s death."

"Exactly."

Alexander felt the pieces rearrange themselves.

Elias happened to work for him.

Alexander happened to be spending more time with Giovanni.

And Elias happened to have worked for the company responsible for maintaining the equipment involved in Matteo’s death.

Maybe nobody had placed Elias anywhere.

Maybe someone had simply realized, too late, where he’d ended up.

"Why would anyone care what I remember?" Elias asked.

Giovanni looked at him.

"Maybe they don’t know what you remember."

"Or how much," Alexander added.

Elias looked toward the portrait of Matteo visible beyond the partially open door.

"What if I don’t remember anything useful?"

Alexander’s gaze settled on him.

"Then someone has gone to a remarkable amount of trouble to make sure of that."

Silence.

Giovanni slowly leaned back.

For the first time that evening, the question was no longer whether Matteo’s accident had been badly investigated.

It was whether someone, after all these years, was still worried about the answer.

Giovanni looked toward Alexander.

"If we’re right..."

Alexander waited.

"My father’s death wasn’t an accident."