Chapter 72: You’re Getting Warm

Gerald stared at the photographs for so long that Giovanni eventually wondered whether he’d heard him.

Then he shook his head.

"No."

"Yes."

"No, Gio. I didn’t..."

His eyes returned to Martin’s photograph.

"I brought him into your company."

"You recommended him."

The correction came from the adjoining doorway.

Gerald spun around.

Alexander entered first.

The private investigator followed.

Then Elias.

Gerald looked at them.

Then toward the coffee cups.

"I knew it."

Under different circumstances, Giovanni might have laughed.

Nobody did.

Alexander stopped beside the desk.

"Recommending someone isn’t the same as knowingly helping them conceal a crime."

Gerald looked at him.

"Doesn’t feel much better from here."

"It should if you genuinely didn’t know."

"I didn’t."

Elias stepped forward and looked at the photograph.

"That’s Ramon."

Gerald turned.

"You knew him?"

"Years ago."

Elias briefly explained Calderon.

The accident.

Ramon’s disappearance.

His supposed death.

Then the equipment depot where Elias had seen him alive under circumstances that couldn’t be reconciled with the official death record.

Manuel Vera followed.

Then Martin Valdez.

By the end, Gerald looked sick.

"Three names?"

"That we know of," Alexander said.

Gerald rubbed his face.

"Jesus."

Giovanni returned to the important part.

"Think. Did Martin ever mention where he came from?"

"No."

"Family?"

"Never."

"Friends?"

"Not really."

"Places?"

Gerald shook his head.

"He didn’t talk much about himself."

"Did he ask about me?"

Gerald started to say no.

Then stopped.

Giovanni saw it.

"What?"

"He did."

The room quieted.

"What did he ask?"

"Nothing that seemed strange then."

"What?"

"When you’d become the CEO?"

Giovanni’s expression changed.

"He knew I was Matteo’s son?"

"Everyone knew."

"And?"

"I told him it was a matter of time."

"Anything else?"

Gerald thought.

"I probably said you intended to work full-time after completing your master’s degree."

"And later?"

"When you did become CEO, he asked whether you were staying."

Alexander looked toward the investigator.

"And when Giovanni started asking about Matteo?"

Gerald frowned.

"I don’t know whether Martin knew. I didn’t know about it myself."

"But he resigned shortly afterward."

That clearly bothered Gerald.

"I swear I had no idea."

Giovanni believed him more now than he had twenty minutes earlier.

Not completely.

But enough to keep listening.

"Anything unusual about Martin?"

"No."

"Anything at all."

Gerald thought for a long time.

Then slowly nodded.

"He used to take certain calls outside."

"From whom?"

"I don’t know."

"How often?"

"Not constantly. Enough that I noticed."

"What made them unusual?"

"He’d leave the room."

Gerald smiled faintly.

"I teased him once. Asked whether he had a secret girlfriend."

"What did he say?"

"That it was an old friend."

Alexander’s attention sharpened.

"Anything else?"

"He said the guy liked checking whether he was behaving."

Silence.

Elias looked toward Alexander.

The anonymous messages he’d received suddenly felt considerably less isolated.

Tell Vance nothing.

Good.

Stay that way.

"What exactly did Martin say?" Alexander asked.

"Something like that."

"Think."

Gerald closed his eyes.

"It was years ago."

"Anything helps."

After several seconds, Gerald opened his eyes.

"I remember asking why some old friend cared what he was doing."

"And?"

"He laughed."

Gerald frowned as the memory returned.

"He said..."

A pause.

"Because he likes knowing when I’m getting warm."

Nobody spoke.

Giovanni felt something cold settle in his stomach.

Not because the sentence proved who had killed Matteo.

It didn’t.

But it changed the way they had been looking at Ramon Villareal.

Until now, they’d assumed somebody had helped the inspector disappear.

Paid him.

Protected him.

Provided new identities in exchange for silence.

But perhaps protection had never been the point.

Alexander saw it too.

"Ramon may not have been hiding from the authorities."

Giovanni looked at him.

"He was hiding from whoever helped him disappear."

"And whoever that was kept finding him."

Elias’s face changed.

"Like whoever’s watching me."

Nobody needed to answer.

Gerald stayed for another hour. Giovanni offered him a cup of coffee.

"May I help myself to a glass of water instead?"

"Sure."

Gerald promised to search retired cellphones, old emails, photographs, storage drives, and anything else he still had from the logistics project.

"Give me a week, and I’d give you an update."

"For what it’s worth..."

Giovanni waited.

"I would’ve told you."

"If you’d known?"

"Yes."

Gerald swallowed.

"Especially if it involved your father."

Giovanni studied him.

Then nodded. "Gerald, keep digging discreetly. We don’t want to tip the hand of the maestro."

The private investigator would work separately on identifying the original caller.

It wasn’t much, but at least one of the larger questions hanging over them had finally been answered.

But it was a direction.

And directions could be followed.

That was enough for now.

Alexander looked at the pictures once more.

Elias remained several steps behind.

"What happens now?"

"We find whoever called Gerald," Giovanni said.

Alexander shook his head.

"Not today."

Giovanni turned.

Alex immediately raised a hand.

"That isn’t me taking over."

"Good start."

"Gerald needs time to find his records. So does the investigator. Until one of them gives us something, we’re staring at the same wall."

Giovanni couldn’t argue with that.

For once.

His phone vibrated.

He checked it.

Then frowned.

Alexander noticed.

"What?"

Giovanni turned the screen.

An invitation bearing their old high school crest filled the display.

ALUMNI HOMECOMING & CLASS REUNION

Alexander stared.

Then his own phone vibrated.

Same invitation.

Giovanni’s mouth slowly curved.

Alexander immediately distrusted it.

"No."

"I haven’t said anything."

"You smiled."

"So?"

"I remember high school. Nothing good followed that expression."

Another message arrived on Alexander’s phone.

This one came from an old classmate.

Please tell me you’re coming. Dominic already confirmed.

Alexander stopped.

Giovanni read over his shoulder.

His expression became suspiciously pleasant.

"Don’t."

"I still haven’t said anything."

"You don’t need to."

For the first time in days, the problem waiting for them had nothing to do with false identities, dead inspectors, anonymous surveillance, or Matteo Mercer.

It was considerably less dangerous.

Probably.

Alexander looked at the reunion invitation once more.

Then at Giovanni.

"Don’t."

Giovanni smiled.

And just like that, the dead inspector could wait until more concrete news arrived.