Chapter 12: The Choice to Testify
My attorney didn’t reach for my phone. She waited until I turned the screen toward her.
“Don’t answer it yet,” she said. “Let’s document the message first.”
She noted the time, number, and exact wording, then photographed the screen with my permission. The text proved someone wanted me to believe my roommate was in danger. It did not prove who sent it—or whether Victor had anything to do with it.
That distinction didn’t make my hands stop shaking.
“I need to call her,” I said.
“We can use the number you already have for her. Don’t send your location, and don’t ask her to come here.”
I called the bakery. The phone rang four times before my roommate answered.
“Penny?”
Her voice was thin with worry. Behind it, I heard a lock turn.
“I’m here,” I said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m in the bakery. The doors are locked. I haven’t seen anyone outside, but I’m not pretending I’m calm.”
My throat tightened. “I’m sorry. Someone sent me a message saying they’d found you.”
“I got the strange delivery call before. I didn’t give the man anything. I haven’t told anyone when you’re coming.”
“Good. Don’t tell them now, either. Don’t go outside alone. If you see someone you don’t recognize, call for help.”
“I know.” She paused. “Penny, what’s happening?”
I glanced at my attorney. She gave me a small nod—not permission, exactly, but a reminder that the choice was mine.
“I’m dealing with a threat connected to some freight records. I can’t tell you who sent that message, because I don’t know. My attorney is documenting it and helping me report it.”
“Are you in danger?”
“I don’t know.”
The words came out flat and honest. They were the only ones I had.
“I wish you’d told me sooner,” she said.
“I know. I thought keeping you out of it would keep you safe.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you deserve to know enough to make your own choices.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Then I’m staying inside, and I’m calling someone I trust to sit with me,” she said. “You don’t have to solve this by yourself.”
I pressed my fingers against my eyes.
“Thank you.”
“Call me when you can. And, Penny?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re allowed to come to Iowa. You’re also allowed not to. Don’t let a threatening text make that decision for you.”
After we hung up, my attorney added the call and my roommate’s report to her notes. She explained that she could help make sure the threat was documented with the proper authorities, but she couldn’t promise that a report would identify the sender or guarantee my roommate’s safety.
Nothing was guaranteed. At least my roommate knew enough to take precautions, and I wasn’t pretending the message was proof of more than it was.
My attorney slid a fresh legal pad toward me.
“We should separate what you personally know from what you suspect,” she said. “You’ve seen records with inconsistencies. You’ve seen authenticated carrier records showing routing changes and a blank receiving confirmation. You know the Bellano entry was later completed using the lieutenant’s credentials. You do not know what was shipped, who entered the record, or who ordered every change.”
“I understand.”
“If you choose to make a statement, you can describe what you saw and how you recognized the paperwork. You don’t have to claim more than that.”
“And if they ask me to testify?”
“We’ll discuss any request with you before you decide. Nothing about cooperating requires you to give up control of your evidence or meet anyone alone.”
I looked at the copy of the carrier records in her folder. The material had survived the break-in at Bellano Tower because it had come from outside the company. But surviving was not the same as proving the whole story.
“I want to cooperate,” I said. “Through you. I want the records preserved and the threat reported. If investigators need me to explain what I saw, I’ll do it through the proper process.”
My attorney studied my face. “You’re sure?”
“No.” I took a breath. “But I’m choosing it anyway.”
The choice didn’t make me brave. It made me responsible for what I knew—and careful about what I didn’t.
I called Dominic from the office phone, not my cell. My attorney stayed beside me.
“I’m at my lawyer’s office,” I said when he answered. “You can come here if you’re willing to talk with her present. Alone. No security team.”
“I’ll come alone.”
“And don’t contact her directly.”
“I won’t.”
He arrived twenty minutes later. His face looked drawn, but he kept his hands visible and stopped by the door until I told him he could sit.
My attorney opened her folder.
“Mr. Bellano, Penny asked you to explain what you’re prepared to do about the company records.”
Dominic looked at me first. I didn’t nod or rescue him.
“I can provide the company records I have access to through counsel,” he said. “Receiving logs, routing records, internal approvals, system histories. Whatever exists, including material that implicates me.”
He paused.
“I don’t have the original ledger Victor is demanding.”
“Would you surrender company records voluntarily to investigators?” my attorney asked.
“Yes.”
“Even if they expose transfers you approved?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t ask me to tell investigators he was innocent. He didn’t ask me to describe him as a man who’d been tricked. He didn’t ask me to soften the truth.
That didn’t undo what he’d done. It did matter that, this time, he wasn’t asking me to carry the cost for him.
“I authorized transfers without full documentation,” he said. “I benefited from the fees. I chose not to ask enough questions. I can give investigators the records I have and tell them what I did. I can’t tell them what I don’t know.”
My attorney wrote that down.
“You understand that providing records does not guarantee immunity or a favorable outcome.”
“I understand.”
“Have you already surrendered anything?”
“No. My lawyer is arranging the contact. Nothing has been handed over yet.”
He kept his eyes on the table. His willingness to cooperate was still a promise, not a completed act.
“I’ve decided to give a statement about the records I personally handled,” I said. “My attorney will manage it. I’m not handing you my originals, and I’m not meeting the lieutenant.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “Understood.”
“I’m doing this because the truth matters. Not to save your companies.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to decide what that truth means for me or the baby.”
“I know that, too.”
My attorney began to respond, but Dominic’s phone vibrated against the table.
He didn’t pick it up.
“Do you want me to look?” he asked me.
It was a small question. It was also mine to answer.
“Yes.”
He turned the screen so we could see it without touching the phone.
The sender was saved under the warehouse title. Dominic stared at the number, his expression going still.
“Your lieutenant?” I asked.
“That’s the number I have for him.”
It could establish who Dominic believed was contacting him. It could not prove, by itself, who had sent the message.
A photograph was attached. I recognized Martin from the café. He stood beneath a metal sign marked CALUMET SIX. The image showed no timestamp I could verify, and it didn’t tell me how recently it had been taken.
The message below it did not leave much room for interpretation.
Martin is here. Bring the original ledger to Calumet Six at 11:30. Come alone, or he disappears before anyone can ask him a question.
My attorney leaned closer, careful not to touch the phone.
“Don’t answer,” she said. “We need to preserve this and contact the appropriate people.”
Dominic’s eyes stayed on the photograph.
May you like
The lieutenant had used Martin’s location—or an image meant to make us believe he had—to force Dominic into a confrontation.
And the clock on the office wall was already counting down to 11:30.
