Chapter 12
Mateo’s apartment building lobby smelled like floor cleaner and somebody’s burned dinner. We sat at a narrow table beside the mailboxes, where the overhead light buzzed every few seconds. The promotional phone lay between us in a clear plastic bag, plugged into Mateo’s laptop with a cable June had brought from the gym.
We weren’t altering anything. Mateo had copied the original video once, then calculated the timestamp by comparing the file details with the lobby clock and the notes I’d made after the alley. I watched him enter each time into the submission index.
“Eight forty-three and twelve seconds,” he said.
“That matches when I came around the corner.”
He nodded but didn’t look at me. Since withdrawing from Damon’s gala presentation, he’d become careful in a new way—not distant, exactly, but conscious that every kindness could be mistaken for rescue.
He opened the phone’s notification history to confirm whether its internal clock had been off. Most entries had expired. One hadn’t.
Mateo leaned closer.
“What?” I asked.
He turned the screen toward me. A maintenance reminder had arrived while the alley recording was running.
VALE ATHLETICS: PROMO DEVICE CHECK-IN — CHARGING, STORAGE, LENS.
For a moment, none of us spoke. The radiator clicked behind June’s chair.
June took the phone without removing it from the bag and studied the label visible through the clear case: PROMO-3.
“That’s ours,” she said.
My breath caught.
She immediately raised a finger. “The label is ours. That doesn’t tell us who put it in the alley.”
“How many people could use it?” Mateo asked.
“Front desk staff. Coaches, if they signed one out. Damon. Sometimes event volunteers.” June set it down carefully. “Those phones were for program photos and donor posts. They weren’t assigned to one person.”
The first rush of certainty drained out of me. What remained was smaller but solid. Not proof of Damon’s hand. A link to his gym.
June opened the folder she’d carried under her raincoat. Inside were photocopies of inventory sheets, their boxes filled in with blue ink. She moved through them until she found the page dated the morning after the confrontation.
PROMO-3 — MISSING. LAST VERIFIED: PRIOR WEEK.
Below it, somebody had written, Check cabinets after gala prep.
“No signature?” I asked.
June shook her head. “That’s normal. Which is part of the problem.”
Mateo compared the serial number on the sheet with the number under the phone’s case. They matched.
I opened our evidence packet on my laptop. My fingers hovered over the keyboard before I created a new section: Circumstantial Device Link.
Mateo read over my shoulder as I typed.
The device label and serial number correspond to a Vale Athletics promotional phone. A Vale Athletics maintenance reminder was received during the recording period. Inventory paperwork marked that phone missing the following morning. These records do not establish who removed, positioned, or operated the device.
“Keep that last sentence,” June said.
“I’m keeping all of it.”
The admission hurt more than certainty would have. Damon could point to the gap and call the whole packet speculation. He could hold up my signed reports, show the edited alley clip, and say I’d built a story to escape consequences.
But hiding the weakness would make me more like him.
Mateo’s phone vibrated against the table.
He glanced at the screen, and something in his face closed.
“Damon?” I asked.
Mateo stood and walked toward the glass entry doors before answering. “Yeah.”
June looked at me, but neither of us followed. Rain dotted the sidewalk outside. Through the glass, I watched Mateo listen with one hand at his hip, shoulders still.
“No,” he said at last. Then, after a pause, “I understood you.”
He ended the call and stayed by the doors for several seconds. When he returned, he placed his phone beside the packet.
“He offered to restore my gala role,” he said.
June’s mouth tightened. “In exchange for what?”
Mateo looked at me. “He wants me to say Lena manipulated me. That she fed me the scheduling claims after the alley and pushed me to turn against him.”
The lobby seemed suddenly too public. An elevator opened behind us, and an older man crossed to the mailboxes without meeting our eyes.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“That I understood the offer.” Mateo’s voice remained level. “Then I said no.”
I searched his expression for anger or expectation. He gave me neither.
“Did he put it in writing?” June asked.
“No. He called.”
“Then document it while it’s fresh,” I said.
Mateo pulled out a chair and began writing the time, duration, and exact wording he remembered. I added his account to the packet under Pending Corroboration, not proof.
When I finished, I read the labels again: verified record, firsthand statement, inference, unresolved question.
The categories wouldn’t protect us from Damon. They might protect the truth from us.
May you like
Mateo signed his call note and slid it across the table. The gala was two nights away. Damon had stopped trying to persuade me.
Now he was testing what Mateo believed I was worth losing.
