Chapter 4
The diner smelled like coffee, fryer oil, and rain drying on the sidewalk. I arrived early and chose the table beside the front window, where I could see the parking lot without sitting with my back exposed. Mateo had agreed to meet in public. He'd also agreed not to bring anyone, not to touch me, and not to ask for more than I was ready to give.
I kept my copied reports inside a plain manila envelope on the seat beside me.
When Mateo came in, he paused just inside the door. Light shirt, damp at the shoulders, hands visible. He looked toward the counter, then found me. He didn't smile.
That helped.
He crossed the room and stopped beside the table. “Is this still okay?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me across from you?”
“I wouldn't have picked this table if I didn't.”
He sat across from me, leaving the space between our knees clear. A waitress brought him coffee before he ordered. She knew him from the gym, apparently, and called him by his first name. He thanked her, then waited until she moved away.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. The window reflected us over the street: my dark jacket, his pale shirt, the gray sky between our faces.
Mateo took out a phone and set it on the table. The case was cracked along one corner.
“This isn't the original,” he said. “The original stays with me.”
I nodded.
He slid the phone toward me. “I made a copy this morning. It has the full file.”
I didn't touch it immediately. “How do I know you didn't cut this one?”
“You don't.”
The answer landed harder than a promise would have. He turned the screen on and opened the recording.
The alley appeared in a wide, shaky frame. The camera was low, hidden near a stack of broken pallets. The image caught the mouth of the alley, the loose pipe, and the strip of dusk above the buildings. At the beginning, the space was empty.
Then the timestamp moved.
I watched the seconds pass. The camera had started before I entered. Before Mateo stepped from the shadows. Before either of us had a reason to know the other was there.
My hand tightened around the edge of the table.
“That proves somebody expected us,” I said.
“It proves the phone was placed before we arrived.”
“Not who placed it.”
“No.”
He let the silence sit there instead of filling it with suspicion. That made it easier to keep watching.
On the recording, Mateo took the distracting step toward the pipe. My gaze dropped. Then I looked back up, and whatever he'd been about to do stopped. The clip continued past the moment that had been posted. Mateo backed away. I left through the opposite end of the alley.
No fight. No clean villain. Just two people maneuvered into a frame.
Mateo closed the video. “Damon told me you were going to accuse me of falsifying the program hours.”
I looked at him. “When?”
“Before I went to the alley.”
“Why would he tell you that?”
“He said you'd been collecting proof and wanted to make me the face of it. He said if I confronted you first, I could protect myself.”
The coffee in front of me had gone untouched. “And you believed him?”
“I believed enough of it to show up.”
That was worse than if he'd said yes without hesitation. “You thought I was trying to ruin you.”
“I thought you were scared. I didn't know what you were scared of.”
I opened the envelope and took out one copied attendance report. The numbers sat in neat rows, too ordinary to look dangerous.
“The attendance totals are false,” I said. “Some of them. I signed reports I knew weren't accurate.”
His eyes moved from the page to my face.
“Damon pressured me,” I continued. “He said the foundation would cut hours if the numbers dropped. He said the kids would lose the program. I told myself I was protecting the gym.”
“But you knew.”
“Yes.”
The word stayed between us. I felt my throat tighten, but I didn't look away.
Mateo leaned back. “Did you change the schedules?”
“No. I only signed the reports.”
“Who could change them?”
“I don't know yet.”
Outside, a delivery truck rolled past, blocking the window for a moment. When it cleared, the parking lot looked different, though nothing had changed.
I pulled out another page. “The reports use totals from different schedule periods. If we compare them to the scheduling tablet, we might find where the numbers were altered.”
Mateo looked at the phone, then at the papers. “We both have access to different parts of that system.”
“Then we investigate together.”
He considered that. “Together doesn't mean I take your word for everything.”
“It can't.”
“And it doesn't mean you decide what I get to see.”
“I know.”
He reached for the phone and locked the screen. “I'll keep the original. You keep the reports. We compare the schedules before either of us goes to the foundation.”
I nodded, though fear had already started its slow return.
May you like
For the first time since the alley, Mateo wasn't looking at me like an accusation or a threat. He was looking at me like a problem he couldn't solve alone.
Neither of us noticed the woman in the booth near the kitchen glance over when he said the word “schedules.” But she heard it. I saw her turn back to her breakfast, one hand resting on a small black tablet beside her plate.
