Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO WAITED THREE YEARS
“WHY WOULD A STRANGER ASK FOR ME?”
I stood in Lorenzo's hallway, staring at Raymond Pike's message.
Mateo lowered his phone.
“He knows you discovered the microphones.”
“How?”
“He was the man wearing the catering jacket.”
My stomach dropped.
“The man who helped Camille?”
Mateo nodded.
I looked toward Lorenzo.
“Then why would I trust him?”
“You shouldn't,” Lorenzo answered. “Not without protection.”
He thought for a moment.
“Mateo and I will go with you. If Pike wants to speak, he can do it in front of us.”
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the back of Lorenzo's black SUV.
Before leaving, I'd called my mother.
She was watching my six-year-old son, Noah.
“Everything okay, honey?” she asked.
I stared through the windshield.
“Just a difficult night at work.”
“Don't forget you promised Noah pancakes tomorrow.”
“I remember.”
After my husband died eighteen months earlier, promises to Noah had become sacred.
I couldn't protect him from losing his father.
But I could make sure he never doubted his mother would come home.
The old Bayport inspection building stood beside an abandoned loading platform.
Raymond Pike waited beneath a flickering exterior light.
He was sixty-two, with tired eyes and hands roughened by decades of labor.
When he saw me, he removed his cap.
“Mrs. Mitchell. I'm sorry about what happened tonight.”
I stopped several feet away.
“You helped put those microphones in the flowers.”
“Yes.”
“And you watched that woman accuse me of stealing?”
His shoulders sagged.
“Yes.”
“Then you don't get to start with an apology.”
Lorenzo glanced at me.
Raymond looked ashamed.
“I deserve that.”
He explained that Vincent had hired him to investigate irregularities at the terminals.
To get close to Varga's circle, Raymond had taken temporary work with an event contractor.
Camille recognized him as a former employee but believed Varga had brought him back to help.
“She told me to move those flower arrangements,” Raymond said. “I saw the devices. I should've stopped her.”
“Why didn't you?” I asked.
“Because I wanted proof she was involved. I've been trying to prove someone covered up Isabella's death for three years.”
“You could have said something before I was humiliated.”
Raymond lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“Tell us what happened to my wife.”
Raymond opened a battered leather folder.
Inside were photographs, handwritten notes, and a yellowed employee time sheet.
“Isabella came to Gate Six at 8:40 that night,” he said. “She wanted to examine records showing money missing from the terminal workers' emergency assistance fund.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“What emergency fund?”
“The one that paid families when dockworkers were injured or killed.”
“Those accounts were audited every year.”
“By Anton Varga's department.”
Lorenzo went silent.
Raymond continued.
“Isabella discovered that claims were being paid on paper, but some families never received the money.”
I thought about my mother struggling to pay her mortgage.
About the bills I'd received after my husband's funeral.
The idea of someone stealing assistance meant for grieving families made my stomach turn.
“Isabella wanted to bring the records to you,” Raymond said.
“Why didn't she?”
“Because someone told her you already knew.”
Lorenzo took a step backward.
“Who?”
“That's what I couldn't prove.”
Raymond handed him a photograph.
It showed Isabella entering a warehouse on foot.
She wore the same cream-colored coat I'd seen in Lorenzo's office photograph.
In her right hand was a black notebook.
“She never drove into Gate Six that night,” Raymond said. “She parked outside and walked in.”
“But her car went into the water,” Mateo replied.
“Forty-three minutes later.”
Raymond placed another photograph beside the first.
It showed the same car moving through the terminal gates.
The driver's face wasn't visible.
But a man stood beside the vehicle.
Lorenzo leaned closer.
His expression changed.
“No.”
Raymond looked at him sadly.
“I'm sorry.”
I studied the photograph.
The man beside Isabella's car was wearing a dark overcoat.
In one hand, he held a set of keys.
Lorenzo touched the image.
“That's Vincent.”
Raymond nodded.
“He was there that night.”
Lorenzo looked as though someone had struck him.
“My brother told me he was home.”
“He wasn't.”
“Did you see him drive the car?”
“No. I saw him standing there. And I saw him arguing with someone.”
“Who?”
“The other person was outside the camera's view.”
Raymond opened the final page of his folder.
There was a handwritten note from Isabella.
Only six words.
If anything happens, protect Olivia first.
Lorenzo pressed his hand against his mouth.
Then Raymond spoke again.
“There's something you should understand. Vincent didn't just happen to be there.”
“What are you saying?”
Raymond pointed to the time sheet.
“Your brother signed into Gate Six sixteen minutes before Isabella arrived.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“Why would he go there before her?”
Raymond looked toward the dark terminal windows.
“Because somebody had called him.”
“Who?”
Raymond answered quietly.
“Your wife.”
May you like
Then he added something that changed everything.
“She told Vincent not to let you come to the terminal. She was afraid you were the next person they planned to destroy.”
