Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN JONAH BURIED
Jonah did not blink.
“My aunt died twelve years ago.”
Mateo looked miserable.
“You were told she died.”
“By whom?”
Mateo said nothing.
Jonah's voice turned deadly.
“By whom?”
“Arturo.”
The answer seemed to hollow out the room.
Stella had watched Jonah endure spasms without screaming.
She had watched Victor humiliate him.
She had watched him learn his father secretly gave Mateo half a company.
Nothing hit him like this.
“My father told me Rosa died in Argentina.”
“She left.”
“Why?”
“Because she discovered what Victor was doing.”
Frankie stepped forward.
“What was Victor doing twelve years ago?”
Mateo looked at Jonah.
“Moving girls through the harbor.”
Silence.
Even Frankie looked shocked.
Jonah's face hardened.
“No.”
“I saw the records.”
“You were seventeen.”
“Eighteen.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I told Arturo.”
“What did he do?”
“He shut the route down.”
Stella felt sick.
Victor's illegal import business had never been just goods.
Jonah apparently hadn't known.
Mateo continued.
“Rosa wanted Victor exposed. Arturo wanted it handled quietly.”
“Why?”
“Because exposing Victor exposed everyone.”
Including Arturo.
Including the organization Jonah would inherit.
“Rosa threatened to go to authorities,” Mateo said. “Then she disappeared.”
“And Dad told me she died.”
“Yes.”
Jonah looked toward Frankie.
“You knew?”
Frankie shook his head.
“I swear.”
For once, Jonah believed him immediately.
“Where has Rosa been?”
Mateo pulled out his phone.
“Witness protection for several years. After that, I don't know.”
“You were in contact?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know she's alive?”
“Because she contacted me after you were shot.”
Everything turned.
“She said Victor was looking for Arturo's original manifests.”
“The real ledgers,” Stella said.
Mateo nodded.
“Arturo hid them because they documented the trafficking shipments and everyone who helped conceal them.”
Jonah's voice was rough.
“And the brass key?”
“Rosa said Arturo gave it to you before he died.”
Jonah frowned.
“I don't remember that.”
“Maybe you didn't know what it opened.”
Frankie looked at Stella.
“You bagged it at the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Then somebody took it after.”
Probably the same person who later copied Mateo's rosary key trying to reach Arturo's old storage locker.
Victor.
Or someone working for him.
But if Victor had the brass key, why was he still searching?
Because it did not open Arturo's locker.
It opened something else.
Stella searched her memory again.
The woman in the camel coat.
Rosa.
She had asked about Jonah's belongings.
Yet she hadn't taken the key.
At least not while Stella watched.
“Why put me here?” Stella asked.
Mateo looked at her.
“Maybe Rosa did.”
Jonah's eyes narrowed.
Stella laughed.
“That is not comforting.”
Frankie contacted the caregiving agency again.
They traced the request.
The call had been paid through a prepaid service.
No name.
But the caller knew Stella's employment history.
Knew she worked the trauma intake the night Jonah arrived.
Knew she was broke enough to accept an unpleasant private-care assignment.
Somebody had researched her.
Stella felt violated.
Then something occurred to her.
“The car.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The tracker was installed before I started here.”
“If Rosa selected you,” Jonah said, “she may have wanted to keep track of you.”
“That's supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She stood.
“I want out.”
Jonah's face changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
“You're resigning?”
“I don't know.”
“You said out.”
“Out of being manipulated.”
She looked at Mateo.
“By your aunt.”
Then Frankie.
“By whoever planted my certificate.”
Then Jonah.
“And definitely by you.”
His jaw tightened.
“I haven't lied since—”
“You lied about the ledgers on day one of this mess.”
“To Victor.”
“You didn't tell me they were fake until guns left the foyer.”
He had no defense.
Stella picked up her tote.
“I'm going home tonight.”
Jonah's gaze dropped.
“I'll send security.”
“No.”
“Stella.”
“I need one night where nobody with a gun knows where I sleep.”
His face went still.
Then he nodded.
“Frankie will drive you.”
“I have a functioning car now.”
“Barely.”
“Emotionally, we're both doing badly, and nobody's replacing you.”
A reluctant smile almost reached his mouth.
She left anyway.
At her apartment, Stella showered for twenty minutes.
Then she sat on the floor in sweatpants eating cereal from a mixing bowl.
Normal.
She wanted normal.
No guards.
No guns.
No billion-dollar house with a miserable man hiding in the dark.
Her phone remained silent.
Jonah respected her request.
That somehow made her miss him more.
She hated that.
While putting away her tote, she found a small tear in the inner lining.
Something hard had slipped beneath the fabric.
Stella frowned.
She cut two stitches.
A tiny brass key fell into her palm.
She stopped breathing.
“No.”
She recognized it immediately.
The hospital key.
The one she had sealed with Jonah's belongings six months ago.
Someone had hidden it inside her bag.
Not recently.
The lining had been repaired with thread that didn't match.
She turned the key over.
A number was stamped on one side.
And underneath it:
HARBOR UNION STATION.
Not the docks.
A railway station.
Stella called Jonah.
He answered immediately.
“What happened?”
No hello.
Of course.
“I found the key.”
Silence.
“Where?”
“In my tote.”
“When did you put it there?”
“I didn't.”
“Don't move.”
“Jonah—”
“Stella.”
His voice cracked.
For the first time, she heard pure fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
“I am coming.”
“You cannot storm into my building in a wheelchair.”
“Watch me.”
Twenty minutes later Frankie carried Jonah's portable ramp up Stella's front steps while Jonah insulted the architecture.
It would have been funny under different circumstances.
Stella showed them the key.
Frankie searched the station number.
Locker 417 still existed in the old Harbor Union terminal.
The station had been mostly converted into retail space, but several historic lockers remained under private lease.
Jonah looked at Stella.
“We go tomorrow.”
She shook her head.
“We go with people who don't bring suppressed pistols.”
He almost objected.
Then stopped.
Progress.
The next morning, with Frankie, Mateo and two trusted security men nearby, Jonah rolled through Harbor Union.
Locker 417 was narrow.
Old brass.
The key turned.
Inside sat one object.
A brown leather-bound book.
Arturo's handwriting covered the first page.
Names.
Dates.
Shipments.
Payments.
The real harbor ledger.
Mateo exhaled.
“We found it.”
“No,” Stella said.
She pointed inside the locker.
There was something beneath the ledger.
A sealed envelope.
Jonah opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Arturo and Rosa taken only weeks before his death.
On the back:
Jonah—
If you are reading this, then Rosa was right and I waited too long.
Victor is not the only danger.
The betrayal is inside our family.
Jonah went still.
At the bottom Arturo had written one name.
Mateo.
Stella looked up.
May you like
Mateo was standing ten feet away.
And he was staring at the letter like a man who had just seen his own execution notice.
