Chapter 7 - The Missing Maintenance Worker
Mateo Alvarez had not disappeared.
He had been pushed out.
Leah found him in Aurora after two hours of searching public records.
He worked nights repairing refrigeration units for a grocery distributor.
He agreed to meet only after June called him herself.
We met inside a twenty-four-hour diner near the highway.
Mateo arrived ten minutes late.
He was forty-three, broad-shouldered, tired, and immediately suspicious when he saw me.
He did not shake my hand.
“You're Blackwell.”
“Yes.”
“You finally notice us?”
There was no good answer.
“I'm trying to.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Little late.”
June sat beside him.
“Mateo, please.”
He looked at her.
Then at me.
“I told them.”
“Who?”
“Mercer.”
“About the payroll?”
“About everything.”
Mateo reached into his jacket.
Marcus tensed beside the booth.
Mateo noticed.
“Relax.”
He pulled out a flash drive.
“This is why they fired me.”
I stared at it.
“What is it?”
“Copies.”
“Of?”
“Payroll records.”
He placed it on the table but kept two fingers on it.
“I maintained equipment at the corporate offices.”
“One night, a payroll supervisor left her computer unlocked.”
“You copied confidential files?”
“I copied my own file.”
He leaned forward.
“Then I copied my brother's.”
“Then my cousin's.”
“Then I realized everybody was being robbed.”
“How many files?”
“Hundreds.”
June whispered, “Why didn't you go to the police?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
Mateo looked at me.
“One of Blackwell's lawyers called me the next morning.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Name.”
“Frederick Sloan.”
I knew Sloan.
He had retired eighteen months earlier.
“What did he say?”
“That the files were proprietary.”
Mateo's mouth twisted.
“He said if I accused Blackwell publicly, I'd be sued for theft, breach of confidentiality, and defamation.”
“I never authorized that.”
“Didn't matter.”
He tapped the flash drive.
“Your name was on the letter.”
That was the moment the full architecture became clear.
Raymond had not just stolen beneath me.
He had used me as the weapon protecting the theft.
My reputation.
My lawyers.
My companies.
My name.
Workers were not afraid of Raymond Cross.
They were afraid of me.
Mateo finally released the drive.
“There are emails on there.”
Leah plugged it into an isolated laptop.
The files opened.
Spreadsheets.
Payment records.
Internal messages.
Then one email froze everyone at the table.
FROM: DANIEL MERCER.
TO: RAYMOND CROSS.
Alvarez is asking about actual disbursement numbers again.
Raymond's response was one sentence.
MAKE HIM UNDERSTAND WHO HE WORKS FOR.
Another email followed.
Mercer wrote that Mateo refused to sign a revised confidentiality agreement.
Raymond responded.
THEN HE NO LONGER WORKS FOR US.
Leah kept scrolling.
There were discussions about forged deductions.
Fake enrollment forms.
Terminations.
Threats.
And employee complaint letters.
Dozens of them.
Nearly every letter was addressed to me.
I had received none.
Mateo watched my face.
“You want to know the worst part?”
“What?”
“We kept writing because we thought if Mr. Blackwell knew, he'd stop it.”
I could not answer.
May you like
Mateo leaned back.
“Turns out the only person who didn't know what happened inside Blackwell Companies was Blackwell.”
