Mafia Boss’s Mother Said, “Someone Broke In”—But the Plus-Size Locksmith Saw the Lock

PART 2 — DOMINIC THOUGHT SOMEONE WAS ATTACKING HIS BUILDINGS; THE REAL PLAN WAS TO MAKE HIM PANIC, REPLACE HIS ENTIRE SECURITY SYSTEM, AND HAND THE KEYS TO THE PERSON SABOTAGING HIM

The Chestnut maintenance supervisor looked as though he wanted to dissolve into the brick wall.

Dominic ignored him.

“Who had access to this door?”

The supervisor swallowed.

“Maintenance. Cleaning. Security. Contractors. Deliveries, depending on the week.”

Dominic looked at Dante.

“Pull every name.”

“No.”

Dante closed his eyes briefly.

Dominic turned toward me.

“You enjoy that word.”

“I enjoy preventing expensive men from chasing the wrong problem.”

His expression chilled.

“If somebody had access, I need the names.”

“You could spend two days interrogating eighty people who touched a keycard.”

“And?”

“And whoever staged this gets exactly what they wanted.”

I pointed toward the lock.

“They didn’t steal anything. They didn’t even damage the door enough to stop it working. Why?”

Dominic said nothing.

“Find motive before population.”

Dante looked at his boss.

“Security review is tomorrow.”

I looked at him.

“What review?”

“Quarterly contractor review.”

“Scheduled when?”

“Months ago.”

I glanced at the staged lock.

“Convenient.”

The next Caruso property was a restored nineteenth-century warehouse overlooking the Delaware River.

Employees stood when Dominic entered.

Nobody asked them to.

That told me more about him than the armed guards did.

A silver-haired man crossed the lobby.

“Dominic.”

“Marco.”

The family resemblance was subtle—same dark eyes, similar jaw—but Marco Caruso wore warmth where Dominic wore restraint.

He looked at my red tool bag.

“So this is the locksmith making my cousin’s evening interesting.”

“Rebecca Lane.”

“I usually charge extra for interesting.”

Marco smiled.

Dominic did not.

Marco placed a folder on the conference table.

“Sentinel Access submitted an emergency replacement plan.”

I opened it.

Twenty-seven Caruso properties.

Door counts.

Hardware families.

Labor estimates.

Priority schedules.

Every page professionally prepared.

Too professionally prepared.

“How long did Sentinel need to build this?”

Marco shrugged.

“Standing proposals are normal.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Dominic took the folder.

The proposal date sat near the bottom.

Three weeks earlier.

Before Teresa’s door had supposedly been breached.

I turned another page.

One project appeared repeatedly.

HARBOR LINE — PRIORITY ONE.

“What is Harbor Line?”

“My largest redevelopment.”

Dominic said.

“Six riverfront blocks.”

Marco leaned against the table.

“Which is exactly why we cannot leave compromised hardware in place.”

I looked at him.

“How did Sentinel know which hardware was compromised before the first compromised lock existed?”

His smile faded.

Dominic’s eyes moved from Marco to the document.

“Who requested the proposal?”

“I introduced Sentinel after our current contractor missed several service deadlines.”

“That explains why they priced work.”

I tapped the equipment schedule.

“It does not explain why they appear to have preselected replacement cylinders matching doors that had not failed.”

Marco looked toward Dominic.

“You’re allowing a locksmith to audit procurement?”

Dominic did not look away from me.

“What do you need?”

“Purchase orders.”

“Distributor reservations.”

“Shipping records.”

“Anything showing when Sentinel started acquiring this hardware.”

Marco exhaled.

“This is excessive.”

“So are three armed men surrounding somebody repairing a door.”

Dante coughed.

Dominic’s mouth almost moved.

Almost.

“Get her the records.”

Someone set a wrapped sandwich beside my hand forty minutes later.

I looked up.

Dominic.

“I didn’t order food.”

“No.”

“Is this an order?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I opened it.

Roast beef.

Mustard.

No mayonnaise.

“You guessed?”

“You refused mayonnaise on the coffee-shop sandwich at Chestnut.”

I stared at him.

“You remember food orders during security emergencies?”

“I remember useful information.”

It sounded arrogant.

It also sounded strangely human.

Dante returned with a tablet.

“Keystone Industrial Supply confirmed Sentinel reserved enough retrofit kits for nineteen properties.”

“When?”

I asked.

“Two days before Teresa’s event.”

I stopped chewing.

Dominic leaned closer.

“Anything else?”

“One allocation code.”

Dante enlarged the screen.

HL-47.

Harbor Line.

I set down the sandwich.

“So somebody ordered the solution before the problem existed.”

The room went quiet.

By eight the next morning, I had procurement records spread across a Caruso conference table.

I had slept three hours.

Dominic looked as though he had slept none.

“You’ve been here since six.”

“You had someone downstairs checking?”

“I asked reception.”

“That is less disturbing.”

His gaze moved to the pages.

“What do you have?”

“Sequence.”

Sentinel’s hardware reservation came first.

Teresa’s staged lock came later.

Chestnut after that.

The emergency proposal followed the discovery of both incidents even though much of the replacement equipment was already reserved.

“Who placed the original order?”

“Facilities consultant using an active Caruso project code.”

“Which one?”

“HL-47.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened.

“Find him.”

“No.”

His stare sharpened.

“Again?”

“If you frighten the middleman before we preserve the records, whoever sits above him learns exactly what we know.”

Dante spoke carefully.

“We can watch him.”