“Not the coffee?”
His eyes lifted.
“No.”
“Good.”
I turned back to the screen, aware that he was still looking at me.
Teresa arrived at lunchtime carrying pastries nobody needed.
Dominic frowned immediately.
“You should not be here.”
“And yet the elevator survived me.”
She joined me beside a service door.
“My son has been hovering.”
“I noticed.”
“He prefers protecting.”
Dominic stood behind us.
“Ma.”
Teresa ignored him.
“He became worse after his father died.”
I glanced toward him.
“There was a security warning that evening.”
Teresa’s voice softened.
“Someone ignored an order. Dominic convinced himself afterward that if everyone simply obeyed him, nobody he loved would ever die again.”
“Ma.”
“She already knows you’re difficult.”
Then Teresa walked away.
I looked at Dominic differently after that.
Control had not begun only as arrogance.
It had begun as grief.
That did not make it harmless.
But it explained the shape.
We ate lunch at a temporary desk overlooking the river.
Dominic set coffee near my elbow.
I looked at it.
“Black?”
“You drank it black yesterday.”
“You remembered.”
“I remember useful information.”
“That line is getting less impressive with repetition.”
He ignored me.
His eyes dropped toward the handbook sticking from my tool bag.
Certified Forensic Security Examiner — Candidate Guide.
“You’re studying?”
“Eventually.”
“You’re already doing the work.”
“Doing pieces of it and being qualified to sign a forensic report are different things.”
“What stops you?”
“Required hours.”
“Course fees.”
“Running my shop at the same time.”
He looked across the river.
“You want a bigger company?”
“My company bigger, maybe.”
“Different thing.”
“Yes.”
“You could make more working for a firm like mine.”
“I could also spend the rest of my career being told which answer senior management would prefer.”
His gaze moved back.
“So what do you want?”
I tapped the handbook.
“A shop people hire because they want the truth before they decide what to do with it.”
Dominic nodded.
No offer to pay tuition.
No job.
No promise to solve me.
I noticed that.
My phone vibrated.
An internal Caruso alert appeared on-screen.
I should never have received it.
RESTRICTED ACCESS EVENT — WEST WAREHOUSE.
Credential holder:
REBECCA LANE.
I went cold.
“I do not have a Caruso credential.”
Dante checked his tablet.
“Used six minutes ago.”
“At the west loading bay.”
Dominic stopped looking at the screen.
He looked at me.
Suspicion entered so subtly another person might have missed it.
I did not.
“Good.”
I said.
His brow lowered.
“Good?”
“Now we learn something important.”
“What?”
I packed my notebook.
“Whether you trust evidence or whatever scares you first.”
By midnight my name existed in three places it had never belonged.
A warehouse credential.
A restricted-key control record.
An invoice.
Dante laid the documents across the conference table.
The credential had been used while Dominic, Dante, and a dozen cameras could place me at Harbor Line.
That helped.
The rest looked worse.
A restricted blank had been found in my van.
Then the invoice.
LANE LOCK & ACCESS.
My real address.
My tax identification number.
A scanned version of my signature.
Eighteen thousand dollars supposedly paid to me by a subcontractor connected to Sentinel for “Caruso access mapping.”
I read the banking details.
“That isn’t my account.”
Dominic sat across from me.
“Can you prove that?”
The question hurt more than I expected.
“Can you prove it is?”
“We have a credential in your name.”
“A restricted key in your vehicle.”
“An invoice using your business.”
“And every one appeared after I started connecting Sentinel to your problem.”
“That doesn’t make them false.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“It makes them suspicious.”
I reached toward the evidence bag.
Dante caught my wrist.
Dominic’s voice snapped across the room.
“Let her go.”
Dante released me immediately.
I looked at the blank without touching it.
“Read the manufacturer series.”
Dante did.
“That code entered regional distribution this month.”
I looked at Dominic.
“My last legitimate service at any Caruso property before your mother called me was seven weeks ago.”
His face changed slightly.
“Verify manufacture date.”
Dante left.
For several long seconds, Dominic stood at the window.
Then:
“Revoke Rebecca’s access.”
My stomach dropped.
“All properties.”
“Her van stays.”
“Tools inventoried.”
“You are making a mistake.”
“I’m containing risk.”
“No.”
“You’re containing me.”
Security entered.
When one man reached for my tool bag, I grabbed it first.
“Nobody dumps my livelihood into a storage locker.”
Dominic turned.
“Rebecca—”
“Every tool photographed.”
“Serial numbers where present.”
“Two-person inventory.”
“Tamper seals.”
“Signed custody log.”
“If you are taking my property because you are frightened, at least do it in a way that proves what happened to it.”
He stared at me.
Then told the guards:
“Do it her way.”
That should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
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