Chapter 5 - THE NAME ON THE BLACKLIST|
Raymond's statement left Hazel with a question she was afraid to ask.
“Why was Rosa on that list?”
She stood in the middle of her damaged apartment while Detective Brooks examined the threatening photograph.
Raymond's voice came through her phone.
“Because Rosa witnessed something at the loading dock.”
“What?”
“I don't know everything yet.”
Hazel closed her eyes.
“Please don't tell me you're protecting me.”
There was a pause.
“No.”
“I'm telling you what I know.”
She leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Then start with the list.”
Raymond took a slow breath.
“Three months ago, I discovered someone had been moving cargo through one of our private docks without authorization.”
“Containers were arriving under false company names.”
“People were getting paid to overlook the paperwork.”
“Rosa worked in the ballroom.”
“How could she know?”
“The ballroom shares a service entrance with the old warehouse.”
Hazel remembered the northern loading bay.
Staff had always been told not to enter the restricted portion of the property.
Security men watched the corridor during major events.
But Rosa often checked the emergency exits before closing.
“She saw something there,” Hazel whispered.
“I believe so.”
“What did she report?”
“An unregistered shipment.”
“Two men carrying locked metal cases.”
“And one employee who disappeared shortly afterward.”
Hazel felt her stomach turn.
“Disappeared?”
“His name was Anthony Vale.”
Raymond paused.
“He was a warehouse clerk.”
“Twenty-six years old.”
“He reported the same shipment.”
Hazel closed her eyes.
“What happened to him?”
“His car was found near the river.”
“Was he killed?”
“We don't know.”
The answer sounded painfully inadequate.
Hazel looked toward the detective.
“Raymond, Rosa had a daughter.”
“I know.”
“A daughter who was planning breakfast with her.”
His voice tightened.
“I know.”
Hazel swallowed.
“You need to tell investigators everything.”
“I have.”
“All of it?”
There was a long silence.
Then Raymond said, “Everything that could help them investigate this fire.”
Hazel didn't like the distinction.
But she understood that Raymond had a history he wasn't proud of.
And that history wasn't going to vanish because she had pulled him out of a basement.
“I want Rosa's name cleared,” she said.
“It will be.”
“And I want to know why Vivian targeted her.”
“So do I.”
Hazel looked at the destroyed contents of her bedroom.
“Someone knows I'm helping you.”
“Yes.”
“Someone entered my home.”
“Yes.”
“And someone knows where I live.”
Raymond exhaled.
“Hazel, I'm going to ask you something.”
She almost laughed.
“Everybody seems to be asking me things.”
“I'd like you to stay somewhere secure until the police identify whoever threatened you.”
“Where?”
“Gabriel can arrange a hotel.”
Hazel considered it.
She didn't want to depend on Raymond.
But she also didn't want Mrs. Park threatened because strangers kept appearing at the laundromat.
“Only if Detective Brooks agrees.”
“She can choose the location.”
Hazel nodded slowly.
“Then yes.”
His relief was audible.
“Thank you.”
She frowned.
“For what?”
“For letting someone help.”
Hazel looked down at her hands.
They were still scratched from the basement stairwell.
“I'm not very good at that.”
Raymond's voice softened.
“Neither am I.”
That night, Hazel moved into a small hotel near the police precinct.
The room was ordinary.
A double bed.
A narrow desk.
A window overlooking a parking garage.
But the lock worked.
And Detective Brooks had personally verified the reservation.
Hazel should have felt safer.
Instead, she spent hours staring at the ceiling.
Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the fire alarm.
Then Rosa's voice.
Then the pounding beneath the basement door.
At two in the morning, she got out of bed and opened her laptop.
She searched for Anthony Vale.
The first result was a missing-person notice.
His mother had posted it seven weeks earlier.
The photograph showed a young man with sandy hair and a shy smile.
The caption said he loved baseball, his younger sister, and making terrible jokes.
Hazel stared at the screen.
He wasn't a name in a shipping ledger.
He was a person.
A person who had vanished after doing something Rosa had also done.
Reporting what he saw.
Hazel opened another article.
This one concerned an environmental inspection at a waterfront warehouse.
The report mentioned irregular documentation involving a company called North Harbor Logistics.
Hazel recognized the name.
She'd seen it on delivery trucks outside the ballroom.
She kept reading.
North Harbor Logistics was owned by a holding company.
That holding company was connected to an investment firm.
And one of its directors was a woman named Vivian Castellano.
Hazel sat upright.
She opened a notebook and wrote down the names.
North Harbor Logistics.
Vivian Castellano.
Anthony Vale.
Rosa Delgado.
Then she wrote a fifth name.
Raymond Castellano.
She stared at the list.
Something was missing.
The fire had been arranged to kill Raymond.
Rosa had died because the western exit failed.
Vivian had fled with a case.
And now someone was threatening Hazel.
But what could be important enough to justify all of it?
The next morning, Detective Brooks arrived with coffee.
Hazel showed her the notes.
The detective studied them.
“You've been busy.”
“I couldn't sleep.”
“Understandable.”
Hazel pointed toward the company name.
“Vivian has a financial connection to North Harbor.”
Detective Brooks nodded.
“We're examining that.”
Hazel looked surprised.
“You already knew?”
“We're working several leads.”
Hazel felt foolish.
Of course the police were investigating.
She wasn't the only person capable of finding public corporate records.
But Detective Brooks didn't dismiss her.
She sat opposite Hazel.
“There's something I want to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“You said Vivian's heel was broken.”
“Yes.”
“Which foot?”
“Left.”
“Did she limp?”
“Yes.”
“Was she carrying the shoe?”
“No.”
Hazel closed her eyes.
“She was still wearing it.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“The heel was missing.”
“The front of the shoe remained on her foot.”
Detective Brooks nodded.
“That helps.”
Hazel frowned.
“Why?”
“We recovered part of a designer shoe from the eastern corridor.”
Hazel's pulse quickened.
“Vivian's?”
“We're waiting for laboratory confirmation.”
“What about the black case?”
“Still missing.”
Hazel leaned forward.
“Do you think she escaped with it?”
The detective studied her.
“Yes.”
Hazel swallowed.
“And do you know what was inside?”
“Not yet.”
The detective closed her notebook.
“But we're making progress.”
Hazel stared at her.
“Then why do I feel like everything is getting worse?”
Brooks didn't answer immediately.
Then she said, “Because finding the truth often means learning the danger was larger than you first understood.”
Hazel looked toward the window.
“And what if the truth gets someone else killed?”
The detective's voice softened.
“That's why you came to us.”
“Let us do our jobs.”
Hazel nodded.
She knew the detective was right.
But she couldn't stop thinking about Marisol.
Later that afternoon, Hazel visited Rosa's apartment with Detective Brooks's approval.
Marisol opened the door wearing her mother's old cardigan.
The apartment smelled of cinnamon.
A half-finished puzzle remained on the dining table.
Rosa's reading glasses rested beside an open cookbook.
Hazel felt her chest tighten.
Marisol followed her gaze.
“I can't move anything.”
Hazel nodded.
“You don't have to.”
They sat at the kitchen table.
Marisol pushed a folder toward her.
“I found more work papers.”
Hazel opened it.
Shift schedules.
Pay stubs.
Copies of maintenance complaints.
And several photographs Rosa had taken with her phone.
One showed a damaged western door latch.
Another showed water leaking near a storage room.
The third showed a black delivery truck parked outside the loading bay.
Hazel leaned closer.
There was a man standing beside the truck.
His face was turned away.
But a symbol appeared on his jacket.
A silver bird with its wings spread.
Hazel frowned.
“I've seen that logo.”
Marisol looked up.
“Where?”
Hazel closed her eyes.
The evening of the fire.
The black sedan.
The man who stepped out after Vivian.
Someone near the entrance had worn a jacket with a small silver bird on the sleeve.
Hazel opened her eyes.
“Outside the ballroom.”
Marisol's expression changed.
“Are you sure?”
“I think so.”
They examined the photograph.
The man's hand rested against the truck.
He wore a distinctive ring.
A broad silver band with a dark stone.
Hazel had seen that ring too.
But not on Vivian's driver.
On one of Raymond's security men.
A man who had stood beside the hospital door.
Her stomach dropped.
“Marisol.”
The younger woman looked at her.
“What?”
“Did Rosa ever say someone inside Raymond's security team was helping the people at the loading dock?”
Marisol hesitated.
Then nodded.
“She said she couldn't trust the man with the black ring.”
Hazel's heart pounded.
“Did she give you a name?”
Marisol looked toward the hallway.
“She wrote it down.”
“Where?”
“In her recipe book.”
Hazel stared.
Marisol stood and retrieved the cookbook beside the stove.
She opened it near the middle.
Between two pages was a small note.
The handwriting was hurried.
BLACK RING.
SILVER BIRD.
MARCUS DANE.
Hazel felt the blood drain from her face.
Marcus Dane.
Raymond Castellano's head of security.
The man who had personally escorted her into the hospital.
The man who knew which hotel Detective Brooks had chosen.
And the man who had just sent her a text message.
MR. CASTELLANO WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU TONIGHT.
I'LL PICK YOU UP AT SEVEN.
Hazel stared at the screen.
Then she looked at Marisol.
“Don't answer the door for anyone.”
Marisol's face went pale.
“Why?”
Hazel showed her the note.
May you like
“Because I think your mother knew who helped start the fire.”
And somewhere inside Raymond Castellano's security team, the person who had betrayed him was still wearing a trusted man's uniform.
