Chapter 15: January

I sat in the trailer with the pages on the plan table for forty minutes.

Outside, the crew was setting up for the day.

Somebody was playing cumbia on a phone.

At 7:15 the black pickup came through the gate.

I texted a single word.

"Trailer."

He came up the steps in his white hard hat with two coffees, one with too much sugar, the way I liked it.

He saw my face and stopped.

He saw the pages.

He put the coffees down on the filing cabinet very carefully.

"Lock the door," I said.

He locked it.

"Is that your signature?"

He didn't look at the page.

He didn't need to.

"Yes."

"When?"

"January. In Houston." His voice was flat and steady. He'd known this was coming.

"She came to my apartment with a folder. A stack of papers, thirty, forty pages. She said it was estate planning for the wedding."

"Insurance, wills, powers of attorney. She said sign where the flags are."

"And you signed."

"I signed. I didn't read it." He took his hard hat off.

"She's my mother. She sold houses for thirty years. I've been signing where her flags are since I was eighteen."

"You're an engineer, Mateo. You read the specs on a bolt."

"I know."

"You read everything."

"I know, Cass."

I picked up the director's consent.

My hands were shaking, so I put it down again.

"When did you know what it was?"

He was quiet.

"When?"

"September," he said.

"The week she brought out the codicil. I heard her on the phone with the lawyer."

"She said the holding company was already in place, all three directors signed. I went back and found the copy in my files."

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