One Night Stand novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Man at the Table

Mateo's POV

My cousin put down his fork very gently.

"Grandmother, I don't know who this man is."

"Yes, you do," said Eleanor. "You've paid him eight times."

The man in the camel coat took a napkin from the table and laid it across his knee.

He was not afraid, and that was the first thing I noticed.

He sat with his hands relaxed and his eyes on Preston.

"My name does not matter," he said. "My work does. I find people, and I hire them, and I leave no names on anything."

"Then why are you here?" I said.

"Because your cousin has stopped paying me, and I'd like to know why."

Preston gave a short laugh.

"This is absurd. Mateo, you're not going to take a criminal's word."

"I'm not taking his word," I said. "I'm taking yours.

"You told us the old security chief hired her."

"I was misinformed."

"You said it to our grandmother."

"Mateo..."

"Let him finish."

My voice came out lower than I expected.

I had spent four years afraid of a photograph, and I had never once looked at the man who sat beside me at every family dinner.

I looked at him now.

The fixer took a phone out of his coat and set it on the white cloth.

"Four weeks ago my office was broken into," he said. "The only things taken were one recording and one receipt.

"I keep two copies of everything. Insurance. Bank box, for the second one.

"This is the other."

He touched the screen.

A voice came out of the little speaker, thin and tinny and perfectly clear.

It was my cousin's voice, four years younger.

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