The engineer refused to watch the security video before examining the brake parts.
Daniel told me that was deliberate.
“He doesn’t want the footage influencing what he sees mechanically.”
We were sitting in a conference room at Serrano Group the morning after the recovered recording had shown Ramiro crouched beside Oscar’s scooter.
Oscar sat across from me with his cane hooked over the arm of his chair.
Valerie stood near the window.
“Good,” Oscar said.
I looked at him.
“You don’t want him to see it?”
“I want someone to tell me what happened to the brakes without knowing who I hate.”
That silenced me.
I had spent half the night replaying those four minutes in my head.
Ramiro crouching.
His hands near the rear wheel.
Standing.
Looking toward the camera.
Then, two days after Oscar’s crash, replacing the recorder and keeping the old equipment.
My anger wanted a simple explanation.
Sabotage.
But Daniel had been careful.
Ramiro could have been inspecting the scooter.
He could have been adjusting something.
He could have been doing exactly what Oscar had asked him to do after complaining about soft brakes.
Evidence was not the same thing as whatever story made us angriest.
“When will the engineer finish?” I asked.
“Possibly today,” Daniel said.
“Possibly.”
He gave me a tired look.
“You’ve become unbearable.”
Oscar smiled.
“He was always like this.”
“You barely knew me.”
“I knew enough.”
Valerie turned from the window.
“While we wait, there’s something else we need to discuss.”
I did not like her tone.
“What?”
“The prepaid accounts.”
My stomach tightened.
Investigators had traced more transfers overnight.
Money intended for workers had entered accounts associated with our names and then moved elsewhere.
Some went directly to Ramiro’s business.
Some disappeared through cash withdrawals.
But the pattern was more complicated than one man taking everything.
“One receiving account belongs to someone else,” Valerie said.
“Who?”
“Ramiro’s accountant.”
Oscar leaned forward.
“He had an accountant?”
“Apparently.”
I thought of the man Ramiro blamed whenever paperwork became inconvenient.
My accountant handles that.
I had assumed the accountant was an excuse.
“What’s his name?”
“Gerald Pike.”
Daniel slid a photograph across the table.
I recognized him immediately.
“He came to the diner.”
“How often?”
“Every few months.”
“What did he do?”
“Sat in Ramiro’s office. Took envelopes.”
Daniel glanced at Valerie.
“Cash?”
“I don’t know.”
Oscar picked up the photograph.
“I know him too.”
We looked at him.
“He visited me after the crash.”
My skin prickled.
“At the hospital?”
“No. At my apartment.”
“When?”
“Maybe a week later.”
“What did he want?”
Oscar’s expression hardened.
“He brought the money Ramiro promised.”
“For signing the statement?”
“Yes.”
Daniel immediately opened his notebook.
“Did he say where the money came from?”
“No.”
“Did you sign anything for him?”
“A receipt.”
“For how much?”
Oscar told him.
Daniel wrote it down.
“Do you still have it?”
Oscar shook his head.
“Probably not.”
“Look anyway.”
“I will.”
I stared at Gerald Pike’s photograph.
“So Ramiro wasn’t doing this alone.”
“We don’t know the extent of Pike’s involvement,” Daniel said.
“Money went into his account.”
“That establishes a financial connection. Not necessarily knowledge of every false representation.”
“You should put that sentence on a shirt.”
Oscar laughed.
Daniel did not.
Valerie almost did.
The meeting ended because I had work.
That mattered to me.
The investigation could consume every hour if I allowed it.
Marcus had already made his position clear.
“You’re employed to drive, not solve crimes.”
So at eleven, I was back at the fleet center learning route-management software.
My first attempt was terrible.
I accidentally assigned myself two vans.
Marcus looked at the screen.
“You planning to drive both?”
“I like options.”
“Fix it.”
I did.
By lunchtime, I could build a route, record a vehicle inspection and document a failed delivery without asking for help.
Small victories.
Normal victories.
I needed them.
During lunch, Matthew’s school called.
Every fear in my body activated before the secretary finished saying hello.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, Mr. Mendez Ortiz.”
I sat down.
“What happened?”
“He needs his inhaler authorization updated.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
I laughed from relief.
The secretary sounded confused.
“Sorry.”
“No problem.”
I promised to bring the clinic paperwork the next morning.
When the call ended, Marcus was standing nearby.
“Kid?”
“Yes.”
“Sick?”
“Getting better.”
He nodded.
“My daughter had asthma growing up.”
“Really?”
“Spent half her childhood terrifying me.”
“What helped?”
“Getting older. Good doctors. Me learning not to panic every time she coughed.”
I smiled.
“I’m still working on that.”
“You will.”
Then he walked away.
It was the first personal thing Marcus had told me.
At three, Daniel texted.
ENGINEER FINISHED INITIAL EXAMINATION. 5 PM.
Oscar and I arrived separately.
The engineer was a woman named Dr. Nina Shah.
She placed photographs of the brake components on the conference table.
No drama.
No buildup.
“The rear hydraulic system had a significant leak.”
Oscar’s jaw tightened.
“Before the crash?”
“I can’t date the initial failure to an exact day.”
She pointed to corrosion and residue.
“But this was not a failure that developed suddenly during the later buyer’s first ride.”
“So it existed when I crashed.”
“It almost certainly existed by then.”
Oscar closed his eyes.
I asked, “Would someone inspecting the scooter notice?”
“That depends on the inspection.”
“What if they crouched beside the rear wheel for four minutes?”
Daniel gave me a warning look.
Dr. Shah did not react.
“If they knew what to look for, leakage could have been visible.”
Oscar leaned forward.
“I told Ramiro the brake lever felt soft.”
“That would be consistent with hydraulic pressure loss.”
“He said he fixed it.”
“What repair did he claim to make?”
“I don’t know. He just said it was handled.”
Dr. Shah nodded.
“Then I can’t tell you what he did.”
Daniel finally showed her the recovered video.
She watched once.
Then again.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Not enough.”
My frustration rose.
“He’s touching the brake.”
“He appears to be working near the rear assembly.”
“Can you tell what he’s doing?”
“No.”
Oscar stared at the screen.
“What would four minutes be enough to do?”
“Several things.”
“Repair the leak?”
“Not properly.”
That changed the room.
“Why?” Valerie asked.
“The failed components required replacement. A temporary adjustment might alter brake feel, but it would not correct the underlying hydraulic failure.”
Oscar’s hand tightened around his cane.
“So he could have made it seem fixed.”
“Possibly.”
Daniel asked, “Could someone intentionally cause the failure shown?”
Dr. Shah answered carefully.
“Some forms of deliberate damage could create hydraulic loss.”
I felt my pulse rise.
“But?”
“But the physical evidence I examined does not establish deliberate sabotage.”
Oscar looked at me.
There it was.
Not the answer anger wanted.
Dr. Shah continued.
“What the components do establish is that the system was unsafe and had likely been deteriorating for some time.”
“And if the owner had been told the brake was soft?” Daniel asked.
“That should have prompted a proper inspection and repair before further operation.”
Oscar looked down.
For four years he had wondered whether he imagined the warning signs.
Now a mechanical engineer was telling him he had not.
That mattered.
After Dr. Shah left, Oscar remained seated.
“You okay?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“No.”
No categories this time.
Just no.
Valerie gave us the room.
Daniel followed her.
I sat across from Oscar.
“He knew something was wrong.”
“Probably.”
“I told him.”
“Yes.”
“He looked at it.”
“The video shows that.”
“And then he sent me out.”
“Yes.”
Oscar stared at his hands.
“I spent four years wondering if I caused it.”
“You didn’t.”
“I rode too fast.”
“You were making a delivery.”
“I took Harbor Road because it was quicker.”
“You were making a delivery.”
“I should have—”
“Oscar.”
He looked at me.
“You told him the brakes were bad.”
His face tightened.
“That was his chance.”
Oscar swallowed.
“He visited me in the hospital and acted like he was helping.”
“I know.”
“He brought flowers.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
I waited.
“He stood beside my bed with flowers and made me sign a lie.”
I had no answer for that.
After several minutes, he wiped his face.
“Don’t tell Lupita I cried.”
“I will immediately tell Lupita you cried.”
He laughed despite himself.
“Jerk.”
“There he is.”
That evening I picked up Matthew from Mrs. Petra.
He wanted pizza.
I said we had food.
He said pizza was food.
Mrs. Petra sided with him.
Traitor.
We bought one small pizza.
For the first time in months, I paid without calculating whether the purchase would cost us something essential later.
The new salary had not made us rich.
It had simply moved ordinary choices back into the category of ordinary.
That felt luxurious.
While Matthew ate, my phone rang.
Valerie.
“Gerald Pike contacted our lawyers.”
I put down my slice.
“Ramiro’s accountant?”
“Yes.”
“What does he want?”
“Immunity.”
“Can your lawyers give him that?”
“No.”
“Then why call?”
“He wants to cooperate.”
My stomach tightened.
“Against Ramiro?”
“He says Ramiro instructed him to create the prepaid accounts.”
“That’s useful.”
“It is.”
“But?”
Valerie was silent.
“What’s the but?”
“He claims Ramiro didn’t keep all the money.”
I frowned.
“We know some went to Pike.”
“That’s not what he means.”
“Then what?”
“He says part of the money was used to make payments to someone connected to vendor approvals.”
I stopped chewing.
“At Serrano Group?”
“That’s what Pike alleges.”
The room seemed to shift.
“Someone in your company was helping Ramiro?”
“We do not know that.”
“Who?”
“He hasn’t named the person yet.”
“Why not?”
“He wants legal protection before giving a full statement.”
I looked at Matthew.
He was pulling cheese from his pizza in long strings.
“So this might not just be Ramiro stealing from workers.”
“No.”
“Someone may have been taking money to approve his invoices.”
“Yes.”
I remembered the anonymous message.
Why did Serrano keep paying him for two years?
Suddenly it sounded less like Ramiro trying to redirect blame.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out.”
“Does your board know?”
“They will tonight.”
“Are you in trouble?”
A pause.
“Possibly.”
Her use of the word almost made me laugh.
“You said possibly.”
“I spend too much time with lawyers.”
“Apparently.”
Then her voice became serious.
“Julian, if anyone contacts you claiming to work for Serrano Group, verify them through me or Daniel.”
My smile disappeared.
“Why?”
“Because if Pike is telling the truth, someone inside my company may have known workers weren’t receiving the money.”
I stared at the business card still pinned beside Matthew’s prescription on the wall.
The bracelet had led me to Valerie.
Valerie had led us to Ramiro’s records.
Now those records were pointing back toward Serrano Group itself.
For the first time, I wondered whether the person most threatened by the truth might not be my former boss at all.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Gerald Pike Finally Named the Person Inside Serrano Group, and Valerie Discovered the Fraud Had Been Protected From Her Own Office
The Bracelet in the Discarded Bag Was Worth More Than Everything I Owned, and My Son Needed Medicine Before Morning
Part 9 of 27
