“Well, look who it is,” the old man said, breaking into a grin. “Rafael’s boy.”
“Hey, Mr. Pruitt.”
Walt Pruitt was seventy-three and had run the docks at Gull Point for nearly forty years. He had known Mateo’s father. When Mateo was a teenager, Walt had given him a summer job hosing down boat decks and coiling ropes for ten dollars an hour, cash. After Rafael died, Walt had never once let Mateo pay for a soda at the marina store.
“You look like you’re melting, son.”
“I am melting.” Mateo set down a box of marine supplies and held out his scanner. “Sign here?”
Walt scribbled. “Who else you got today?”
“A few slips. And one signature-required for slip forty-two. Whitlock?”
Walt’s grin disappeared. He leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath through his nose.
“Ah,” he said. “Mrs. Whitlock.”
“You know her?”
“Everybody knows her.” Walt glanced out the window toward the parking lot. “Let me give you some free advice, Mateo. Whatever that envelope is, you get the signature or you don’t, and either way, you leave. You don’t stand around. You don’t explain. You don’t let her get you talking.”
Mateo frowned. “Is she that bad?”
Walt was quiet for a moment. “Last summer, she accused one of my dock boys of scratching her husband’s boat. Kid was seventeen. Turned out she’d done it herself with her sunglasses case trying to step aboard in heels. Took two weeks and a lot of tears before anybody believed him.” He shook his head. “Before that, there was a landscaper. A waitress at the club. Always somebody.”
“And nobody did anything?”
“Her husband’s name is on the new clubhouse,” Walt said flatly. “Grant Whitlock. Builds those big condo towers down by the ferry. Gave the club two million dollars. That buys a lot of second chances.”
Mateo nodded slowly. He thought about the orange sticker on the envelope. ADULT SIGNATURE REQUIRED.
“Thanks, Mr. Pruitt.”
“Be careful, son.” Walt tapped the desk. “And park where my cameras can see you. Old habits.”
Mateo laughed, thinking it was a joke.
It wasn’t.
## Slip Forty-Two
The Whitlock boat was called *Second Wind*. It was sixty-eight feet long, gleaming white with dark blue trim, and it sat at the very end of the main pier like it owned the harbor.
Mateo walked the dock with the envelope in one hand and his scanner in the other. The boards were hot enough that he could feel them through his sneakers. A crew member in a white polo was polishing the chrome rail on the back deck.
“Delivery for Vanessa Whitlock,” Mateo said. “Signature required.”
The crew member, a young guy with a sunburned nose, looked at the envelope and visibly winced. “Uh. She’s not on the boat. She’s up in the lot. Getting stuff out of her car. The white Range Rover.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, man.” The crew member hesitated. “Good luck.”
That was the second time in ten minutes someone had warned him. Mateo walked back up the pier with a heavy feeling in his stomach. He told himself he was being silly. It was just an envelope. People got envelopes every day.
He moved his van first. He wanted to be close, so he could leave fast. He nosed it into a space along the fence, directly across the narrow lane from a white Range Rover with its rear hatch open. The two vehicles sat back to back, maybe twelve feet apart. Walt’s words stuck in his head, so he made sure the van was in plain view of the tall pole by the gate where a small black dome camera sat.
He checked his dashboard screen out of habit. Both cameras: recording.
Then he stepped out into the heat.
A woman stood at the back of the Range Rover, digging through a cooler. She was tanned and slim, somewhere in her mid-forties. She wore a bright green tank top and a pleated white tennis skirt. Her blond hair was twisted up in a tortoiseshell claw clip, and a pair of expensive sunglasses sat on top of her head. A thick gold watch hung loose on her wrist.
She did not look up.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Mateo said. “Are you Vanessa Whitlock?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Swiftline Parcel, ma’am. I have a delivery for you. It needs an adult signature.”
She finally turned. Her eyes went to his green shirt, then to his face, then to the envelope. He watched her read the return address. He watched every bit of color drain out of her cheeks, then come rushing back twice as red.
“No,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“No. I’m not signing for that. Take it back.”
Mateo nodded politely. “That’s okay, ma’am. You have the right to refuse it. I’ll just mark it as refused, take a quick photo for the record, and I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re not taking a photo of me.”
“Not of you, ma’am. Just of the envelope, at the location. It’s company policy.”
She stepped toward him. Up close, he could smell her perfume and something sharp underneath it. White wine, maybe. It was one-forty in the afternoon.
“Do you know who I am?” she said, her voice low and tight.
Mateo kept his face neutral. He had been asked that question before. He had learned there was no good answer.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I just deliver the packages.”
Vanessa Whitlock stared at him like he had insulted her mother.
“Let me tell you something,” she said. “My husband sent you, didn’t he? Grant sent you here on a Saturday, in front of everyone, so I’d be embarrassed at my own club.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know your husband. I got this envelope at the depot this morning. I’m just doing my job.”
“Your job.” She laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. “Your job is to carry boxes.”
A couple walking to their car slowed down to watch. An older man on a golf cart near the gate turned his head.
