Chapter 4 - Ruben
I thought I had hallucinated the image.
Ruben was sixty-three.
White mustache.
Calloused hands.
Texas accent.
The man who had told me to “close every door to my life tight.”
Yet there he was inside my house.
I sent the footage to Samuel.
“Do you know him?” he asked.
“He sold me the ticket.”
Silence.
“Ethan, stay where you are.”
Too late.
I was already driving back toward the gas station.
Not heroically.
Not recklessly.
I called police first and told them where I was going.
Samuel cursed at me anyway.
When I arrived, the station was closed.
Strange for 5:30 p.m.
A handwritten sign said FAMILY EMERGENCY.
I waited in my car.
Two officers arrived.
We searched nothing ourselves.
The owner gave police access later.
Ruben was gone.
Employee files listed him as Ruben Alvarez.
Except the address was false.
Phone prepaid.
Emergency contact blank.
He had worked there eleven months.
Eleven.
Why would someone build an identity for nearly a year to sell one lottery ticket?
Maybe the ticket was coincidence.
Maybe my exhaustion was making everything look connected.
Then police reviewed the safe footage.
Ruben had removed one thing.
A red folder.
Not cash.
Not jewelry.
The folder contained documents from a medical logistics project I consulted on for Vithera three years earlier.
My work.
Why would he want that?
Samuel asked whether Mariana knew about the project.
“She knew I worked late.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Yes.
Mariana knew some of it.
Vithera had been one of our major vendors.
The project involved emergency supply-chain contracts during a hospital expansion network.
Millions of dollars.
At the time, I noticed inflated freight fees.
I raised concerns.
They were dismissed as rush surcharges.
Then I moved to another client.
I had kept copies because something felt wrong.
Old habit.
My father was an auditor.
Paper mattered in our house.
Samuel asked:
“Who at Vithera managed those contracts?”
I knew before I answered.
“Rodrigo.”
Of course.
Then another memory.
Mariana received her promotion soon afterward.
Director of Corporate Relations.
I had celebrated with champagne.
Never questioned timing.
My phone rang.
Mariana.
I answered.
“Ethan, where are you?”
“Why?”
“Rodrigo disappeared.”
“What?”
“He left the building. His assistant says he emptied his office.”
My pulse changed.
Then she whispered:
“I found something on my desk.”
“What?”
“A copy of your lottery ticket.”
I stared at the gas-station windows.
“Front and back?”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
The back carried my signature.
I had signed it at Samuel’s office.
Only after confirming the win.
Someone had photographed the ticket after I bought it.
After I signed it.
Meaning someone had been close enough to me today to access it.
Then Mariana said:
“There’s writing beneath the image.”
“What does it say?”
May you like
Her voice dropped.
You were never supposed to win.
