Chapter 8: What Marcus Was Hiding
The contractor's name was Ray Solis.
He had worked with Marcus Webb's property management firm for four years.
Caleb found that out in twenty minutes with a basic search.
He found something else in another ten.
Ray Solis had a prior crjme record.
A theft charge, six years ago, pleaded down to a fine.
The case had involved a luxury residential building on the east side of the city.
The building's property manager at the time had been Marcus Webb.
Caleb sat back in his chair.
He called his lawyer, a woman named Grace Okafor, at seven-thirty in the morning.
She picked up on the third ring.
"I need you to look at something," he said.
"And I need you to tell me if what I'm thinking is what's actually happening."
He sent her the entry logs, the complaint record, the text message, and everything he had found on Solis.
She called him back in forty minutes.
"What you're thinking," Grace said, "is that Marcus Webb has been running a quiet operation where his contractor steals from residents, and when it gets noticed, he redirects blame toward whoever is most convenient and least likely to fight back."
"Is that what the records suggest?"
"The records suggest a pattern.
This isn't the first complaint routed through Webb that ended up going nowhere.
I found two others in the last eighteen months.
Both times a cleaning or maintenance worker was informally suspected.
Neither time was a police report filed.
Both workers left the building shortly after." A pause.
"Both workers were women.
Both were from the agency."
Caleb was quiet for a moment.
"Can we prove it?"
"We can build a case.
I want the contractor's work logs for both dates.
I want Marcus's communication records with Aldridge.
And I want to talk to the two workers who left." Another pause.
"Caleb, if this is what it looks like, we're not just talking about clearing Olivia.
We're talking about a pattern of targeted theft and deliberate defamation against vulnerable workers."
"I know."
"Do you want to pursue it fully?"
"Yes," he said.
"All of it."
He told Olivia that morning.
He sat down across from her at the kitchen table while the babies were in the room at the end of the hall and George, who had started arriving each morning at eight with pastries and a quiet determination to be useful, was reading in the living room.
He told her everything.
The message.
The records.
What Grace had found.
What he suspected.
She listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"He stopped me in the lobby," she said.
"He asked for my ID.
He already knew who I was — I'd been coming to this building for three years.
He knew exactly who I was."
"Yes."
"He was deciding whether I was the right kind of person to blame."
"Yes."
She looked at the table.
Then she looked up.
"The two women who left.
Do you know their names?"
"Grace is finding them."
"When you find them—" She stopped.
"I want to be part of this.
I don't want it done for me.
I want to be part of it."
He nodded.
"You will be."
George appeared in the doorway.
He had clearly heard some of it.
He looked at Olivia with the expression of a man who has spent thirty years adding up a debt and has finally, at the end of things, found the person he owes it to.
"Whatever it costs," George said quietly.
"Whatever it takes.
You have my word.
And this time I'll keep it."
Olivia looked at him for a long moment.
Then she said, "I know you will."
Three days later, Grace called Marcus Webb's office and formally requested all contractor access logs for the past two years.
May you like
Marcus's lawyer called back within the hour.
That was how they knew they had him.
