Page 21 of Silk Shadow

"No, of course not. Like you said, it makes sense. You are getting threatening messages to sell the mine."

"That's it!" She snapped her fingers.

"What?"

"I’ve just realized what was bugging me. The threats only mentioned one of the mines, but we own and operate several in Mexico. Why would they just be concerned with that particular mine?"

He frowned. "You might be onto something there. The letters mentioned Montezuma."

She glanced at him in surprise. "You know the name of the mine?"

"It was in your file."

She pursed her lips. "Good memory."

He didn't reply.

"There's a couple of things I want to look into," she said, thinking out loud.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Hold that thought." Viper grabbed his gun off the sideboard and answered the door.

It was only room service, and he wheeled in a trolley containing the burgers and fries and two beers. "I didn't know if you wanted one."

"I'd love one."

He opened it for her with a bottle opener from the trolley. A flick of his powerful wrists. She took a long gulp. He transferred the plates to the table, then took a beer and sat back down. "You were saying?"

"I want to talk to the police directly and find out if my father's car was tampered with. I didn't see any report on the car wreck itself."

"It's probably still lying at the bottom of the cliff," Viper said, frowning. "Depending on its position, the local police may not have the capability to retrieve it or get it analyzed."

She bit her lip. "How am I going to find out if this was an accident or not?"

"You could send an investigator to take a look at the scene," Viper suggested. "A skilled crash analyst can reconstruct the sequence of events based on skid marks, debris patterns, and impact points. They can work out the vehicle’s speed and trajectory, try to piece together what happened. They might even be able to tell if the crash was due to a mechanical failure, or the car was tampered with or driven off the road."

"Yes." She regarded him over her burger. It had been the right decision to talk to him about it. "I'll do that."

He watched as she took a bite, then said, "You might also want to speak to the people who worked with your father. They might know if anyone had a reason to want him dead.”

She chewed slowly. “If I called my father’s head of security, would you talk to him for me?”

Viper paused, clearly unsure.

“Please, you’ll know what to say.” She hesitated. “And they’ll take you more seriously than me.”

"Why? You're the owner of the company."

"I'm also a woman." She sighed and gave a reluctant shrug. "It's just the way it is." She knew all too well how easy it was for important men to put her off until mañana, to postpone that meeting, to think that she could be sidelined until later. It had happened a lot since her father had died. An unknown number would be more likely to get the head of security's attention. Sadly.

He fixed his gaze on her. "If that's what you want."

"It is. I've got his telephone number in my contacts somewhere. Maybe you can give him a call now?"

"Now?" He glanced at his watch.

"Yeah, it's not that late." She looked up the number from an email. "His name is Miguel Hernández. Use your phone, that way he won't know it's me calling."