I sat straighter.

“Did he get into my office?”

“I changed the lock on the records room after I caught him trying a key.”

I had spent months telling Miguel that Octavio was an entrepreneur with big ideas.

Now I remembered his sketches for a development project south of Phoenix, land that required expensive water access and carried promises I had refused to make.

He’d been furious when I told him my company would not certify yields we hadn’t tested.