Chapter 19 #2
“Why didn’t she say anything when we were there?” Madden demanded. “We talked to everybody. Twice.”
“She wasn’t there.” Miguel’s throat bobbed. “She’s been home since it happened. She’s scared. She doesn’t trust the police.”
Well, I could hardly blame her there.
The pressure of my hand eased on his shirt, just a fraction. “Do you trust us?”
Miguel licked his lips. “You… you talked like you cared about the girl missing. About what happened. Kelsey said you were not with Carson. That you were looking because someone had to.” His gaze darted to mine. “You were a cop before, yeah?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“And you?” He looked at Madden. “She said you were a lawyer.”
“I was a prosecutor in L.A.,” she said evenly. “I’m not anymore. I’m not here in any official capacity. Neither is he.”
Miguel hesitated. Then nodded, like he’d made a decision he wasn’t entirely happy with but couldn’t see another option.
“She told me if I could find you, to bring you,” he said. “Today. While Carson is busy with… with the other thing.” The way he said it told me word of Willie’s death had already spread.
“Where?” I asked.
“I… I’ll take you,” he stammered.
I weighed the possibility that this could be some kind of setup. This kid I could take apart in my sleep. But he could have bigger buddies. Still, this didn’t have the stink of a trap.
My grip finally dropped. “All right. You walk ahead. We’ll follow.”
His eyes widened. “You don’t trust me?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I make it a habit not to give my back to strangers until we’ve at least had breakfast.”
Madden snorted softly. “Such high standards.”
Miguel raised both hands in a halfhearted “have it your way” gesture and moved past us toward the street.
I fell into step on one side of him. Madden took the other. It felt… weirdly like a protective formation.
We didn’t head back toward the boardwalk.
Miguel cut across, taking a few side streets I knew well, leading away from the polished up, tourist-focused part of town and into the kind of neighborhood I’d grown up in—small, tired houses with peeling paint and kids’ bikes left on side lawns, cars in various states of operability parked half on, half off the street.
Heat clung to the asphalt, rising in waves.
A lawn sprinkler ticked uselessly at a patch of crabgrass.
Someone’s radio played faint bachata from an open window.
Eventually, he stopped in front of a small, one-story duplex with a sagging porch and flowerpots riotous with color. The house was worn, but the flowers were thriving. Somebody here cared.
Miguel gestured toward the house. “Let me go first.”
We hung back while he climbed the two steps and knocked a quick pattern on the frame. The door opened just a crack, chain still on. A woman’s voice snapped something sharp in Spanish.
“Es Miguel,” he said quickly. “Traje a los que preguntan. No a la policía, te lo juro.”
The chain slid. The door opened wider.
The woman was small. Late twenties, maybe younger, black hair pulled back in a low knot, dark eyes wary as hell.
Fading bruises shadowed the side of her jaw and at the edge of her collarbone where her T-shirt dipped.
She wore cutoffs and a soft, faded tee. Her gaze flicked over us, cataloging every threat.
“This is them?” she asked Miguel.
“Sí. The lawyer and the… ex-cop,” he said. “They say they just want to know what happened.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You stay outside,” she told him in Spanish. Then, to us, with an accent but careful diction: “You come in. But I do not talk to police. Ever. You understand?”
“We’re not the police,” Madden affirmed—in perfect Spanish—before I could answer.
Her voice had gone into that low, even register I was starting to recognize—prosecutor mode without the sharp edges, all calm reassurance and control.
“We don’t work for them here. We’re just trying to figure out what happened behind Home Port the other night and whether it has anything to do with the girl who’s missing. ”
The woman studied Madden for a long second. Then stepped back. “Come.”
The inside was small but neat—living room barely big enough for a couch and a coffee table, kitchen table shoved against a wall, a tiny shrine in one corner with a candle burned low in front of a saint’s picture. The air smelled like cleaning products and the tail end of last night’s beans.
“Sit.” She pointed at the table. “I do not have much, but I can make coffee.”
“You don’t have to—” I started.
“I am not talking to strangers without coffee,” she said flatly. Then, with a quick flick of her gaze to me: “Sit. You look like a man who drinks too much bad coffee. This is better.”
Well. She wasn’t wrong.
I sat. Madden did, too, perching on the edge of the chair like she was ready to bolt if this went sideways. Her eyes kept drifting to the bruises on Rosa’s throat, the fingerprints ghosting along her upper arm. No question someone had attacked her.
“I’m Rios. This is Madden.” I waited to see if she’d fill in the gaps.
“Rosa,” she muttered, moving with efficiency, filling a small pot, measuring grounds. When the coffee was on the stove, she came to the table, sat opposite us, and folded her hands. “Okay. You ask.”
Madden’s gaze softened, even as her posture straightened almost imperceptibly. “Miguel said you were attacked outside Home Port?”
Rosa’s hand fluttered toward the bruising before falling again. She nodded.
“Can you tell us what happened the night you were attacked?” she asked. “In your own words. Whatever you remember.”
Rosa blew out a breath, eyes sliding to the window for a second before coming back.
“I work late,” she began. “You know. We close; we clean. That night, Nicole sends the bartender home early. It was not so busy. Mostly tourists too drunk to notice.”
I flipped through my mental roster of Home Port employees we’d spoken to. Nicole was one of the night servers.
“What night was this?” I asked. “Three nights ago? Four?”
“Three nights before the girl disappeared,” she said. “I remember because Nicole was talking about her. The scientists from the station. She likes them. Good tippers.” A faint smile ghosted across her mouth. “I do not see this girl, but I hear about her.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go on.”
“I take the trash out.” Rosa’s hands tightened briefly, knuckles whitening.
“Kitchen is hot. Smells like… fried everything. I like to get air for a minute. I go out the back, to the alley. There is light, but only a little. I put the first bag in the big bin.” She swallowed. “Then someone grabs me from behind.”
Madden’s fingers curled around the edge of the table. “How?” she asked softly. “Arm around your throat? Your waist?”
“Here.” Rosa touched her own chest, right under the collarbone. “One arm across, like a bar. The other—” She clamped a hand over her mouth, demonstrating. “He pull me back, fast. I drop the other bag. I cannot scream. I smell beer and something… stronger. Like cheap cologne and sweat.”
“Could you see anything?” I asked. “Clothes, height, build…”
“He is taller than me.” Her mouth twisted.
“But that is not hard. Maybe your height,” she added, flicking her gaze toward me.
“Strong. Not like… big, big, but tight. He wears a hoodie with the hood up. Dark. Cap under it, I think. I see the brim when he move his head.” She shuddered.
“He tries to pull me between the dumpsters. Away from the door. Toward the back street.”
“Did he say anything?” Madden asked. “Anything at all?”
Rosa’s eyes turned distant. “He say…” She swallowed. “’Quiet now.’ Or ‘easy now.’ Something like that. His voice is low. Not shouting. Like…” Her face pinched. “Like he has done this before.”
My jaw clenched.
“What did you do?” Madden’s voice stayed even, but I could hear the tremor under it. She knew the answer. She just needed Rosa to say it.
“What I learned to do when men think they can put hands on me.” Some steel slid into her tone.
“I stomp on his foot. Hard. I have boots. He makes a sound. His grip loosens. I twist, bite his arm.” She mimed the motion, fast and practiced.
“He swears. I cannot hear all the words. Accent is… not heavy, but not like yours. Somewhere between. He tries to grab again, but I am small. I drop. Knee him in the cojones.”
“Do you know where you bit him? Which arm?” I was building a picture of prospective defensive wounds she’d inflicted on her attacker.
Rosa frowned and laid a hand on her forearm. “Here. Opposite me, so… right arm.”
“What happened after you kneed him in the balls?”
With a shrug that was probably meant to be casual, she continued. “I get free. I run.”
“Before you ran, did you notice any other places you might have hurt him? Y’all were fighting in tight corners. Near the back wall of the building?”
“He crash into wall when he let me go. I didn’t stay to see how.”
Fair enough. Either way, this more or less matched what Willie had reported. “Where did you run when you got free?”
“Away. I get away, and I call back saying I was sick.”
“You didn’t feel comfortable reporting to the police?” Madden asked.
“They make trouble. A report mean questions. Maybe they look in the kitchen at the workers. Ask about papers.” Her gaze cooled. “I do not have the papers they like.”
Undocumented. Which added a whole other layer to this mess.
“So you came home,” I confirmed.
“Yes.” Rosa’s mouth flattened. “I had bruises. I do not go back for a few days. I tell them I am hurt. Which is also true. Miguel, he come to check on me. Saw the bruises and got angry. He wanted to go fight someone. But who? A shadow? A voice?”
“And you decided to talk to us,” I said. “Why?”
“Because the girl is missing,” she said simply.
“And Miguel says you care. The police do not. They say she go home. I do not think that is true. I know what it is when someone wants to disappear on purpose. I have seen women run.” Her fingers worried at the hem of her shirt.
“She did not run. She was taken. Like someone tried to take me.”
Silence fell for a beat, heavy and thick.
Madden pulled up a photo on her phone—the one Astrid had given us of Priya, laughing near a marsh platform. She pushed it gently across the table.
“Have you seen her?” she asked. “Anywhere? At Home Port? On the street?”
Rosa studied the picture. “Not in Home Port. I keep to the kitchen. But…” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe near here. Once or twice. Walking this way. I do not know her, but she looks… familiar. Where does she live?”
“A couple blocks over,” I said. “On Marshview.”
“Then yes. I have seen her,” Rosa said. “From behind. Ponytail. Backpack. We do not… talk. I see her and think she is just another student. There are many.”
Madden’s gaze met mine over the table.
Ponytail. Backpack. Long, dark hair. Brown skin. About the same height. About the same build.
The image of the ferry security footage flashed in my mind—grainy, distant, a girl with dark hair and a backpack boarding. The authorities had taken it as gospel that it was Priya.
But from behind…
Madden sat back, fingers going still against the photo. I could see it hitting her, too. The new angle. The new, awful possibility.
“What if he had the wrong woman?”