Chapter 8
Gaby always hated interviews with people who were trying not to cry. Anger, denial, hostility, those she could work with. They gave a person an edge. A direction to move in. Grief was different.
Grief sat across from her at a kitchen table with cold coffee untouched and answered questions because answering was all that was left to do.
Paul and Marlena Bellamy lived in a small duplex west of Coral Gables, in a neighborhood where the lawns were clipped short and every window seemed to have curtains.
Paul sat beside his wife, shoulders rounded beneath a pressed button-down shirt. At seventy-one, he looked exhausted in a way that seemed to go beyond a lack of sleep.
Marlena, sixty-six, sat with a photograph of Anna clasped in both hands.
“She always called on Sundays,” she said in a whisper-soft, distant voice. “Even if she was tired. Even if it was only for five minutes.”
Gaby wrote that down though it wasn’t evidence. Not technically. But it kept her hands busy.
Rhys sat alongside her, letting silence do what it often did. People filled it when they were ready.
“She worked too much,” Marlena continued. “Bank during the day, restaurant at night. But she said she was saving. Wanted to buy a house someday.”
Paul finally spoke. “And get a dog.”
A faint smile touched Marlena’s mouth. “She loved dogs.”
Gaby glanced at the photograph. Anna smiling in sunlight, hair loose around her shoulders, one hand lifted as if she’d been caught mid-wave.
“Did she have many friends?” Rhys asked gently.
Mrs. Bellamy’s fingers tightened around the frame. “A few. None were close, the way a young woman ought to have. She was shy. Sweet.” Her eyes lifted, meeting Gaby’s. “Too trusting.”
She knew the type. The ones who apologized before asking for help. Who smiled through discomfort because making a scene felt worse than enduring whatever caused it. Just like her sister.
“Did she ever mention feeling unsafe?” Gaby asked.
Marlena shook her head. “That’s what the detective kept asking. Was anyone bothering her? Did she owe money? Was there a boyfriend? As if there had to be a reason.”
Typical line of questioning from a male detective. As if danger only came for women who invited it. Gaby kept her expression even. “Did Anna go out much? Clubs? Bars? Social groups?”
A hesitation. Small, but there.
Rhys caught it too. She felt his concentration sharpen, an almost-imperceptible change, like a one-degree shift in temperature.
“After she disappeared, I found some things,” Marlena admitted hesitantly.
“What kind of things?” Gaby prompted.
A faint flush tinged the older woman’s cheeks. “Clothes I hadn’t seen. Shoes. Makeup.” Her gaze dropped to the photo again. “Things she never wore around us.”
Paul shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “There was a collar.”
Gaby’s pen stilled for half a second.
Rhys didn’t move.
“It was black lace. Pretty, actually,” Marlena continued. “I didn’t know what it meant at first.”
“Did Anna ever mention where she went?” Gaby asked carefully.
Mrs. Bellamy looked up. “No, but I found receipts. I gave them to the police, but I have copies.”
“No one ever asked about them again,” Paul said.
Of course, they hadn’t. Gaby exchanged a glance with Rhys.
It was a struggle, but she kept her voice even. “May we see them, and anything else you found?”
Mrs. Bellamy nodded and rose slowly, moving toward the hallway with the photo still clutched in one hand.
When she disappeared into the bedroom, Paul said quietly, staring down at his coffee, “I keep wondering what I missed.”
Neither she nor Rhys interrupted.
“I thought I knew my daughter.”
“You did,” Rhys said.
Paul looked up.
“You knew the sweet, kind, shy woman who called every Sunday. Who worked two jobs to get ahead. Who had dreams and loved dogs.” His voice remained gentle. “Finding out she kept part of her life private doesn’t erase any of that.”
The older man’s eyes brightened slightly. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Bellamy returned with a shoebox. Inside were cover charge receipts, ticket stubs, a folded flyer for a munch in Deerfield Beach, and a small black lace collar sealed carefully in a plastic bag, as if preserving it might somehow preserve the woman who had worn it.
Gaby photographed everything.
Rhys asked a few more questions, gentle enough that neither parent retreated behind their grief.
When they stood to leave, Paul walked them to the door.
“Do you think she’s dead?” he asked.
Gaby had learned long ago that false hope could be crueler than silence.
“We don’t know yet,” she said. “But we’re going to keep looking.”
Paul nodded, as if he had already decided to accept nothing less.
Outside, the afternoon heat wrapped around them.
Rhys’s gaze slid to her. “Are you all right, love?”
“No.”
His expression softened a fraction.
“I’m functional,” she amended, using a phrase he’d used before.
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” she said, quieter. “It isn’t.”
Gaby made it halfway down the sidewalk to their vehicle before stopping. “She gave them receipts, Rhys. They had the club’s name.”
“I know.”
“And they did nothing with it.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
She turned on him.
He held her gaze. “We strongly suspect it.”
That shouldn’t have made her laugh, but it did. Once. Sharp and humorless.
Rhys opened the passenger door for her. “Come on. We have another interview.”
“Lucky us.”
Gaby climbed into the hot SUV while Rhys moved around to the driver’s side, both of them carrying more questions than answers.
The next interview was at the restaurant where Anna had worked nights. It was a narrow place tucked between neighboring storefronts in Coconut Grove, with rattan light fixtures, glossy plants, and a manager who looked nervous the moment Gaby and Rhys introduced themselves.
“She was reliable,” he said for the third time, as if reliability were a full character sketch. “Never late. Never caused trouble.”
Gaby glanced at Rhys. Sweet. Quiet. Polite. Didn’t cause trouble. The words were starting to stack up.
A waitress named Pilar gave them more after the manager walked away.
“She kept to herself at first,” she said, leaning against the side wall near the service station. “But she was funny once you got her talking. Dry funny. Like you didn’t expect it.” Her lips trembled then steadied. “She was trying to be braver.”
“Braver how?” Rhys asked.
Pilar glanced toward the manager and lowered her voice. “Trendier clothes. Wearing a little more makeup. Going out by herself. Stuff like that.”
“To The Underground?” Gaby asked.
Pilar’s eyes flickered. There it was again.
“She didn’t talk about it much,” Pilar said. “But yeah. A couple of times.”
“Did she meet anyone there?”
“Not that she told me. She said it made her feel…” Pilar searched for the word. “Visible, I guess. I remember she said it made her feel like she could be someone else for a while.”
Gaby noted it.
“Did she ever mention being followed?” Rhys asked.
“No.” Pilar folded her arms tight. “But the week before she disappeared, she was off.”
Gaby looked up. “Off how?”
“Distracted. Jumpier. I asked if some guy was bothering her.” Pilar swallowed. “She said no and changed the subject.”
“Did you tell the detective that?”
“Yes. He wrote it down, I think.” Her voice sharpened. “Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. He made me feel like I was wasting his time.”
Gaby’s grip tightened on her pen.
Rhys noticed. He noticed everything. His hand brushed hers, there and gone. Grounding but not stopping her.
When they finished, Pilar followed them toward the front.
“Her mother called here every day for two weeks,” she said quietly. “After a while, the manager stopped taking the calls.”
When Gaby glanced at him through the glass partition, he looked away.
By the time they reached the car, her temper was no longer a spark. It was a low, controlled burn. “People keep using quiet like it explains why no one fought for her,” Gaby said.
Rhys unlocked the doors. “Quiet women are often easier to dismiss.”
She hated how calmly he said it. Hated more that he was right.
“Where to now?” she asked instead.
“Home, dinner, and to bed. Our next interview is bright and early tomorrow morning before our interviewee goes to work.”
“Not tonight?” she asked, glancing at the western sky. Red streaks only, no sun. “It’s not that late.”
“That’s what she agreed to.” When they were on their way home, Rhys glanced over. “How about I make us fettuccine and shrimp? There’s a bottle of white wine to go with it.”
“You want to cook? Aren’t you tired?” she asked, her head tilted back on the seat, eyes on him.
“No, and I’m a lot less frustrated than you.”
“Sorry. It’s just—”
“I know what it is.” His tone softened. “You look at those families and see yourself. Then you get angry because someone should have connected these dots years ago.”
Gaby stared out the window because that was exactly it. Annoyingly, he was spot-on again.
“You care,” Rhys continued. “It’s one of the many reasons I love you. But if you bring every victim home with you, you’ll eventually burn out. Or drown in them.”
She was quiet, watching the city slide past. “How do you do it?”
“Years of practice. Moderate emotional repression. And a touch of an acquired British stiff upper lip.”
That earned him a huff of laughter. “Seriously.”
“Compartmentalization isn’t about not caring. It’s about putting something down long enough today to be useful tomorrow.”
She considered that. More importantly, she considered him. A man with a knack for climbing inside other people’s heads without letting it get to him.
“You’ll have to teach me.”
His mouth curved. “I can do that. But fair warning. My methods involve pasta, wine, a hot shower, and being thoroughly distracted by your fiancé.”
“You have ulterior motives.”
“Always.”
For the first time today, her smile was genuine. “Now, I have ulterior motives.”
He laughed and reached for her hand. “I think we’ll both enjoy this lesson.”