Chapter 4: What Rosa Left Behind
The answer came back in under four minutes.
Julian read it twice before he said anything.
Then he set the phone face-up on the side table so that Diane and Elena could both see the screen.
There had been no police report filed the day Rosa was fired.
But there was one filed eleven days later.
Rosa had reported an incident of workplace h@rassment.
The report had been logged.
A case number had been assigned.
The case had been closed six weeks after that.
Reason given: insufficient evidence.
Complainant uncontactable.
"Uncontactable," Diane repeated.
"She filed a report and then disappeared."
"People move," Victoria said from across the room.
She had not left.
She had positioned herself near the fireplace, one hand resting on the mantel, as though she were a guest at someone else's gathering.
"It does not mean anything sinister happened to her."
"No one said sinister," Julian said.
"You did."
Victoria's hand came off the mantel.
"I want legal counsel present before this conversation continues," she said.
"You're not being questioned," Richard said from the doorway.
He had come back into the room.
His phone was in his shirt pocket now.
"You're just standing in a room where people are talking.
You're free to leave anytime."
"This is my home."
"It's in my name," Richard said.
"Has been since 2019.
You signed the refinancing documents yourself.
I have copies."
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence than before.
Heavier.
Elena watched Victoria's face move through several expressions in quick succession — anger, calculation, something that might have been fear — before settling into a stillness that was harder to read than any of them.
"I need to make a call," Victoria said.
"Go ahead," Richard said.
She walked out of the room.
Her footsteps were controlled.
Measured.
The door to the hallway did not slam.
Elena exhaled slowly.
"She's calling someone," Diane said quietly.
"Not a lawyer.
A lawyer she would have called in front of us to make a point."
Julian nodded.
"Agreed."
Richard looked at Elena.
"Are you all right?"
"I don't know yet," she said honestly.
He nodded as though that was the right answer.
"My attorney is pulling the employment records for the two staff members Victoria dismissed.
If there's a pattern, it'll show in the paperwork."
"What kind of pattern?" Elena asked.
"Termination without cause, framed as termination with cause," he said.
"It affects their ability to claim unemployment.
It affects references.
It follows them." He paused.
"It's not accidental.
That kind of thing takes effort."
Elena thought about the four months she had worked in this apartment.
The way Victoria had watched her sometimes — not with suspicion exactly, but with a kind of measuring attention.
The way certain valuable items had been left in obvious places.
The way Victoria had insisted, twice, that Elena reorganize the jewelry cabinet alone.
She had thought it was a test of trustworthiness.
She understood now it was something else.
"She was building a case," Elena said.
"From the beginning."
"Yes," Richard said.
"Why me?
Why now?"
Richard looked at the floor for a moment.
Then back at her.
"Because I told her three weeks ago that I wanted a divorce.
And Victoria has never been the kind of person who absorbs a loss quietly."
The room shifted again.
Not physically.
Something in the air.
"She was going to use me," Elena said.
"As leverage.
Or as a distraction."
"Or both," Julian said.
Diane had been quiet for a moment.
Now she spoke.
"The woman in the photograph.
Rosa.
Does anyone here actually know where she is?"
No one answered.
Julian picked up his phone again.
"The building manager might.
He's been here twelve years.
He knew Rosa by name — he's the one who sent the photograph."
He stepped into the corner of the room and dialed.
Elena stood still.
One of the other guests — a man she hadn't spoken to, who had been standing near the window since the CCTV footage played — walked over and handed her a glass of water without saying anything.
She took it.
She drank half of it.
"Thank you," she said.
He nodded once and walked back to the window.
Julian came back.
His expression was careful.
"The building manager knows where Rosa is," he said.
"She didn't leave the city.
She's been working at a hotel near the waterfront for the past seven months." He paused.
"And she says she'll talk.
She's been waiting for someone to ask."
From the hallway, they heard Victoria's voice — low, urgent, the words indistinct.
Then they heard her say one name, clearly, through the door.
May you like
It was not her lawyer's name.
It was Julian's.
