Chapter 6: Rosa
Rosa Mendes worked the early shift at the hotel near the waterfront.
She finished at two in the afternoon, and when Julian called to ask if she would meet them, she said she could be at the coffee shop on the corner of Aldgate Street by half past two.
She was already there when Elena arrived.
Rosa was younger than Elena had expected — mid-twenties, with careful eyes and the particular stillness of someone who had learned to take up less space than they needed.
She had a coffee in front of her that she hadn't touched.
She looked at Elena and said, "You work for her now."
"I did," Elena said.
"Not anymore."
Rosa nodded slowly.
She looked at Julian, who had come with Elena, and at Diane, who had insisted on joining them.
She looked at each of them in turn, measuring.
"I filed that report," Rosa said.
"And then two days later, a man I had never met came to my apartment building and told my landlord that I had been dismissed for theft.
My landlord called me in and said he needed me to vacate within thirty days because he couldn't have that kind of tenant." She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
"I had nowhere to go.
My sister was in Manchester.
I had a little money saved.
I withdrew the complaint because I thought — if I just go, if I just disappear quietly, it will stop."
"Did it stop?" Diane asked.
"Mostly.
I got the hotel job under a different reference — a woman I had worked for three years before Victoria, who knew the truth and was willing to vouch for me." Rosa paused.
"But I never stopped thinking about it.
I kept thinking — she'll do it again.
She'll find someone else.
And I won't know, and there'll be nothing I can do."
"She did it again," Elena said.
"Tonight.
In front of fifteen people and a CCTV camera."
Rosa looked at her for a long moment.
Then she laughed — a short, unsteady sound, more relief than humor.
"I have everything," Rosa said.
"I kept everything.
Every message she sent me.
A recording of the man who came to my landlord — I had a neighbor with a phone who caught part of it.
The dates.
The timeline." She looked at Julian.
"I kept it all because I thought someday someone would ask."
"We're asking," Julian said.
Rosa pulled a folded envelope from her bag and set it on the table.
"There's a copy of everything in there," she said.
"The originals are with my sister in Manchester.
She's had them for seven months." She pushed the envelope toward Elena.
"I want her to face what she did.
Not just to me.
To all of us."
Elena picked up the envelope.
"There was someone before you," she said to Rosa.
"Before you, there was another woman.
Do you know her name?"
Rosa nodded.
"Carla.
Carla Voss.
She was there for six months before me.
I found her through the agency — we had the same placement coordinator.
Carla wouldn't talk to me at first.
She was frightened." Rosa paused.
"But she might talk now.
If she knew it had gone this far."
Diane was already writing the name down.
Julian looked at Elena.
"Richard's attorney is meeting with us tomorrow morning.
If Rosa comes, and if Carla can be reached —"
"I'll come," Rosa said.
She hadn't waited for the question to finish.
"Tell me when and where."
Outside, the afternoon light was flat and gray.
Elena held the envelope in both hands.
Inside it was the beginning of something — not the end, not yet, but the first solid piece of ground after a long time of standing on nothing.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
*You should have taken the money.
Last chance.*
She showed it to Julian without a word.
May you like
He photographed it immediately.
"That," he said quietly, "is the second mistake she's made tonight."
