Chapter 6 - Rosa at Seven
Maya answered on speaker with Ortiz present.
For several seconds, there was only traffic noise and a faint radio.
Then a woman's voice said, "Maya, are you safe?"
Maya pressed both hands to her mouth.
"Rosa?"
"Listen carefully. Don't go back to that house."
Ortiz identified herself and asked whether Rosa was in immediate danger.
Rosa would not give an address on the call.
She said that her former employer had accused her of theft and warned her that her son could lose his scholarship if she spoke.
"I kept copies," Rosa said.
"Copies of what?" Ortiz asked.
"The visitor logs. The deliveries. The days they said Mrs. Vance was away."
Maya closed her eyes.
"I wasn't away."
"I know," Rosa answered.
The line went dead.
Ortiz traced what she lawfully could and began arranging a safe in-person interview.
Julian's people had underestimated the people who cooked their meals and cleaned their rooms.
They had also underestimated how carefully those people remembered.
That evening, a popular local account posted a photograph of me outside the hospital.
The caption claimed I had used military authority to intimidate civilians in a family argument.
Thousands of strangers repeated it within hours.
One message identified Maya's temporary neighborhood.
Rachel urged caution and helped request additional safety measures.
Maya looked at the screen and went pale.
"He knows where I am."
"The address hasn't been confirmed," Rachel said.
"We will treat the risk seriously."
I wanted to stand guard outside Maya's door in full uniform.
Instead I put on civilian clothes and sat beside her while she called the advocate.
She made the decisions; I helped carry them out.
Near midnight, Ortiz called back.
"We found Rosa," she said.
"Is she safe?" I asked.
May you like
"For now. But she says the guest house wasn't the only locked room."
