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Rose sucked in a deep breath to calm her nerves as the tall woman closed the gap between them. As she approached, she smiled and reached out a hand.
“Elena LaGuerta.”
Rose took the offered hand, found it warm and smooth. “Rose Black. Good to meet you.”
“You’re looking for Jazz? For Jasmine?” LaGuerta’s eyes were calculating, but also a little wet. Rose saw the conflict there, the sadness coupled with the need to protect Jazz. Or her memory, at least.
Rose shook her head. “I know I won’t find her. I’ve heard the news.”
LaGuerta’s mood immediately softened. “Oh, thank god. I thought maybe I was going to have to break the news to someone I didn’t know. You’re that friend of hers. The English girl. Lily, is it?”
“It’s Rose. And yes, we’re old friends.” She was proud she’d managed to remain calm. Of all the names LaGuerta could have landed on, the name of Rose’s sister? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Had Jazz and Lily remained in touch? With one of the two dead and the other most likely in the same condition, the emotional baggage surrounding that imagined scenario was more than she could unpack right now.
LaGuerta misinterpreted her silence, reached out and put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It’s truly awful. How did you guys know each other?”
“We met when I was in New York before. I’m here again, on vacation with my boyfriend, so I called Jazz. We caught up a couple of times, and then...” A slight frown danced across Rose’s face as she heard herself refer to Jake as her boyfriend. It was the first time she’d done that verbally, or even internally for that matter. She didn’t mind how it sounded. Funny how life went on even in the face of the worst tragedies.
“She was a good person,” LaGuerta said. “And a fine reporter too. The office here, we’re all still in shock. It’s hard to fathom, you know? I mean, this is New York, there’s awful news every day, but not usually so close to home. We report the news, we don’t usually become the news.”
“What was Jazz working on?” Rose asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
LaGuerta drew a breath, shook her head gently. “A few things. She’d been putting together a feature on corporate property scandals, she was enjoying that. She loved to expose the rats and crooks. She also had a piece going on a young girl, only fourteen years old, who’s just joined Juilliard, playing violin. The kid is an absolute prodigy and Jazz had been building a great human interest piece, following her story. Jazz is a great features writer.” LaGuerta swallowed. “Well, she was.”
Rose nodded, thinking what else she could ask. LaGuerta hadn’t said anything about missing persons, or Matthew Price, or even the discovery of the mass burial site. Perhaps Jazz had been keeping all that to herself until she had more to go on.
“You have any clues about what Jazz was doing in the days before her death?” Rose asked.
“No,” LaGuerta said, eyes narrowing. “Not outside usual work and life. I thought Jazz was the victim of a burglary gone wrong, that’s what the police told us. And they seemed pretty convinced of that. Do you know something else? Are you really just a friend?”
Rose sensed this woman might be mostly friendly, but was unlikely to be her ally. LaGuerta would be keen to protect her paper and its reputation as much as anything else. And Rose didn’t want to give away anything that might compromise what she could learn later. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m just her friend. I guess I’m having trouble dealing with the situation. I’m looking for something more. Trying to find some reason in it all, you know? It’s just so bloody senseless.”
LaGuerta softened again. “It is, yes. Absolutely tragic. Sadly, so many deaths are.”
“Well, look, thanks for talking to me. I won’t keep you.”
“If you need anything, and you think I can help, you can give me a call, okay?” LaGuerta handed over a card.
Rose slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”
LaGuerta smiled, but stood waiting. She wanted to make sure Rose left, perhaps, so Rose made her way back between the desks towards the office’s main door. From the corner of her eye she saw LaGuerta watch for a moment longer and then head back towards her office. As Rose walked out the doors and headed for the elevator, she sensed a presence across the hall and turned. Someone ducked out of sight, behind a closet door marked CLEANER. Rose watched the door and saw a shadow move behind it.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She had learned to never ignore her intuition and suddenly she wanted to be out of the place as soon as possible. She imagined the elevator arriving and someone leaping in just as the doors closed, trapping her in the small box. Trusting her gut, Rose turned and went quickly to a door marked STAIRS and pushed it open. The stairwell was cool and gray concrete, and smell chalky and unused. She quickly ran down, her feet echoing as she rapidly descended. As she turned onto the level below, the stairwell door she’d come through opened and a large shadow came through.
Rose cursed and started to run. She jumped down steps three or four at a time, hand gripping the railing to swing around at each landing. Heavy footsteps from above increased with hers, a grunting breath of a large man not used to running down stairs echoed over the slapping of her own feet.
Well, I’m fit and fast! Rose thought. I’ll outrun you, buddy.
She passed a large sign on the wall with a 1 on it and bolted down one more flight, then burst through the doors, expecting the lobby on the ground floor. She found herself in a long cement corridor, air-conditioning tubes and electrical conduits running along the ceiling. A basement? She cursed again. Of course, in America, 1 meant the ground floor. In England the ground floor was marked with a G and 1 was the first floor up.
Too late to worry about that now, and she couldn’t go back up. Surely there would be another way out. She ran along the corridor and came to a T-junction. As she randomly chose left, the door she’d come through banged open. She had a moment to glimpse a large man with thick dark hair, then she was running again. The new corridor had no more features than the last, but it did end in a double gray door. Rose sprinted to it and slammed the bar to push it open. Nothing happened. She hit it again, drove a shoulder into the door, but it didn’t budge. Locked tight. She was underground in a dead end.
The big man got to the junction and looked down to see her standing there, panting for breath, back pressed to the wood. He smiled.