The corner of Eighteenth Street and Thirty-Fourth Avenue was in the Grapeland Heights area, the northwest edge of Rosa’s neighborhood. An Uber dropped me off within a block of the apartment where Rosa’s friend Beatriz was watching Camila, a fact I’d learned via text exchange before the Gulfstream left Dallas.
The night was quiet as I moved down an alley and across an intersecting street.
The address Rosa had given me was for a duplex, and the TV was on in the downstairs room. But after watching from the street, I saw no Beatriz. No Camila.
Doubling back down the alley, I came up behind the apartment. The back of Beatriz’s place had a screen door with slotted glass windows. The rectangular panes of glass were levered open, almost horizontally. A woman’s purse sat on the kitchen counter, a cell phone beside it.
Rosa had contacted Beatriz and told her I was coming, but no one was home.
I stood quietly at the back door, but the only sound was from the TV.
I tried the knob and found it locked.
Was someone inside? Hurt? Or worse?
I had seen a set of garden shears atop a brick planter by the next apartment. I found my way back to them. Returning quietly in the dark, I sliced along the side of the screen, right where it met the rubber edging. I slid my hand past the screen material and through the open glass levers. Unlocked the door without a sound.
Pulling my Glock, I stepped into the tiny galley kitchen. Past the purse and keys and into the adjoining living room.
SpongeBob SquarePants was playing on a forty-two-inch TV mounted on the far wall. I saw Camila’s backpack. It was unzipped and laid out on an oak coffee table beside a set of candles. A pile of empty Starburst wrappers was crumpled beside it.
My foot pushed open the bedroom door, and my free hand switched on the light. No one in the bedroom. No one in the adjoining bathroom.
“Camila?” I said. “Beatriz?”
The place was empty.