Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN OUTSIDE THE GATES
By morning, Maya had lost another job.
The couple whose apartment she cleaned on Saturdays sent a short message.
They were sorry, but under the circumstances, they would make other arrangements.
Rosa read it twice.
“What circumstances?”
Maya sat at her sister's kitchen table, still wearing the same clothes beneath a borrowed cardigan.
“She called them.”
Her phone held another message, this one from Claire.
Return your staff apartment keys by Friday.
Personal property will be boxed after that date.
The small apartment above the Halls' detached garage had been part of Maya's compensation.
Most of her life was inside it.
Her mother's sewing machine.
Three years of careful savings in a bank folder.
The textbooks she read after the boys went to bed.
Rosa set down two mugs.
“You aren't going back alone.”
Their attorney, Denise Porter, met them that afternoon.
She listened without interrupting, then asked Maya what she wanted first.
“My name back.”
“We'll work on that.
What do you need today?”
Maya blinked.
Nobody at the Hall house had asked her that.
“My things.
My wages.
Somewhere nobody can make me leave because they're angry.”
Denise began making a list.
When Graham called again, she took the phone with Maya's permission.
Any retrieval would be arranged.
Any payment would be documented.
No favors tied to silence.
Graham agreed to all of it.
Then Maya remembered something.
“There's a receipt.”
Denise looked up.
“Last week, Mrs. Hall asked me to pack old scarves for donation.
A jewelry receipt fell out of one.
I put it on her desk.”
“What kind of receipt?”
“A purchase receipt, I thought.
But it had the sapphire necklace's picture on it.”
“Do you remember the shop?”
Maya closed her eyes.
Green letters.
A narrow storefront printed at the top.
“Benton Estate Jewelry.”
She had asked Claire whether the necklace needed collecting.
Claire had gone so still that Maya apologized for touching the paper.
That was Thursday.
The termination notice was dated Friday.
The arrest happened Monday.
Denise stopped writing.
“Tell me exactly what you asked her.”
Before Maya could answer, Graham sent a photograph of the jewelry inventory police had requested.
She enlarged the picture of the necklace.
Then reached for the image of the one recovered from the suitcase, attached beneath it.
“The clasp,” she whispered.
Rosa leaned over her shoulder.
May you like
Maya pointed at the screen.
“That's not the same necklace.”
