by Diane Capri
“What’s the story, exactly?” Patricia asked, a little less dismissive after Richard got involved. “How do you go about it?”
Jordan had already pitched the story with everything she knew, which wasn’t good enough. So she offered the best approach she could. “We go to her house, we talk to her parents about why she was working full-time at age seventeen—”
“Chances are, her parents won’t want to talk,” Patricia said, already looking at her notes for a more promising story. “Usually that community shies away from the camera. And everybody knows why she’d be working full time. The family needed the income.”
Jordan couldn’t believe Patricia wouldn’t even give Maria’s family a chance. “Maybe we could call Linda and ask her what she knows about the family situation.”
Patricia slammed her palm on the table. “No means NO.”
Jordan rubbed her arms and scooted back from the table. If Richard hadn’t given her orders to get along with Patricia and stop sticking her nose where she wasn’t assigned to go, she’d have argued. As it was, if she did anything like follow up on her own now, well, it would be career suicide. She couldn’t afford that.
“Jordan, if you learn anything that makes the missing girl a newsworthy story, bring it up again. Meanwhile, we’re gonna put you on this feature story.” Richard pulled his chair closer to the table and straightened his tie. “There’s a little strawberry bakery and café opening in southern Hills County today. Video inside and out of the place and some sound from the owner. Can you set that up and go shoot it? Or do you need us to send someone with you?”
Strawberries were a big business in Florida. And strawberry-picking was the job many of the farmworkers like Maria Ortiz’s parents did.
She glanced at Richard, but his expression told her nothing. Was he throwing her a lifeline here on the Maria Ortiz story? Or did the idea not even cross his mind? But surely the offer meant that he’d heard her objections to Patricia’s harsh opinions of what Patricia called Jordan’s cowboy antics and bad attitude.
“Sure, I’d love to. And I can do it on my own. But thanks for asking.” Jordan had told him she wanted to be an MMJ, a multimedia journalist. To make that happen, she had to prove she was good at all aspects of the job by herself, not as a tag-along with a reporter or hauling a photographer around.
She wanted the next job, but she didn’t want to be a puppy dog like Drew Hodges to get it. No way.
Something was very wrong about Maria. Even Tom thought so. Clayton took the matter seriously, too.
Jordan knew she was violating Richard’s advice by going off on her own again, not following the news plan, not supporting the team. But Richard hadn’t looked into Maria’s face. He hadn’t seen those bruises on her wrists and ankles. He hadn’t watched Edith berate Maria or seen Felix stroke her and yank her about.
Jordan couldn’t ignore the situation. She just couldn’t.
CHAPTER 18
Maria’s parents’ address was listed on the missing person report. Southern Hills County, where her assignment was taking her anyway.
On her way back from the Strawberry Cafe, Jordan took the fifteen-minute detour. The Ortiz home turned out to be an old camping trailer. The yard was neat and a few tomato and bell pepper plants thrived in a side garden.
Jordan parked behind the ancient, rusty red Chevy pickup truck out front.
When a story required her to ring doorbells and possibly go in people’s homes, Jordan really preferred to have a photographer with her for safety. But this story was off the books so she’d have to do it all herself.
No doorbell. She rapped on the front door and waited less than a minute before it opened.
“I’m Jordan Fox from News Channel 12.” She handed the woman a business card with the unmistakable Channel 12 logo on it. The same unmistakable logo plastered on the side of the Jeep. “Is this the home of Maria Ortiz? The missing girl? I’d like to help you find her.”
The short, round woman at the door looked her up and down. A man appeared behind her, slightly taller, maybe a bit older. They both looked weathered and tired and very much like Maria Ortiz. He put both hands on the woman’s shoulders.
The man nodded and stepped aside. “Come in, por favor.”
The Ortizes had used every inch of the tiny space inside the trailer. The aroma of yellow rice and black beans wafted from the two-burner stovetop in the corner. Worn blankets draped neatly over vinyl chairs pushed together that might have been cast-offs from the waiting room of a walk-in clinic. A vase of artificial flowers rested atop the laminated table.
In one quick glance, Jordan saw the place was tidy and clean, but the brown paneled walls and blinds made it too dark for good video without using the lights she’d left in her Jeep. But she didn’t want to go back out now that she was inside. She’d have to shoot now and try to quickly adjust the camera’s settings to maximize the available light.
She held up her phone. “May I record us on video? It might help.” They nodded. She started rolling and asked the question again on camera to document their permission.
“I met Maria yesterday. She’s a lovely girl.” Jordan tried to put them at ease with light topics before she transitioned to her main questions. “May I ask, what are you doing to help find Maria?”
“We don’t know what to do.” Mrs. Ortiz appeared to have a better grasp on English than Mr. Ortiz, who largely remained silent. “Police came here to tell us about Maria. We didn’t know. They will help us. We can’t afford to offer reward.”
Mr. Ortiz shook his head. He looked down and smoothed his wrinkled denim shirt.
Jordan stopped the video, dropped her hands to her side and raised her eyebrows. “I’d like to try to report Maria’s story on the news. It might help find her. May I take video of the outside of your house?”
She made the request simply to be polite. Jordan was allowed to shoot video from the public street out front. And if this story went live, other reporters would do exactly that. She wanted to be ahead of the pack. She’d grab the video before she left, just in case she needed it.
“Oh, no no. The neighbors get mad,” Mrs. Ortiz shook her forefinger. Mr. Ortiz gently placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder again.
Patricia had been right. The members of this community didn’t want the media flocking here. But what community dealing with tragedy would want that?
“No problem. May I take pictures of Maria’s bedroom?”
“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Ortiz stood and motioned for Jordan to follow. “Sí. Aquí.”
Two steps away, they reached an open door not much thicker than a sturdy piece of cardboard. Beyond it was a bedroom too tiny for a seventeen-year-old girl.
Jordan snapped pictures of pink walls crowded with stuffed animals and drawings, showing a progression of childhood artwork to the more advanced doodling of a teenager. Then she flipped to video again and panned the room.
“Thank you.” Jordan put away her camera. “Can you tell me anything else? The name of her boss, perhaps?”
Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz looked at each other. He shrugged and shook his head. “We do not know,” Mrs. Ortiz said. “She moved away to Tampa.”
Maria had already told Jordan she’d moved and she’d seemed homesick, too. Many parents would never have allowed a seventeen-year-old girl to leave home like that. But in this community, children seemed to grow up faster. Parents hovered less and deferred to their children more. Especially the children who were born in the U.S. and spoke better English than their parents. Somehow, parents seemed to believe speaking English meant safety and maturity, too. “When did she move?”
“Two weeks. Right, mi viejo?” She looked at her husband and he nodded. “For the job cleaning houses in Tampa.”
“She dropped out of school? And she moved to be closer to the job?”
Mrs. Ortiz nodded. “A girl offered to share apartment with rent for cheap. It made sense in the economics.”
“Do you know the name of that girl?
”
“Edith Lena. Right, mi viejo?” She turned and looked at Mr. Ortiz for agreement again.
“Sí. Edith Lena.”
Now she had a last name for Edith, which was more than she had before. “Do you have Edith’s phone number?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“How about an address? It would be the same as your daughter’s, right?”
Mrs. Ortiz nodded quickly. “Yes, yes. We send Maria a package last week.” She looked down and twisted her lips, then pretended to smooth her apron but Jordan noticed her swipe a tear.
“Is there anywhere else Maria might have gone?”
Mrs. Ortiz shook her head.
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
Mrs. Ortiz’s eyes widened and her mouth quivered. She shook her head again.
“One more thing, Mrs. Ortiz. Does Maria have a cell phone?” In Jordan’s world, every teenager had a cell phone. Finding Maria would be a lot easier if she had one. Clayton could track it, for one thing.
“Too expensive.” Mrs. Ortiz shook her head. Three strikes. “I get the address.” She bustled another two steps to the kitchen and came back with a small notepad.
Jordan took down the information. “I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll contact you if I learn anything. Okay?”
Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz nodded this time. Jordan offered to shake hands. Mr. Ortiz engulfed her hand in both of his and squeezed. Mrs. Ortiz hugged her, thanking Jordan over and over again.
Jordan worried that she’d overpromised. What could she really do?
She hurried back to the Jeep and snapped a few exterior still shots before she left. With luck and light traffic, she’d get back to the station before Patricia had a canary and Richard threw her out on her ear.
Jordan fed Edith and Maria’s address into the map application on her phone. Not exactly on the route back, but not too far out of the way, either.
“You’ve already been gone too long. Are you trying to get fired?”
Of course, she wasn’t. But Maria Ortiz and her family were not the kind of people who could do this on their own.
“If I don’t help them, who will?”
CHAPTER 19
The Strawberry Café story would be quick. And she didn’t need to package it. If they ran it at all, they’d run a short piece of video and sound bite.
Yeah, she probably could get away with swinging by Edith and Maria’s place and knocking on the door. Maybe Edith was home. She might talk to Jordan. Maybe.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she said, just like her dad always told her.
When she’d traveled twenty of the twenty-five minutes back to the station, Jordan called Patricia. “Hey, just wanted to check in. I’m headed back and I should be able to put the Strawberry VO-SOT together for whenever. Do you know what show it’s going in?”
“Last I saw, it was the kicker at six. Of course, that could change.”
The kicker was the last story of the newscast. The “feel-good” story that attempted to end the newscast on a lighter note.
“No problem. I’ll be back shortly.”
Patricia’s trademark grunt marked the end of the conversation.
“What a grump,” Jordan said after she was sure Patricia had rung off. She wrinkled her nose and resisted the urge to stick her tongue out like a six-year-old.
Jordan followed the driving directions on her phone app. She didn’t want to store directions in the Jeep’s GPS where she might not have access to them later. She found the ramshackle apartment complex easily. She swung the Jeep left and parked out front.
She dashed up the weather-beaten stairs to the second floor and turned left down the corridor to apartment number 209. A dark curtain behind the dirty window concealed the apartment’s interior from view.
Jordan knocked. Edith Lena’s surly face peeked out from behind the curtain and then quickly backed away.
“Edith? It’s me, Jordan. We met when you cleaned the Pierce house yesterday.”
Edith cracked open the door. “Yes?” Still surly.
“I heard Maria is missing, and if you can give me some more information, I think I can help.” When she hesitated, Jordan said, “I’m not leaving here until you talk to me.”
Edith opened the door only wide enough to slip through and then closed it behind her. “I didn’t know her much.”
Past tense. Didn’t know her.
Jordan tried a more tender tone. “You lived with her. You must have known her at least fairly well, didn’t you?”
“She didn’t open up to me.” Edith shrugged. “I mean, you met her. You saw how standoffish she was.”
Not the word Jordan would have used to describe the shy Maria. Standoffish sounded more like Edith. Haughty and demanding, too.
Jordan nodded to make Edith feel more comfortable. “Her parents are very worried. I just thought, if you have any clue about where she might have gone… I don’t know… before the police get involved.”
Edith’s face paled. Maybe she hadn’t realized how serious Maria’s disappearance could be. But Jordan thought Edith had to know more than she claimed.
“Maria’s parents said you invited her to live in this apartment. You must be worried, too. Can I come in?”
Edith blocked the door with her body. “Our roommates are sleeping.”
There were more roommates, but this apartment was small. Where did they all sleep? And why were they sleeping in the middle of the afternoon anyway?
“Oh, okay.” Coaxing information out of Edith was like wrestling with an alligator. “I was gonna ask how you met Maria. You know. Trying to get an idea of the timeline so we can look for her. Because I understand she hasn’t been living here very long.”
“Not long at all. Couple weeks.” Edith licked her lips and finally made meaningful eye contact. Jordan had done or said something that pushed a button. “Felix asked me to find someone else to work at the cleaning. Said he’d give me a ten percent raise.”
“Felix who?”
“My boss. Felix Marsh. You met him.”
Jordan nodded, filing away the last name in her head. One thing accomplished here, at least. “So, you knew Maria because…?”
“An after-school program where we’re from. Not that good of friends in person.” Edith’s fidgeting settled down as she talked, but maybe she was giving Jordan a line of bull, too. “I saw online she was on some hard times. Her family needed money. She was asking for jobs, so I sent her a message. She was in, and I got the ten percent.”
“I see.” Jordan nodded. “A win-win.”
“Yeah.”
Jordan tilted her head and frowned. “I wonder where she possibly could have gone? You two left the Pierce house together, right?”
Edith nodded. “Felix picked us up. He brought me back here. Maria had one more job. She works longer days.” Edith stuck her chin out, defiance back in place. “Last I saw Maria was when I got out of his van here.”
“Aren’t you worried about her?” Jordan shook her head and continued to frown. “I understand you weren’t close friends, but still. You lived together. You worked together.”
“Girls come and go. Cleaning houses isn’t a career or anything. She goes, I find someone else. Felix gives me another ten percent.” Edith shrugged. “Nothing I can do. You should talk to Felix.” Her gaze darted up and down the hallway, and she scratched the back of her neck. “He pays our rent here. One of the perks.”
That wasn’t what Maria said, was it? Didn’t she say her rent was deducted from her pay? And Mrs. Ortiz said the rent was cheap, not free.
Why would Felix be paying the rent? And why didn’t Maria know that she didn’t pay out of her check?
“All I know is Felix saw her after I did. But hey—if you find him, don’t say that to him, okay? Don’t mention me.” A door in the distance slammed, echoing down the hallway, and when Edith’s eyes widened, they were bloodshot.
Jordan turned toward the noise and while her gaze was
diverted, Edith slipped back into the apartment and closed the door.
A deadbolt slid into place.
On her way out, Jordan’s phone rang and she reached into her sling bag to retrieve it. Her favorite reporter, Theresa Parma.
“Hey, girl!” Jordan grinned as if Theresa could see her. “What’s up?”
“Do you have a death wish, or what?” Theresa’s tone was not joking. “Get your ass back here. Right now. Patricia is on the warpath about you.”
“But—” Her stomach felt like a colony of bees had swarmed into it.
“Now, Jordan. Not later. Now.” Theresa hung up.
“What the hell?” Jordan stared at the phone for a second before she dropped it into her bag and hustled back to the Jeep.
CHAPTER 20
Jordan rushed toward the station as quickly as possible through late afternoon traffic. Job one was to get the Strawberry Café video uploaded and edited by six o’clock. She couldn’t afford to be late.
And then she’d find Theresa and figure out what was wrong with her. Theresa was Jordan’s best friend at work. She’d never been anything but supportive. If Theresa was warning Jordan like that, something was seriously wrong.
Jordan’s phone rang again on the drive. It was Lillian, one of the producers. Crap. Producers usually only called for an information update request, a change of command, or if there was a problem.
“Jordan Fox here.”
“Hey, we’re cutting it close on time and I just wanted to make sure you’re on your way back,” Lillian said. Translation: Where the hell are you?
Jordan’s breaths shortened as an uncomfortably hot wave rose from her chest to her hairline. “Almost back.” She whipped around the corner and pressed the gas pedal.
“You’ll have that video, right?”
What video, what video? In the panic of Theresa’s call, running late, and getting in trouble again so soon after Richard’s warning, Jordan’s mind blanked on the actual assignment she’d been sent to do. It seemed so long ago now. Which it surely was.
