Girls Like Us(29)

“I don’t know. The windows were tinted.”

“Can you close your eyes? Picture the car, driving away. Can you tell me anything about it?”

She blinks. Then she closes her eyes, squeezes them shut. “The license plate was yellow.”

“Good. What else?”

“Maybe there’s a five in it.” Her eyes open again. She shakes her head, frustrated. “Or an S. I don’t know. I’m not good at this stuff.”

“You’re doing great. And you’d never seen that car before?”

“No.”

“When did you realize she was missing?”

“I work a Saturday shift, cleaning at the hospital in Southampton. I leave around six thirty in the morning. Everyone was asleep. Adriana’s door was closed. I assumed she was in there. I didn’t think to check.” She puts her hand to her face. I wait quietly as her body convulses with a wave of tears.

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper. The words feel empty as they leave my mouth.

“I’m her big sister,” she says, her voice reaching a hysterical pitch. “I should’ve checked to make sure she came home.”

I reach across the table and pick up a box of tissues. I hand it to her. “When did you get back on Saturday?” I ask quietly, once she’s blown her nose.

“Around six at night. Kids were watching a show when I got back. And I asked Diego—he’s my boyfriend—where’s Adriana? He hadn’t seen her all day. That’s when I got nervous. Her room was empty. I called her cell twice. No answer. Just went straight to voicemail.”

“Had she ever been gone more than one night?”

“No. Not that I remember. But it was the weekend. Diego said maybe she’s out having fun, not to bother her. He thinks I hover too much, you know. That I treat her like a kid. So I let it go. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I just felt like something was wrong. You know that feeling? You just get it in your bones. When she wasn’t back in the morning, I called the police.”

“Do you remember who you spoke to?”

“No. I just called 911, and they transferred me to the station. And then some guy said I had to come down and file a report. So I did. That’s when I talked to the jerk who asked if Adriana was a working girl. I could just tell he didn’t give a fuck about her, about me, about any of us.”

“You mentioned in your report that there had been a car—a red truck—parked outside your house.”

She nods slowly, like she’s remembering something she’d forgotten about. “Yeah. There was. A pickup.”

“Right before your sister went missing?”

“Yeah. Like, literally, the day before.”

“Did you see anyone in the car?”

“Yeah, the guy just sat there. Didn’t see his face. He was wearing a baseball cap. He never got out. It was like he was watching our house. It gave me the creeps.”

“Have you seen that car since?”

“No. Maybe it was nothing. I don’t know.” She hesitates then, like she wants to tell me something.

“Ms. Marques,” I say quietly, “if there’s anything else you think is important, you can tell me. I won’t share it with anyone else. But it might help me find out who did this to your sister.”

She looks at me then, her eyes welling with tears. “I think Adriana was pregnant.”

“Why did you think that?”

She shrugs. “Just, you know. Intuition. She’d been tired a lot. And a couple of times, I heard her throwing up in the mornings.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“No. I wasn’t sure. She wasn’t showing or anything. I figured she’d tell me when she was ready.”

“Did she seem upset in the days before she went missing? Secretive? Anything out of the ordinary?”

Elena chews her lip, considering. “Honestly? She seemed happy.”

“Happy?”

“Yeah. Like a cloud had finally lifted.”

“Maybe she was excited about the baby.”

She nods. “I thought so. She was on the phone more. Whispering to someone. Usually late at night. Once, she used the house phone and so I picked up the extension. I was curious. It was a man’s voice. He was telling her that she had to be discreet. Because of his position. Something like that.”

“What did she say?”

“That she understood. That she would never do anything to hurt him. Then he said, ‘I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of everything,’ and she started to cry.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“No. I didn’t want her to feel like I was invading her privacy. She wouldn’t have told me, anyway.”

“That’s okay. We can get your phone records and see who she was talking to. Did you speak to anyone else from the police department? After you filed the missing persons, I mean.”

“A cop came by the house later that night. A tall white guy. Dark hair, kind of a buzz cut. Like a military guy. He looked around Adriana’s room. Asked me a few questions about her. He was odd. Real quiet. Seemed nervous, too, like he was looking for something.”

“Looking for something?”

“Yeah. He kept looking around her desk. And in her closet.”