“Yeah,” Amber said. “Some power. I dunno.”
“Did they work together?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Mavreen was a CNA, you know?”
“A certified nursing assistant?”
“Yeah. And she worked in this like—office park. There were other medical offices there. Dentists and doctors. Other places, too. A coffee place. A café. I don’t know where he worked, but they met in the courtyard one day.”
“They didn’t meet inheroffice?” I asked.
“No, I asked if he was a patient. She said no.”
“Whatdidshe say?” Shooter asked.
“I was living an hour away back then,” Amber said. “So we’d talk by phone mostly. She was always kind of weird about him.” She squinted. “Like, holding stuff back. Thinking I’d be mad. Then she stopped working at that place, and I didn’t see her for a while. She’d call me from different numbers. Like, you know how the city comes up on your phone sometimes? She’d tell me she was in that city. Just for a month.”
I considered options that made sense. “Was your sister a traveling nurse?”
“No,” Amber said.
“You said she called you,” Shooter cut in, prompting her back to that detail.
“Yeah,” Amber said. “And the last time, she sounded really scared. Told me that if I didn’t hear back from her in a few days, she might be dead. I told her to get out. To run. Three days passed. Then a week. I called the number back and asked for Mavreen. The guy who answered told me she wasn’t there. He said not to call again.”
“This was the guy in the sketch?” I asked.
“I think so,” she said. “But it was just a phone call. I couldn’t see him.”
“Did he have an accent?” I asked.
“Maybe?”
“Okay,” I said, slowing down. “What kind?”
“I dunno.”
“Was it Southern?” I asked. “Georgia? Florida?”
“No.”
The sketch artist had told us the man spoke Spanish.
“Was it foreign?” I asked, not wanting to steer her toward any language yet.
“It was like… he was trying to talk with a voice. Like, to sound well educated.”
Huh?
“All right,” I said.
“I asked the guy,” Amber continued, “‘Is this her boyfriend?’ That’s when he got scary. Said he knew my name. Where I lived. Said if I kept asking around, he would come for me. Cut me.”
“Cut you?” I said. “Those were the words he used?”
Amber pursed her lips together, the color drained from them. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“Did you call the police?” Shooter asked.
