Ernesto Lim called on a Saturday morning.
I was outside Rosie's gate with market bags in both hands and the warm Cebu air already doing what it did by eight o'clock, which was settle itself against your skin like something deliberate, when the phone buzzed in my pocket. I put the bags down and looked at the screen and felt something in my chest shift in a way I could not immediately name.
Not fear. Not the cold particular alertness that Marco Sy's number produced. Something more complicated than either of those.
I answered.
"Ms. Cruz." His voice was the same as it had been the week before in my office. Measured. Careful. The voice of a man who had learned late in life to think before he spoke and was still adjusting to the discipline of it. "I hope I am not disturbing you."
"I am outs
