Possessive about Rosa

8

Yesterday in the evening Leona caught David's attention, he kept his towel down and knelt before her asking what was the matter, he kept on looking at her face and then his hands. He turned to me asking what was the matter..I had nothing to say so I shook my head. What else would I have said? 

"Leona? Leona...what happened? Are you not feeling well?" David asked, shaking her a bit, "Rose?" He turned to me.

"I'll call Mads," I hastily took steps to the kitchen looking for Mads, he was whipping up cream with the whip and Nicki was busy filling batter in the moulds.

"Mads, Leona...she's...she's crying." I stuttered, his neck snapped towards my voice and he looked confused, he knew she had been acting weird lately but she never cried, "Come on," he kept the whip down, wiped his hand on the kitchen towel and followed me behind.

We had to calm her down, she wouldn't talk to us. We all tried to talk her out of it but she didn't budge. After a while she asked us to go home, this was the first time she left with us since she started acting weird, I saw Guzman leaning on the wall smoking a cigarette, I cringed. I don't know why I guess it happened because I've seen Richmond's wife? He threw the cigarette down stepping on it. He was kind enough to eat a mint and then near me.

We both walked home and after all this while I asked him as to why he came to drop me home walking, he just smiled and shrugged it off. I told him about Leona and he said that I shouldn't bother because cops around here are more with the gangsters than the actual people. We talked briefly, nothing more. I was enjoying his company and I didn't want to ruin it by speaking forced words just to keep the air light around us. 

Today it was a tight fit, I somehow smashed the alarm at night when it went off, I was so sleepy that I had no idea I was doing it. So cutting the crap, the alarm didn't go off, I woke up late and I had to rush to the café. 

The worst was yet to come, when I stepped down the building entrance was sealed, there were barricades all over the alley, the cops were investigating people and some people who wore blue gloves and had camera in their hands looked like forensics, they were capturing pictures of a body, I was getting late but I couldn't help but peek a little. 

It was a young woman around my age, she was stabbed in the abdomen and blood was all over her pink dress which was now covered in mud, they were marking evidence around her corpse, she managed to look beautiful even in her dying state. Maybe it was burglary, it was common around here to get mugged at night. 

I had to leave soon but it was sealed and I didn't want to do something stupid by crossing it and walking away. Looking around I saw an officer and gestured to him to come here, he nodded and ran towards me. 

"Good morning officer, I'm actually getting late for work, can I leave?" I asked politely.

"Maybe after you give us a statement, you live here?" He pulled out his notepad ignoring my groan. 

"Yes. But I don't know that woman and I didn't see when it all happened," I was just smashing my alarm in my sleep, I thought sarcastically. 

"Where do you work?" He asked looking down at his notepad. He wrote the date wrong, I wanted to tell him.

"Twenty eight," I muttered, catching his attention.

"Pardon?" He looked confused. We both heard the siren and I was the one to give it a look, the car stopped and two female officers walked out in casual clothes, guess they're the detectives.

"Colton!" One of them yelled, this can't be happening, I needed to leave as soon as possible. 

"Here, four blocks away from here in a café..I'm a waitress," I said in a hurry.

"Can I leave now?" He shook his head no.

"Were you working yesterday?"

"Yes, got back around eight thirty or something." I mumbled.

"Hey, Beth, do we have the time of death yet?" He turned around to talk to his colleague. 

"No. But we all think here that it was around ten, the blood hasn't clotted entirely in the body yet." She gave him a thumbs up and clicked another photo.

"What were you doing around ten?" He asked.

I sighed, I'm not going to be there at time.

"I smashed my alarm probably when it went off.." I groaned. 

"You may go," He sighed, taking out one end of the yellow tape so I could get through.

"Thanks!!" I yelled waving and that's when I crashed into something, it was wall, I walked into a wall? My hands touched the strangely soft wall, it's a person!

I looked up to see the officer who came out of the car, she looked down at me from behind her sunglasses. "s**t, I'm sorry." I backed away touching my face.

"It's alright." She came close to me and tucked my hair behind my ear.

What?

"Colton did you take her statement?" She looked past me to Colton, "Yes, she smashed an alarm at sleep when the murder took place," He chuckled making the officer in front of me laugh and leaving me embarrassed. 

"Alright then missy, get going." She moved from my way and I took big steps looking down.

It took me twenty minutes to reach my workplace because in the third block they've dug the road for water pipelines, I had to walk three more blocks to reach here. My legs were screaming in pain, when I checked the time in my phone I almost ran in my heels. I was thirty five minutes late. There is no point in taking a late shift at night because of the lack of customers.

The first thing I saw after reaching the café was that the board hanging up with the name of the cafe written on it was hanging on one side and lights were sparkling, I saw Mads, Taylor, David, Nicki were standing out looking at each other and then at the café. There were yellow tapes all over and police cars and police themselves. 

Glass wall where customers usually sat to enjoy the view of the street was shattered, the counter behind which I stood taking orders and complaining to myself about my life and immature customers was smashed, I could see a dent like it had been hit with a bat or something like that. 

"When?" I didn't believe myself to talk more without screaming, I was horrified looking at the scene before me.

"Last night. They say some people broke in, come here," Mads pulled in his arms and held me tight, I shuddered a breath and broke in his arms, I don't know what was happening, why did I cry? Was it because what that man told Leona came true or was it because how Leona would react after seeing this. This place was her home, we were her family and the customers were the guests whom she served with our help wholeheartedly.

"Calm...calm down Rose," I heard Taylor behind me but I was too far gone to say anything. Mads rubbed my back as I ruined his shirt, I couldn't seem to stop..

"Where's...where's...Leona?" I asked, staying where I was, my knee felt weak and everything felt like a dream.

"She's not here yet." Nicki muttered.

"Is your other colleague here yet?" We heard a strange voice from behind, Mads kissed my hair and pulled away, I wiped my face as much as I could and glanced at the man who walked to us. 

"This is Rose, detective." Mads introduced me to him, I nodded looking down, I felt sick. I wanted to tell everything but I was afraid that the cops would be involved with the people who trashed this, I didn't want more problems for Leona. She's going through enough. 

"Ms Rose, I'm detective Churchill." His voice was heavy with British accent, he held his hand forward for me to shake, I took his hand shaking it firmly. 

"We don't have any information regarding Ms Camry, we checked in with her neighbours and they say she never returned home last night."

He looked at us all as if he was silently accusing us for her disappearance. I looked up at Mads as his hand engulfed mine.

"She has a son, did you check in with him?" Nicki asked him,

"Yes, he had to say the same thing, when she didn't return he crashed at his friend's house." Detective Churchill turned around gesturing an officer in uniform to come here. 

"I want you to check in with their alibis if they have any, and take their statements." He pointed at all of us.

"I can't believe you think we're involved in this, bullshit!" Taylor lashed out.

"Taylor!" I glared at him.

"Mr everyone here is a suspect, whoever was behind this knew that they can't be captured in the camera inside and the way they came out cautiously without getting caught in the camera is just proving our theories right." Detective explained.

"All we ask is your cooperation, you need to come down to the station to give your statements and check in with your alibis." 

"What about the insurance of the place?" Mads asked. 

"We've called them, they will need Ms Camry's signature and our statement, you can talk to them." He shrugged.

"Alright. Until then?" David asked, we all dreaded the answer.

"The café remains close until then," The officer muttered.

"You can't leave the city or country and you will have to be there in the station if we call you." Mr Churchill said and shook his hand with Mads and left. 

I saw Nicki sigh, taking my hand back from Mads. I pulled Nicki in a hug, we all knew how much she needed the job. "Don't worry, we'll figure something out." I rubbed her arm.

"I don't think so, where is Leona anyway?" She rested her head on mine.

"She left with us didn't she? Where do you think she went?" Taylor asked Mads. 

"No idea," he shrugged.

"What do you think, why exactly did this happen?" David asked, crossing his hand against his chest.

"Doesn't look like burglary to me man," Taylor shook his head.

"True. I mean this looks like it was done to send a message." Nicki shook her head.

"Like a warning?" Taylor gasped.

"Perhaps," Mads said.

"What do you mean? This actually makes sense!" David hissed coming closer. There was chatter going on and a lot of pointing fingers to the crime scene so we decided to walk under the tree and stand across the road.

"What does?" Nicki asked, taking out a bottle of water from her purple bag. Her dark skin complimented so many colours it wasn't funny. Peach colour was her absolute to go, she slayed everything in that colour may it be accessories, clothes, lipsticks or footwear.

"Yesterday after those two guys left she started crying, and now they trash the café at night looking out for the camera plus Leona is missing." David raised his brow to get something out of us. He was right.

"Maybe we should inform the police about those two guys, and her crying." Taylor chipped in.

"Don't be stupid!" I said suddenly, my voice was hurried. Feared one might say.

"Excuse me?" Taylor frowned.

"What I'm saying is this can be just a theory and not the actual truth, Leona must have had some work so she's not here or she wasn't home last night. About those two men yesterday, we exactly don't know what they told her, if we go and rat out to cops now we might put Leona in danger." I just wanted to keep stupid things off Leona's back, I wanted her to return and prove everyone wrong.

"Actually she has a point." Mads mumbled quietly.

"So it's decided then, we go and check with our alibis and keep our mouth shut about this." Nicki nodded at everyone.

"You're my alibi Mads." Taylor said.

"Yes."

"David?" Nicki asked,

"What? I was at home cleaning." David scoffed.

"I know it sucks that we're their suspects but we know we haven't done anything so just calm down." Mads growled.

"I'll have to call my husband, I was at home with him." Nicki shrugged.

"I'll call Guzman, he was with me." 

"Finding a job is not gonna be easy." David scratched his forehead.

"We'll have to try." Nicki muttered.

"Actually he's right, the guy I'm seeing is also a chef. He said that around here they have permanent staff, it's gonna be hard." Mads tilted his neck.

"Around here right? We can try elsewhere." Nicki argued.

"How will you go there? You already live far away from here." David raised his eyebrow..

"I'll ask Ethan if he knows any vacant place." Nicki was losing it, everyone could hear.

"Let's not talk about it, I'm sure Leona would be back as she gets the news and then the café will be renovated, we'll have our jobs back too.." I said, tapping on Guzman's name on the phone screen.

"She's right, give me a break!" David sighed.

Guzman answered the call and I walked aside to talk, "Hey," I said.

"Hi! This time?" His concern was sweet.

"Actually a thing happened….." And I ended up telling him everything, I could hear the intercom and knock on the door but he said it was fine and I should continue. 

"Don't worry, I'll be there whenever and about the jobs…..I'm sure I'll ask someone in the PR if there is any vacancy to be filled. If they have the qualification we can hire them here." I sighed in relief when I heard that, "thanks." I gulped.

"I'll have someone run for the advertisement, if they are interested in working in an eatery or restaurant that would do too." He continued.

"Okay…I don't know what to say, thanks." I swayed on my heels.

"Don't worry about it, I have two hours on my sleeve, you guys wanna meet up?" I thought about it and then looked past my shoulder and saw them bickering, "Hey! Mads, Guzman wanna meet up, he has news on jobs." I raised my brow.

"Sure, it's not like we're doing anything. Ask him to meet us in Robin's," Mads nodded. I turned and removed my hand against the phone.

"Robin's in ten?" I asked. 

"On it." I grinned at his reply hanging up.

Robin's from here was a five minute walk, that eatery was huge but unfortunately the customers were treated badly, I don't know how, I've just heard from people.

"Isn't this the same Robin's where customers aren't treated politely?" I asked Taylor.

We made two groups of two, me and Taylor were walking together, in front of us Nicki and Mads were talking about some sauce and it seemed pretty serious. David was behind us typing furiously on the phone.

"They're just the rumours, the Chinese place opposite to it has spread." Taylor shook his head.

"Oh."

"Yeah...a friend from my college works there, they get paid well like real good and tips are fine too. Just one condition." He shrugged.

"What's the condition?" I asked, pushing my hair back.

"They have to sign a contract of two years, they can't breach it by leaving in the middle." 

"So your friend had signed it?" I asked.

"Yes. He is here for good, so he had signed a four year contract." 

Mads pushed open the door and asked Nicki to walk in first, she blushed walking inside, Taylor opened the door and walked in without hesitation, I heard David snicker from behind and I gave him a bird.

"What? Do you know why they say ladies first?" He pushed the door open for me and bowed for me to go in.

"Tell me," I trailed off as the delicious aroma of savory food hit my nose, I almost drooled. 

"Are you listening?" David tapped my shoulder. 

"Sure." I nodded.

"So long time ago there was a couple, they for some stupid reason decided to jump off a tall building, they stood on the edge of the building and kissed each other, the guy then fell off but the girl didn't, she turned away after waving a goodbye to him, the guy unfastened his parachute and said, "I knew this b***h wouldn't fall off!" And then he spread it to everyone and that's when this; ladies first, was used." He managed to say it with a straight face made it more funny, I laughed at his face covering my face with the back of my hand.

We both sat on the table the other three sat and chatted away, we had so much to catch up on, like Nicki and her husband are trying to conceive, Mads is thinking of moving from his current house to another, David is well David. Taylor might get a scholarship for next year for his good grades. 

I ordered chicken quesadilla and a lemon soda, we all started eating and that's when we remembered about Guzman, we all looked at each other with mouth full of food and some in hands and burst out laughing, David managed to steal the thunder by managing to choke on his tuna sandwich, that s**t stinks. I asked Mads to take my place and I sat on his across the table. I couldn't stand the smell.

Shaking his head, Mads rubbed David's back and gave him some water, after gulping the water quickly he grinned at us, that earned him a blow from Taylor who sat beside him, I pulled out my phone to text Guzman, where are you? My text read, after a moment his reply pinged, look up beautiful.

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