I hate to hear women called “girls.” Particularly by other women. Either Monica Fullbright was a lot older than she looked or I was supposed to sympathize with her about how hard it was to get good help. Other than that, I couldn’t figure out what she wanted me to do. I could fill out a missing-person report, but then so could she. I must have had a pretty blank look on my face, because she kept talking fast at me.

“She’s worked for me nearly three years. My kids are crazy about her. I know it would be easy to find someone else—those girls are a dime a dozen—but it’s so hard when you’ve already taught them how you want things done.”

She was probably paying a lousy eighty-five dollars a week and working the woman like a dog. Watching the refrigerator to see how much she ate.

“When I was divorced a couple of years ago, I had to go out and get a job. I’m the manager of Crystal’s. Carmen gets the kids their dinner, takes care of them when they get home from school. I can’t function without her.”

You read all the time about these latchkey kids who come home to an empty house and have to lock themselves inside until their mothers get home. Sometimes a fire starts and they burn to death. But that only happens in the ghetto. It does not happen to women who are managers of one of the most exclusive clothing stores in Beverly Hills.

“Carmen’s from Guatemala. Every year or so she goes down there to see her family.”

“How, if she’s not legal?” Wouldn’t she know more about this since they had been living in the same house for years? Didn’t they talk to each other?

Monica Fullbright banished the beginning of a frown. “I don’t know how she does it. She has a Guatemalan passport she showed me. All I know is that two times before, she’s gone and come back. I’m afraid something has happened to her this time.”

“What is it you want me to do?” Did she want me to call the police? To bust down kitchen doors in Beverly Hills to find out if the woman had gone to work for someone else?

“Go to Immigration, find out if they’ve got her. There must be a way to bail people out.”