He saw what she was looking at. “Yeah. I got married a couple months ago. I actually met Melissa when she was staying here for her best friend’s wedding, and we hit it off. Funny thing, she’s got a daughter just about the same age as Aliyah.”

“Jazmin would want you to be happy, wouldn’t she?” Drue asked. It was a cliché, but she didn’t know what else to say. Besides, clichés were usually true, right?

“I think so,” he said. “Jaz was great. We had a lot of fun. Not many people knew she had a goofy side to her. She’d been through some rough stuff, you know? But she was smart. She took a couple classes at USF and made good grades. She was a good person.”

“So I’ve heard,” Drue said. “Jorge, did she ever tell you somebody at the hotel was sexually harassing her? An older white guy?”

“What? She never said anything about it to me. Where’d you hear that?”

“She told her mom that she’d complained to the management, but they never did anything about it.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it, but yeah, I can totally believe that. The atmosphere over there, it’s not professional. At all.”

“How do you mean?”

“The men who worked there? They were all the time making dirty comments about the females on the staff and the guests. I’m no prude, but it was pretty disgusting, if you ask me.”

“Can you give me some examples?”

“Yeah. Like the head of security? His name is Shelnutt, and he’s a piece of crap. He’d have what he called ‘porn parties.’ He was the one monitoring the security cameras around the property, and he’d make what he called his ‘greatest hits’ clips—you know, lots of tits and ass: chicks around the pool or on the beach who didn’t have their bathing suit tops fastened, people in the hallways who’d come out half dressed, and his favorite, people getting it on in the elevators.” He looked away, embarrassed. “I went to one of his parties once, to show I was one of the guys, but it was just gross. I made up some excuse and ducked out after about fifteen minutes and never went back.”

“Is that why you left the Gulf Vista?”

“Not really. I was up for a managerial position, but they promoted somebody else, a white guy, who had less seniority and experience, over me. He didn’t even have any college. I was fed up. I’d already put in applications at some other hotels out here, and when the Silver Sands called, I went like a shot. You know, if Jaz had left when I did, maybe she’d still be alive. I think about that a lot.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”