Drue picked up the bowl of ramen and drank the last bit of salty broth. She looked down at the report she’d just read. Set down in black and white like this, Jazmin Mayes’s death might not seem too traumatic. She’d been an unwed teen mother, onetime shoplifter and a high school dropout. But from the looks of things, Jazmin had turned her life around, getting a GED and a steady job, even enrolling in college.

Probably, she’d been trying to make a better life for her own little girl, Aliyah, who loved to read and color pictures of mermaids. Her life had been irrevocably altered. Drue turned the page and found another report written by Jimmy Zee.

Interview with H. K. Byars, former Gulf Vista housekeeping supervisor, 11-25-16, interview took place at Superior Tire Company in Largo, where he is now employed as a salesman. Mr. Byars stated Jazmin Mayes was generally reliable employee, although she had been late to work two or three times due to transportation issues. On night of incident, stated he warned her that she would be placed on probation if she was late to work again. Hotel was at full occupancy that night because of large convention of Shriners, and housekeeping was backed up because of late checkouts and because several banquet rooms were not vacated until past 10 p.m.

Victim was assigned to cleaning banquet rooms and guest rooms in north wing of hotel, which is separated from main building of hotel by covered walkway. Wing consists of three stories of guest rooms, 20 rooms on each floor.

Interesting, Drue thought, that Jazmin Mayes’s former supervisor no longer worked at the hotel. But maybe not too surprising. Having worked at bars and restaurants off and on for most of her adult life she knew firsthand that most hospitality-related jobs in Florida had high rates of turnover.

She turned the page and found another of Zee’s reports.