“Maybe she stepped out?” Kiki ventures. “Could be the man downstairs was actually telling the truth.”

But I shake my head. She knows as well as I do how unlikely that is. “Today’s one of her busiest nights. She wouldn’t.”

I try the doorknob, but it rattles uselessly in my hand.

Locked.

Biting back a curse, I turn to the girl in the doorway. Her blond hair falls in loose curls down her back. She looks very European. Not a trace of native blood in her, at least on the surface. Esmeralda’s more aristocratic clients would pay a pretty penny for a night with her. The more European the outside, the heftier price they can command. She never said it outright, but I’m fairly certain my hair was one of the reasons Esmeralda took me in. It was the only gift my father ever gave me. He was a Dutch merchant who passed through town only long enough to sire me with a local prostitute. Esmeralda probably thought I’d grow up to be one of her moneymakers. Red hair was rare enough in Europe, but even rarer here. A contrast to my complexion, Esmeralda once called it. She said it like she was eyeing up a prize sow. Unlike this girl here, my skin is the sun-kissed color most people in the city share. She’s pale. Very pale. Like she’d crisp up if she even thought about the sun. Her eyes—a grassy green—meet mine. There’s a hard look in them. She’s seen things. No one who winds up working in this part of town reaches adulthood without that very same hardening.

“Where’s Rosalita?” I ask.

The girl shrugs, crossing her arms under her bosom. It’s a bit small for Esmeralda’s, but I suppose there’s a market for all types. “Don’t know. Don’t much care.”

“You’re an insouciant little thing, aren’t you?” Kiki asks.

Another shrug, this one somehow even more insouciant than the last. The girl analyzes her nails as if she could divine the secrets of the universe in their ridges. “Don’t know what that means.”

Kiki and I share a look. Her eyebrows inch ever so slightly upward before she shrugs a single shoulder.

Your call, says that shrug.

With a grin that’s more than a little feral, I move closer, disrupting her study of her own damn nails. “Where. Is. Rosalita?”

The girl may be a tiny little shit, but to her credit, she isn’t the least bit cowed. Lip curled, she sneers up at me. “Don’t. Know. Don’t. Care.”

“Well, can’t say I didn’t try asking nicely.”

Kiki steps back, giving me space to operate.