Part Eleven: Two Men at the Gate

On the first Monday in July, two men in dark jackets arrived at the community gate and told the guard they were police officers making an inquiry about a resident’s employee.

They were asking for Maya Sterling.

They said there was a warrant.

They said she was wanted in connection with the theft of two hundred thousand dollars in jewelry from a family residence, and that a report had been filed by an Evelyn Sterling.

The guard on duty was a different man from the one who had logged Maya in, and he was sixty-one and had worked private security for two decades, and he did the thing he had been trained to do, which was call the house before he opened anything.