When I step out of the City Garden Grand on the corner of Makati Avenue and Kalayaan, the city smells rinsed—puddles shouldering the curb, a barback sluicing yesterday off the sidewalk on P. Burgos near the red-light district. Daylight softens neon into quiet plastic; a taho vendor calls “tahó!” and steam lifts from the metal pails he’s carrying.
A compact silver sedan idles across the lane, driver’s door ajar. The woman leaning on it lifts her sunglasses with two fingers. It takes me a second to place her—the same woman I’d clocked at the airport. Jeans, light-brown blouse, hair in a no-nonsense ponytail. She has that balanced way of standing—weight easy, like she could step any direction. And there’s a prickle I can’t name, something about the way her eyes hold mine—familiar the way a melody is when you can’t place the words.
“Mr. Gailey, sir,” she says, polite smile already in place.
My own smile starts up and stalls. “Yes?”
She closes the car door and meets me halfway, hand out. “I’m Detective Althea Santos. You can call me Thea.”
I hide my surprise behind a practiced smile. “Nice to meet you—Detective. I mean, Thea. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, Mr. Gailey, sir. Everything is fine. Sorry if I startled you.” The smile warms by a notch. “If it’s okay, I’d like to ask a few questions. Completely voluntary. You’re not in trouble.”
“Please, call me David. What sort of questions?”
“If you don’t mind, sir David, we can talk at the station. It shouldn’t take long—we’re nearby.”
Every American courtroom show I’ve half-watched raises a hand in my head: don’t go anywhere “voluntary.” I’m alone in a foreign country. I just landed. I’m running on airplane coffee and stubborn optimism. Caution kicks in.
“If it’s all the same to you, Detective,” I say—using her title on purpose—“I quite literally just got here and it’s been a long trip. You said this was voluntary. Can we do this tomorrow? Or email me the questions and I’ll answer tonight.”
She reads my face and slips off the sunglasses. Her eyes are steady, dark, and for a breath they look like someone’s I used to know, though I can’t say whose. “I understand, sir David. Two things: first, here’s my ID.” She flips a leather wallet: badge, photo, name. “And my card.” A white rectangle with a number inked twice, as if she wants it to stick. “Second, if we push this, my boss may ask me to formalize it. I’d rather keep it friendly.” A small, apologetic tilt of the head. “We’re five to eight minutes away only.”
I keep my ground for another beat. “Where exactly?”
“Poblacion Sub-Station. SS6.” She half-raises her phone like she’ll show me the map, then simply points. “Just over there. If you prefer, we can walk.” The offer lands practiced and kind.
My shoulders unclench. I snap photos of her badge and card. I think about texting a friend—Going to Poblacion Sub-Station with Det. A. Santos. Back soon.—then imagine the panic and questions that would follow and pocket my phone. The doorman catches my eye through the glass and gives a small, neutral nod, like he’s seen this movie and it ends fine.
“Okay,” I say.
“We’ll be quick,” she says, and the smile returns—like we’re just two people caught in the same rain.
We get in her car. The seat covers give a small squeak; diamond stitching under my palms. A rosary loops the mirror. A dashcam blinks a patient red dot. The cabin smells faintly of lemon and something cleaner underneath. The AC bumps from cool to cold with a quick twist and I dab my forehead—the casual, nothing-to-see-here swipe I perfected growing up in Arizona heat.
“Thank you,” I say.
She eases us onto Kalayaan. Wipers try once on a dry windshield and quit. “How long will you be in the Philippines, sir?”
“Just over two weeks.”
“Nice.” Quick grin. “Business or pleasure?”
“Vacation.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes.” The answers come smaller than I mean them to; caution sometimes borrows my voice.
We pass a sari-sari store with sachets clipped like pennants, a tricycle coughing a neat cloud of gasoline, tarpaulins with smiling faces I don’t know flapping from light poles. She gestures like a patient guide. “Greenbelt and Glorietta are that way,” she says at Makati Ave. “If you like parks, Bonifacio High Street—BGC—is close.”
I thumb the names into Notes.
“Are you from Manila?” I ask, nudging the spotlight away from me.
“No, sir. From the province. I came here for school.”
“Which province?”
“Nueva Ecija,” she says, easy pride in it. “Rice country. My parents still live near Cabanatuan—fields that go mirror-bright when it rains. I try to go home when I can.” She checks the mirror. “A few hours north.”
Kalayaan bends and climbs; Century City’s glass tilts a hard blue at the sun. We slip down toward J.P. Rizal—motorcycles threading gaps, laundry strung like flags between windows, a kid in slippers chasing a soccer ball that tries to run into traffic and loses. She turns onto a narrower street where the asphalt has seams like old scars and noses into a small lot beside a low building with a blue sign.
Poblacion Sub-Station / SS6. The letters look almost hand-cut.
Inside: fluorescent hum, a desk fan with a tired tick, a bulletin board quilted with memos, a poster of emergency numbers, a calendar where a saint cradles lilies in a way that makes the lilies look heavy. The place has the soft efficiency of a weekday afternoon—keyboard chatter, murmured “sir/ma’am,” a stapler’s bite from somewhere behind a partition.
“This way, sir,” Thea says, still gentle.
We pass a neat line of plastic chairs and a framed mission statement and stop at a small room. Metal table. Two stackable monoblock chairs. A glass of water sweating onto a coaster. A whiteboard with handwriting no cleaner has fully erased. A black dome in the corner and a pinhole above the board—eyes I didn’t notice at first.
“Coffee? Water?” she asks.
“I’m okay.”
She sits opposite and sets a plain notebook on the table without opening it. She takes a breath, studies my face for a beat—like she’s measuring light—then nods once.
“Thank you for coming, sir David,” she says. “I’ll keep this straightforward.”
The door clicks softly shut.