Chapter 7 - The Story Goes PublicNews cameras arrived.
Then reporters.
Then strangers.
Some came to help.
Others came because tragedy attracted attention.
A true-crime podcast offered Rosa fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to the story.
The money could keep the employees paid.
It could buy medicine.
It could keep the lights on.
But it would also turn Miguel's murder into entertainment.
Rosa refused the private interview.
Instead, she negotiated.
Public records could be licensed.
No private family interviews.
No reenactments.
No dramatized murder scene.
A portion of the money would go directly into an employee emergency fund.
It wasn't perfect.
But it allowed Rosa to survive without selling the most painful parts of her life.
Then Boone struck back.
Bank records appeared online.
Frank's Keller payments.
Rosa's tuition checks.
Headlines called the diner a business built on stolen strike money.
Donations disappeared.
Customers stopped coming.
One employee quit after receiving online threats.
Then Pritchard appeared on television.
He looked old.
Respectable.
Almost fragile.
He claimed Miguel had stolen the money.
He claimed Frank had invented the murder.
He claimed Miguel had fled south.
He sounded like a man remembering history.
Rosa realized something terrifying.
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People didn't always believe the truth.
They believed whoever sounded most certain.
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