Mission road - By Rick Riordan Page 0,46

crippled body of a ten-year-old boy laid on a makeshift funeral bier, draped in the family’s only white sheet. In his dead hands, a rare photograph of Maia’s mother, dead since Maia’s birth eight years ago. As Maia’s father wept, her uncle—her only other living relative—pulled her aside. He smelled like incense and fish from the market stalls.

You’ll live with me now, girl, he told her. Your father will come for you soon.

Maia never saw her father again. A month after the funeral, he refused an order from the Red Guard and was taken away for reeducation. It took her decades to realize her father had done this on purpose, as a form of suicide.

She pushed those images away, opened another album from Lucia DeLeon’s life.

In this one, the time intervals between photos were longer.

There was a picture of Ana DeLeon as a young Air Force cadet, giving her mom an enthusiastic hug. Another picture at a policemen’s picnic—off-duty officers clowning around for the camera, Lucia holding a pork rib like a gun to Etch Hernandez’s head.

The last few pages were a montage of clippings from Lucia’s police career. She’d saved both the good and the bad.

1968: A patronizing editorial about Lucia’s graduating class at the academy—the first to include women trained alongside the men. The headline: Cops in Pantyhose? A photo showed Lucia and five fellow female grads, all wearing skirted matron’s uniforms, looking like grim airline stewardesses.

Seven years later, a news article described Lucia’s award for the medal of bravery. She’d confronted a coked-up ex-bouncer who had clobbered two officers unconscious at the Pig Stand and was holding a third officer hostage at gunpoint. Lucia drew the bouncer’s attention, got him to aim his gun at her, then shot him. Her use of deadly force had been cleared by the review board. She became an instant celebrity.

1987: A brief mention of Hernandez and DeLeon as the officers who found Franklin White’s corpse.

Two years later, a strange article for the scrapbook—a retraction of an earlier news piece. The Express-News had erroneously reported that an off-duty officer, Lucia DeLeon, had been pulled over for drunk driving. Now, a police spokeswoman said that Officer DeLeon had simply been taking cold medication and hadn’t realized how impaired she was. DeLeon was a highly decorated patrol cop. Impeccable record. She’d voluntarily pulled over and accepted assistance from a fellow officer, Etch Hernandez, who happened to be passing by.

Maia read the article twice.

Happened to be passing by.

A month later, the police captain wrote Lucia a letter of commendation, asking her to head a new training program for the department. A scholarship for young women cadets was being created in Lucia’s name, and the captain wanted Lucia to teach a course at the academy. The new assignment was quite an honor.

And one that would keep her off the streets.

Maia wondered what Lucia had thought about that.

She flipped back to the picture of Ana as an Air Force cadet, hugging her mother with so much pride. Ana had followed her mother’s footsteps. She’d joined the police. She kept her mother’s photograph behind her desk in the homicide division. Yet she’d rented Lucia’s house to Mike Flume. She’d left her mother’s belongings in this garage, gathering dust for decades.

On Mike Flume’s yellow legal pad of notes, one final event was starred and underlined:

Lucia dies 1994—alcohol.

Maia wondered why Flume had felt the need to reconstruct Lucia’s life, and why he’d rented her house for so many years.

He’d written Lucia with an upward slant.

He’d spoken her name with regret, maybe a trace of wistfulness. He still remembered what she ordered for dinner. He knew to the minute when she had shown up each night.

Maia’s heart felt heavy. She didn’t want to delve into the old man’s longings, or know what he might’ve secretly felt for a lady cop whom he’d served dinner every night for years.

But it now made sense to her why Mike Flume might’ve lied to the police, if he thought he was protecting Lucia and her partner.

She was considering whether or not to take the photo albums when broken glass crunched behind her.

A cold prickle of danger went down her neck. Instinct took over. She dropped behind a pile of suitcases as the garage window exploded where her head had just been.

Maia drew her .357.

A shadow flickered across the ceiling—someone coming toward her.

She rose up, squeezed off a blast, and took out an impressive chunk of the wooden frame of the garage door.

Nobody there.

Her ears were