Free Mission Road by Rick Riordan

myself.”
    “Because you and Lucia were the first people at the scene?”
    “Yes. Partly.”
    “How long did you work with Ana’s mother?”
    “Twenty years. All of it on patrol. She was the most exceptional officer I’ve ever known.”
    “After she died, you sponsored her daughter’s career. Tres told me you recommended Ana for the sergeant’s position in homicide.”
    “She was the best person for the job.”
    “Does Detective Kelsey see it that way?”
    The lieutenant stared through the glass at Ana’s hospital bed. He radiated worry and frustration, but whatever he wanted to say, he kept it to himself.
    Maia wondered what it would be like working for this man.
    He reminded Maia of her old law firm mentor, John Terrence, back in the days when she still trusted his sincerity. There was something about him—an air of long-ago heartbreak that sparked a woman’s instinct to nurture, to heal. With Hernandez, you’d have to exert a conscious effort
not
to want to please him, not to start treating him like a father figure.
    “Ana was . . .
is
a good detective,” he said.
    “She wasn’t going after her husband,” Maia said. “She had another lead. Do you know who it was?”
    Hernandez pinched the knot of his tie. “Ana was desperate to clear her husband, Miss Lee. Grasping at straws.”
    “But did she tell you anything?”
    “No.”
    “Case notes?”
    “There was nothing in her office. She usually kept everything on her laptop, which she would’ve carried home with her, but the laptop was not there when we got to the scene. Disappeared, just like Ralph Arguello.”
    Maia thought about Kelsey riffling through Ana’s desk drawers, poring through stacks of case files.
    Just being thorough.
    “Lieutenant, what happened the night Frankie White died?”
    Hernandez watched the nurses. One filled a hypodermic needle. The other was checking something on Ana’s chart.
    “We found John Doe bodies along Mission Road all the time,” he said. “Popular dumping ground for the gangs. Nice rural stretch, heavy ground cover, hardly any streetlights. That night, I knew who the victim was the minute we pulled up. Frankie White used to cruise our beat. I knew his car. Good thing, too, because his face was unrecognizable. When we found him . . . Lucia was the professional. She did everything by the book. She said even Franklin White deserved justice. Me? Honestly, Miss Lee, I wanted to push the body into the bushes, back out and pretend we never saw anything. I knew what kind of hell would break loose when word got out. I knew Lucia and I would be on the hot seat for all kinds of questions because we’d found the body. I didn’t care who killed the son-of-a-bitch, as long as he was dead.”
    “You make it sound personal.”
    “Miss Lee, I was hoping to make retirement without
some
things coming back to haunt me.” Hernandez’s gaze was so intensely sad it sent a shiver down Maia’s back. “Apparently, God has other plans.”
    He swept out of the room, the guard in the corridor straightening to attention as he passed.
    Alone at the observation window, Maia tried to keep vigil.
    That was why she’d come—as if by being close to Ana, Maia could understand what she’d been after, why she’d gotten herself shot.
    All Maia felt was growing unease. She felt like she was still back at police headquarters, the rapist elf’s arm around her neck, his sour breath on her cheek. She hated feeling helpless.
    She took the note from her coat pocket.
    She’d already located the medical examiner, Jaime Santos. Two quick calls had done that, but Maia was loath to go. She never liked talking to MEs. Since childhood, she’d had an aversion to people who handled dead bodies.
    Bad luck,
her father always said.
The worst luck of all.
    Of course, her father had had his own reasons to fear death.
    Maia looked at Ana DeLeon. She tried to imagine the sergeant’s limp hand writing the words:
Timing is wrong.
    The picture of Ana’s