at haphazard angles among huge hills of displaced dirt and broken asphalt.
A little girl sat digging on top of one of those hills, her face and clothing streaked with dirt, her red hair gleaming in the sunlight.
Mia skidded to a stop.
Sure enough, it was Natasha. She was oblivious to everything around her, digging happily in the sun-hardened dirt, singing a little song.
Mia tried to catch her breath as she ducked underneath the limp yellow ribbon that was supposed to warn trespassers off the construction sight. “Natasha?”
The little girl looked down at her and smiled. “Hi, Mia.”
“Honey, does your uncle know where you are?”
“He’s asleep,” Tasha said, returning to her digging. She’d found a plastic spoon and a discarded paper cup and was filling it with dirt and stirring the dirt as if it were coffee. She had mud covering close to every inch of her exposed skin—which was probably good since the morning sun was hot enough to give her a bad sunburn. “It’s still early. He won’t be up ’til later.”
Mia glanced at her watch. “Tash, it’s nearly ten. He’s got to be awake by now. He’s probably going crazy, looking for you. Don’t you remember what he told you—about not leaving the courtyard, and not even going out of the condo without telling him?”
Tasha glanced up at her. “How can I tell him when he’s asleep?” she said matter of factly. “Mommy always slept until after lunchtime.”
Mia held out her hands to help Tasha down from the dirt pile. “Come on. I’ll walk you home. We can check to see if Frisco’s still asleep.”
The little girl stood up and Mia swung her down to the ground.
“You are dirty, aren’t you?” she continued as they began walking toward the condo complex. “I think a bath is in your immediate future.”
Tasha looked at her arms and legs. “I already had a bath—a mud bath. Princesses always have mud baths, and they never have more than one bath a day.”
“Oh?” Mia said. “I thought princesses always had bubble baths right after their mud baths.”
Tasha considered that thoughtfully. “I never had a bubble bath.”
“It’s very luxurious,” Mia told her. What a sight they must’ve made walking down the street—a mud-encrusted child and an adult literally dripping with perspiration. “The bubbles go right up to your chin.”
Natasha’s eyes were very wide. “Really?”
“Yeah, and I just happen to have some bubble-bath soap,” Mia told her. “You can try it out when we get home—unless you’re absolutely certain you don’t want a second bath today…?”
“No, princesses can only have one mud bath a day,” Tasha told her in complete seriousness. “It’s okay if they have a mud bath and a bubble bath.”
“Good.” Mia smiled as they entered the condo courtyard.
The complex was still pretty quiet. Most of the residents had left for work hours ago. Still, it was summer vacation for the few kids who lived in the building. Mia could hear the distant strains of television sets and stereo systems. Tasha followed her up the stairs to unit 2C.
The door was ajar and Mia knocked on the screen. “Hello?” she called, but there was no answer. She leaned on the bell. Still nothing.
Mia looked at the mud caked on Natasha’s body and clothes. “You better wait out here,” she told the little girl.
Tasha nodded.
“Right here,” Mia said in her best teacher’s voice, pointing to the little spot of concrete directly in front of Frisco’s door. “Sit. And don’t go anywhere, do you understand, miss?”
Tasha nodded again and sat down.
Feeling very much like a trespasser, Mia opened the screen door and went inside. With the curtains closed, the living room was dim. The television was on, but the volume was set to a low, barely discernible murmur. The air was cool, almost cold, as if the air conditioner had been working overtime to compensate for the slightly opened door. Mia turned off the TV as she went past.
“Hello?” Mia called again. “Lieutenant Francisco…?”
The condo was as silent as a tomb.
“He’s gonna be grumpy if you wake him up,” Tasha said, up on her knees with her nose pressed against the screen.
“I’ll take my chances,” Mia said, starting down the hall toward the bedrooms. She was tiptoeing, though. When she reached the end of the hall, she glanced quickly into the bathroom and the smaller of the two bedrooms. Both were empty. The larger bedroom’s door was half-closed, and she crept closer. Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open as she knocked.
The double bed was empty.
In the dimness, she could see that the sheets were twisted into a knot. The blanket had been kicked onto the floor, and the pillows were rumpled, but Alan Francisco was not still lying there.
There was not much furniture in the room—just the bed, a bedside table and a dresser. The setup was Spartan. The top of his dresser held only a small pile of loose change. There were no personal items, no knickknacks, no souvenirs. The sheets on the bed were plain white, the blanket a light beige. The closet door hung open, as did one of the drawers in the modest-size dresser. Several duffel bags sagged nearby on the floor. The whole place had a rather apathetic feel, as if the person living here didn’t care enough to unpack, or to hang pictures on the wall and make the place his own.
There was nothing that gave any sense of personality to the resident of the room, with the exception of an enormous pile of dirty laundry that seemed to glower from one dark corner. That and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey standing on Frisco’s bedside table were the only telling things. And the bottle, at least, certainly told quite a bit. It was similar to the bottle he’d had outside last night—except that bottle had been nearly full.
No wonder Tasha hadn’t been able to wake him.
But eventually he had awakened and found the little girl gone. He was probably out searching for her right now, worried nearly out of his mind.
The best thing they could do was stay put. Eventually, Frisco would come back to see if Natasha had returned.
But the thought of hanging out in Frisco’s condo wasn’t extremely appealing. His belongings may have been impersonal to the point of distastefulness, but she felt as if by being there, she was invading his privacy.
Mia turned to leave when a gleam of reflected light from the closet caught her eye. She switched on the overhead light.
It was amazing. She’d never seen anything like it in her entire life. A naval uniform hung in the closet, bright white and crisply pressed. And on the upper left side of the jacket, were row after row after row after row of colorful medals. And above it—the cause of that reflected light—was a pin in the shape of an eagle, wings outspread, both a gun and a trident clasped in its fierce talons.
Mia
