Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan by Rick Riordan

uncomfortable burning sensation started building
strength in my chest.
    I checked the back room, then the kitchen. A small AM
radio was talking to itself on the cutting board. The sinkful of
dishes wasn’t surprising in itself, but they’d been scrubbed and
never rinsed.
    Possibilities started occurring to me that I didn’t
want to entertain. I checked the front door again, then the windows
for signs of forced entry. Nothing obvious, though very little
would’ve shown up on tie scuffed and scarred doorjamb, and the
window latches were woefully easy to work open. The stereo equipment
was untouched. The answering machine had been turned off. No messages
to replay. Computer disks and files were strewn around her desk, but
no equipment seemed to be missing. Someone had been looking for
something here recently in a messy fashion, but it could easily have
been Lillian. I checked for toiletries in the bathroom and looked in
her closet. No signs that she’d packed for a trip, but no definite
proof that she hadn’t.
    Then I heard the clump of skates on the hardwood
floor behind me. One of the Rodriguez children rolled into the
bedroom doorway and grabbed the doorjamb to steady herself. She had
stringy hair and small dark eyes, glittering as she looked at me. She
was wearing a red and white striped dress with teddy bears on it.
    I must have had a startled look on my face. She
giggled. as I was still trying to frame a question when she skated
back toward the front door, letting out a happy squeal as if she
expected to be chased. She turned at the door and looked back,
grinning mischievously.
    “ Do you know Lillian?" I asked, still in the
bedroom doorway.
    I’m not great with kids; I can’t handle the eerie
resemblance they bear to human beings. She cocked her head like a
curious dog might.
    "You’re not the same man," she said.
    Then she was gone, the screen door slamming behind
her.
    Now what the hell had that meant? I should’ve
followed the child and asked her more questions, but the idea of
chasing a group of prepubescents on roller skates down the sidewalk
in the dark was more than I could handle just then.
    Maybe she was talking about Dan Sheff. The neighbors
would have seen him here many times, no doubt. Or maybe she’d seen
someone else come into the house. I turned and stared at Lillian’s
bed. The burning feeling got stronger in my chest.
    "Wait for tomorrow morning," I told myself.
    Maybe she had decided to stay an extra night in
Laredo; maybe she was on her way back right now. I pictured her
coming home and finding me in her house uninvited, or learning that
I’d questioned the neighbors on her comings and goings. The "I
was worried" argument wouldn’t carry much weight with a woman
who had recently accused me of trying to control her affairs.
    I weighed that against the unlocked door, the unread
mail and newspapers, the ha1f-washed dishes. I didn’t like it. On
the other hand, it wasn’t totally out of character for Lillian to
leave any of those things in her wake. I locked the front door behind
me.
    The thunderstorm was directly overhead now, but there
was no rain, just churning dry electricity. The Rodriguez children
had finally abandoned the street. Exhausted as I was, I still
couldn’t face the idea of going back to Queen Anne and trying to
sleep. I drove back to the Olmos Dam, then parked the car where there
really wasn’t a shoulder and sat on the edge of the drop-off with
my bottle of Herradura, my feet dangling above the treetops.
    I watched the storm move south for almost an hour. I
tried not to think about where Lillian was, or about my earlier soiree with Red and
Tattoo, or about the package of clippings on my father’s murder. It
felt like there was a huge slow spider crawling back and forth inside
my head, trying to connect those things with tenuous, unwelcomed
threads. Every time something started taking shape, I took another
drink of tequila to wash it away.
    I’m not sure how I got home,