Bosch hugged his daughter as tightly as she hugged him. It made his cracked ribs sing with pain but he didn’t care.
He heard the door close behind him and looked over her head pressed against his shoulder at the slider to the deck. It was still open a couple of feet, the way the intruders had left it. There was black fingerprint dust on the glass. He was reminded that the house had been processed as a crime scene.
He brought his hands up to his daughter’s shoulders and pulled back from her so he could look into her eyes.
“Maddie, you were told not to come up here,” he said. “It’s not safe yet.”
“I had to come up,” she said. “I couldn’t just stay down there when I didn’t know if you were all right.”
“I told you. I’m fine.”
“Are you crying?”
“No. I mean—I have two cracked ribs and when you hug…you really hug.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know. But look at your face. You’re going to have a scar.”
She reached toward his face but he caught her hand and held it.
“I’m too old to worry about scars,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is you can’t stay here. I’m not even supposed to stay here. I was just coming for the Jeep and to get some of my own clothes.”
“I thought those looked weird,” she said, nodding toward the ill-fitting suit he was wearing.
“I borrowed clothes from another cop,” Bosch said.
“Where will you go?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’m waiting to see if they pick up the guy who was behind all of this.”
“Well, when is that?”
“There’s no telling. They’re looking for him.”
“Why did this happen, Dad?”
“Maddie, look, I can’t tell you about case stuff. You know that.”
He saw a determined look enter her eyes. She was not going to let him stonewall her with case protocol.
“Okay,” he said, “all I can tell you is that I was working on a cold-case murder that was a gang-on-gang killing and I tracked down a guy who was a witness to part of the planning. That led to the suspect and somehow that suspect found out I was onto him. So he had his guys grab me and they pushed me around a little, but nothing really happened because I got rescued. And that’s it. End of story. Now you need to go back down to school.”
“I don’t want to,” she said.
“You have to. No choice. Please.”
“Okay. But you have to answer the phone. I came up because you don’t answer and I always think the worst.”
“The landline? I wasn’t even staying here. And I told you when we talked yesterday that my cell phone was smashed.”
“Well, I forgot.”
“I’ll get a new one first thing tomorrow and then I’ll take every call from you.”
“You’d better.”
“Promise. How’s your gas?”
“It’s fine. I filled up on my way.”
“Good. I want you to get going because it’s going to get dark soon. You should be south of downtown before it gets dark.”
“Okay, okay, I’m leaving. You know, most dads like their daughters to be around.”
“Now you’re just being a smart guy.”
She grabbed him and pulled him into another painful hug. She heard his breath catch and quickly detached.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I forgot!”
“It’s okay. It’s just sore. You can hug me anytime. You have the landline number. When you get to your house, call that and leave a message that you’re home and safe. I’ll be checking the line.”
“You have to clear it first. I already left about ten messages today.”
“Okay. Did you bring anything up with you?”
“Just myself.”
Bosch touched her arm and led her toward the front door. Outside they walked to the Volkswagen. Bosch nodded to the officer in the patrol car. He scanned up and down the street again to check if he could see what he wasn’t supposed to see. This time he even checked the sky before returning his attention to his daughter.
“How’s the car?” he asked.
“It’s good,” she said.
“A couple more up and backs and I’ll get the oil changed and the tires checked.”
“I can get all of that done.”
“You’re busy.”
“So are you.”
This time he hugged her despite the penalty to his ribs. He kissed the top of her head. His heart hurt worse than his ribs, but he wanted her far away from him right now.
“Remember to leave a message on the house line so I know you’re home,” he said.
“I will,” she promised.
“Love you.”
“Love you.”
Bosch watched her drive off and around the bend. He headed back into the house, nodding once more to the patrol officer with the thanklessly boring job in the car out front. At least he had a car to sit in and wasn’t posted at the front door.
When he got back inside, Bosch went directly to the landline in the kitchen and pulled a business card out of his pocket. He called Lieutenant Omar Cespedes, who ran the SIS squad working the Cortez case. He didn’t bother to identify himself when Cespedes picked up.
“You should have told me she came up to the house.”
“Bosch? Couldn’t do it. You know that. Besides, you got no phone. How am I supposed to tell you anything?”
“Bullshit,” Bosch said. “You were using her as bait.”
“That’s totally wrong, Harry. We wouldn’t do that, not with a cop’s kid. But if we had told you she was coming up, then you would have called her and turned her around. That happens and it’s a giveaway. We don’t do giveaways and you know that. We play it as it lays.”
Bosch calmed a bit as he came to understand the logic of the answer. Cespedes had a team watching Maddie—just as he had a team on Bosch and on the spot where Tranquillo Cortez had supposedly gone underground. If there was any sort of deviation in Maddie’s moves—like a U-turn on a trip up to L.A.—then it could tip someone else who might be watching or tailing her.
“Are we okay?” Cespedes said into the silence.
“Just let me know when she gets back safe to her house.”
“Not a problem. Check your mailbox on your way out.”
“Why?”
“We put a phone in there for you. So next time we can contact you when we need to. Don’t use it for anything else. It’s monitored.”
Bosch paused as he thought about that. He knew that every move the SIS made was monitored and analyzed. It came with the territory.
He changed the subject.
“What’s the latest with Cortez?”
“Still underground. We’re going to goose him after it gets dark, see what that gets us.”
“I want to be there.”
“Not going to happen, Bosch. Not how we work.”
“He was going to feed me to his dogs. I want to be there.”
“And that is exactly why you won’t be. You’re emotionally involved. We can’t have that cluttering things. You just keep that phone handy. I’ll call you when the time is right.”
Cespedes disconnected. Bosch was still bothered but not too much. He had a plan for crashing the SIS surveillance.
Bosch retrieved the messages on the landline and started clearing them one by one. They went back months and most were inconsequential. He rarely used the landline anymore and let the messages pile up over time. When he got to the messages his daughter had left yesterday, he couldn’t bring himself to delete them. Her emotions were raw, her fear for him real. He felt terrible about what she had just gone through but knew the messages were too pure to lose. The last one had no words. It was just Maddie’s breathing, hopeful that he would simply pick up and rescue her from her fears.
After hanging up he called his own cell number. The phone had been destroyed but he knew the number would still keep collecting messages. Nine had accumulated over the last thirty-six hours. Four were from his daughter and three were from Ballard, all left when his whereabouts were unknown. As with the landline messages, Bosch did not delete these. There was also one message from Cisco, saying he had nothing new to report on Elizabeth and asking Bosch whether he did. The last message, which had come in only an hour before, was from Mike Echevarria, and it was a call Bosch didn’t want to get.
Echevarria was an investigator with the Medical Examiner’s Office. Bosch had worked many homicide scenes with him and they were professionally, if not personally, close. Bosch had called him the night he was out looking for Elizabeth Clayton to see if she was in the morgue. She wasn’t but now Echevarria had left a message—just asking Bosch to call him back.
He right to the point when Bosch returned the call.
“Harry, this woman you’ve been looking for? I think we have her here under a Jane Doe.”
Bosch dropped his chin to his chest and leaned against the kitchen counter for support. He closed his eyes as he spoke.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Okay, let’s see,” Echevarria said. “Female, midfifties found in the Sinbad Motel on Sunset Boulevard two days ago. She’s got the R-I-P tattoo on her rear shoulder that you described with the name Daisy.”
Bosch nodded to himself. It was Elizabeth. Echevarria continued.
“Autopsy won’t be till Monday or Tuesday but all signs point to opiate overdose. According to the summary, she was found on the bed by the manager. She had paid for one night and he was going to shoo her out. Instead, he found her dead. Had her clothes on, body on top of the sheets. No foul play suspected. No homicide callout. Signed off on by a patrol sergeant and M.E. staff on scene.”
“She didn’t have ID?”
“No ID in the room – that’s why I didn’t connect it when you called. A lot of these people hide their stuff outside their rooms because they’re afraid of getting ripped off after they fix and pass out or whatever. She have a car?”
“No. What about pills? Any extra pills?”
“An empty prescription bottle. The prescription scratched off. They do that too. In case they get popped. It protects the doctor, because as soon as they hit the streets again, they’re going to see that same doctor. Creatures of habit.”
“Right.”
“Sorry, Harry. Sounds like you knew her.”
“I did. And it’s better knowing than not knowing, Mike.”
“Any chance I can get you down here to make a formal ID? Or I could shoot you a picture.”
Bosch thought about that.
“I’m not on a cell. How about I come in tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s good. I’m off Sundays but I’ll let them know.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Talk to you, Harry.”
Bosch hung up and walked through the house and out to the deck. He leaned on the railing and looked down at the freeway. He was not fully surprised by the news about Elizabeth but was still taken aback. He wondered whether the overdose was intentional. The empty pill bottle indicated she had taken everything she’d gotten.
The details made no difference either way to Bosch, because he considered her death a murder. It was a nine-year-old murder, and whoever had taken Daisy had also taken Elizabeth. Never mind that the killer had never met or even seen Elizabeth. He took everything that mattered away from her. He had killed her just as plainly as he had killed her daughter. Two for the price of one.
Bosch made a promise to himself. Elizabeth might be gone now but he would renew his efforts to put a name to the killer. He would find him and make him pay.
He went back into the house, closed the slider, and walked down the hall to his bedroom. He changed clothes, dressing in dark pants and shirt and adding an old army-green jacket. He threw some backup clothes and toiletries into a duffel bag because he didn’t know how long it would be until he could return.
He sat down on the bed and picked up the landline. He dialed Cisco Wojciechowski’s number from memory and got it right. The big man answered after four rings, a cautious tone in his voice, probably because he didn’t recognize the number.
“Yeah?”
“Cisco, it’s Bosch. I’ve got bad news on Elizabeth.”
“Tell me.”
“She’s didn’t make it. They found her in a motel room in Hollywood. Looks like an OD.”
“Shit…”
“Yeah.”
They stayed silent for a long moment before Cisco broke the silence.
“I thought she was stronger, you know? That week I spent with her—her breaking it off cold—I saw something. I thought she could go the distance.”
“Yeah, me too. But I guess you never know, right?”
“Right.”
After a few more minutes of small talk, Bosch thanked him for all he had done for Elizabeth and finished the call.
He went back down the hall to the closet next to the front door, where there was a steel gun box. His abductors had taken his firearm but Bosch had a spare weapon, a Smith & Wesson Combat Masterpiece, the six-shot revolver he had carried as a patrol officer almost forty years before. He had cleaned and maintained it regularly ever since. It was in a clip-on holster now and Bosch attached it to his belt under the jacket.
The keys to the house and Cherokee were on the kitchen counter where Bosch had left them two nights before. He exited the house through the front door and pulled the phone Cespedes had left for him out of the mailbox. He took another look around the street, checking for the surveillance, but saw nothing beyond the marked car from North Hollywood Division. He went into the carport, where the Cherokee awaited.
As he drove down the hill he thought about Elizabeth and her fatal sadness. He realized that the long wait for justice had been too long and not enough to keep her alive. And that his effort to help her ultimately hurt her. Getting her sober only made the pain sharper and less bearable. Was he just as guilty as the unnamed killer?
Bosch knew he would carry that question for a long time.