The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(98)

“Okay. I’m going to grab a few things to put in the bag and then I’ll go.”

Ballard went to the door, grabbed a handbasket from a stack, and walked into the produce section, where she started selecting apples and oranges in case she needed sustenance while on the vigil ahead. Soon Bosch was standing next to her.

“For the record, I’m not happy about this,” he said.

Ballard looked past him to make sure Stovall was still in place at the table by the Starbucks concession.

“You’re worrying too much, Harry,” she said. “I’m calling backup the moment I hear something. They’ll be there in two minutes.”

“If they come. You’re doing this completely off the books, and coms won’t know what the hell you’re doing if you call for help.”

“I have to work it this way because I am off the books. And I’m not about to hand this off to somebody who deep down doesn’t even care about the case or its victims. Somebody who would rather use the case to get even than solve it.”

“She’s not the only one you can bring in and you know it. You just want to do this on your own, no matter the level of danger it puts you in.”

“I think that’s an exaggeration, Harry.”

“It’s not, but I know you’re not going to change your mind. So I want you calling me every hour on the hour, you copy that?”

“I got it.”

“Good.”

Ballard put a sweet potato in the basket and decided she had enough to make it through the night if necessary.

“I’m going to check out and head over to her house.”

“Okay. Remember, every hour on the hour.”

“Got it. And if you spend any time with her, ask about her ex-boyfriend.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know — something feels off. I got the same feeling with Carpenter’s ex. Hannah’s ex took a long weekend in Mexico after being laid off for most of last year. Feels kind of convenient to me.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Anyway, I gotta get going.”

She turned toward the checkout counters, took a few steps, and then turned back.

“Hey, Harry, you remember the other night when we joked about me going private and working with you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What if it wasn’t a joke?”

“Uh … well, that would be good with me.”

Ballard nodded.

“Okay,” she said.





42


On her drive back to the house on North Citrus Avenue, Ballard had to call Hannah Stovall with more questions. She knew that this risked undercutting Stovall’s confidence in her, but Ballard had to acknowledge, at least to herself, that the plan was evolving from minute to minute as various questions and decisions came to her.

Stovall was with Bosch in his car when she took the call.

“Hannah, how do I open the garage? I don’t see any clicker.”

“It’s programmed into the car. There’s a button on the bottom of the rearview mirror. There are actually three buttons but you want the first one.”

“Okay, got it. And I forgot to ask, is there an alarm?”

“There is but I never use it. Too many false alarms. And there isn’t one on the door from the garage to the kitchen anyway, since that is sort of indoors already.”

“And would it be unusual for you to take a walk at night? Like if I want to just get the lay of the land?”

“I should have mentioned that. I usually take a walk when I finish work. To sort of clear my head. I just go a couple blocks around the neighborhood.”

“Okay.”

Ballard dropped into thought about how she would handle this. The walk time was right now.

“Detective?”

“Yes, uh, this is all good. What do you wear when you walk?”

“Well, I don’t change or anything, so whatever I have on.”

“Okay, good. What about a hat?”

“Every now and then I wear a hat.”

“Okay, good.”

“You’ll let me know if anything happens, right?”

“Of course. You’ll be the first to know.”

Three minutes later Ballard pulled the Audi into the driveway of Stovall’s house and pushed the button to open the garage. She held her phone to her left ear, posing as though she were on a call so her face would be partially obscured to anyone watching. It was now almost six and the sun had dropped from the sky. The day was slipping toward the dark hours.

She pulled into the garage, hit the button again, and waited for the garage door to close before she got out of the car.

She used a key on the ring Stovall had given her to open the door from the garage to the kitchen. Ballard entered, hit the wall switch to turn on the lights, and then stood still in the kitchen, listening to the house. She heard only the low hum of the refrigerator. She put the bag of produce from Pavilions on the counter, took out the apples and oranges and placed them on a shelf in the refrigerator, and put the sweet potato on the counter. She then bent down to the cuff of her jeans and pulled Bosch’s gun out of an ankle holster.

Ballard slowly moved through the house, checking each room. The kitchen had one arched entrance to a dining room and a second one that led to a hallway that ran to the back of the house. She walked through the dining room into a living room. There was a fireplace with a flat-screen TV mounted above it. Ballard checked the front door and it was locked.