The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(82)

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Maddie slipped her backpack under the table in front of her. “Is this okay?” Bosch asked. “I thought you were going to text me.”

“Yeah, but I love this place,” Maddie said. “Usually, you can’t get a table.”

“I must’ve hit it at the right time.”

“What are you working on?”

Bosch closed his laptop.

“I was looking up a lawyer on the California Bar,” he said. “Wanted to know if anybody had dinged him with a complaint.”

“Uncle Mickey?” Maddie asked.

“No, no, not him. Another guy.”

“Are you working on a case?”

“Yeah. Actually two of them. One with Renée Ballard—who says hello, by the way—and one sort of on my own.”

“Daddo, you’re supposed to be retired.”

“I know but I want to keep moving.”

“How’s your knee?”

“It’s pretty good. Today I went out without the cane. All day.”

“Is that okay with the doctor?”

“He didn’t want me to use it at all. He’s a hard-liner. So how’s school?”

“Boring. But did you hear the big news? They caught that guy Saturday night.”

“You mean the creeper?”

“Yeah, he broke into the wrong house. It’s on the Orange County Register website. Same thing—a house of girls. He snuck in, only he didn’t know one of the girls had her boyfriend staying over. The boyfriend catches him in the house, beats the crap out of him, then calls the cops.”

“And he’s good for the other two?”

“The police haven’t called us, but they told the Register they would be doing the DNA stuff, seeing if he was connected. But they said the MO was the same. Modus operandi—I love saying those words.”

Bosch nodded.

“Do you know where the house was?” he asked. “Was it near yours?”

“No, it was in the neighborhood on the other side of the school.”

“Well, great, I’m glad they caught the guy. You and your roommates should be able to sleep better now.”

“Yeah, we will.”

Bosch intended to call his contact at the Orange Police Department on his drive back up to L.A. to find out more about the arrest. But he was elated by the news. He was acting reserved because he didn’t want his daughter to know how truly unnerving the situation had been for him. He decided to move on to other subject matter with her.

“So, what’s the psych project you’re all doing?”

“Oh, just a dumb thing on how social media influences people. Nothing groundbreaking. We have to write up a survey and then spread out and find people on campus to take it. Ten questions about FOMO.”

She pronounced the last word foe-moe.

“What is ‘foe-moe’?” Bosch asked.

“Dad, come on,” Maddie said. “Fear Of Missing Out.”

“Got it. So, you want something to eat or drink? You have to go up to the counter. I’ll hold the table.”

He reached into his pocket for some cash.

“I’ll pay with my card,” Maddie said. “Do you want something?”

“Are you getting food?” Bosch asked.

“I’m going to get something.”

“Then get me a chicken-salad sandwich if they have it. And another coffee. Black. Let me give you some cash.”

“No, I have it.”

She got up from the table and headed to the counter. He was constantly amused by how she always wanted to pay herself with her credit card, when the credit-card bill came to him anyway.

He watched her order from a young man who most likely was a fellow student. She smiled and he smiled and Bosch began to think there was a previous connection.

She came back to the table with two coffees, one with cream.

“You have to study tonight?” Bosch asked.

“Actually, no,” Maddie said. “I have class seven to nine and then some of us are going to the D.”

Bosch knew that the D was a bar called the District favored by students over twenty-one. Maddie was one of them. The reminder of that prompted Bosch’s next question.

“So which way are you leaning today? For after graduation.”

“You’re not going to like it, but law school.”

“Why do you think I won’t like that?”

“I know you want me to be a cop. Plus it means more school and you already spent a ton of money sending me here.”

“No, how many times have we had this talk? I want you to do what you want to do. In fact, the law is safer and you’d make more money. Law school is great, and don’t worry about the costs. I have it covered. And I didn’t spend a ton of money sending you here. Your scholarships covered most of it. So it’s the other way around. You saved me money.”

“But what if I end up like Uncle Mickey—defending the damned, as you like to say?”

Bosch drank some of his fresh coffee as a delaying tactic.

“That would be your choice,” he said after putting the cup down. “But I hope you’d at least look at the other side of it. I could set you up if you wanted to talk to some people in the D.A.’s Office.”