Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(43)

Elizabeth kept her mouth on his and gently began to rock her hips. Bosch felt her warmth against him and reacted. Soon she was reaching to push down his shorts. Bosch’s knee was no longer numb, but if there was pain, he wasn’t feeling it. Elizabeth made all the moves and guided him inside her. Her hips worked in a steady rhythm and she put her hands on his shoulders and arched her back. The sheet fell aside. Bosch looked up at her in the dim light. Her head was thrown back like she was looking up at the ceiling. She was silent. Her breasts swayed above him. He put his hands on her hips to help lend his rhythm to hers.

Neither spoke, neither made a sound except for the deep exhalation of breath. First he felt her hips shudder, and soon after he desperately reached up and pulled her down into an embrace as his own body created that one moment that takes all other moments away—all fear, all sadness—and leaves just joy. Just hope. Sometimes love.

Neither moved, as though each one thought the fragile reverie might break with even the blink of an eye. Then she pushed her face further into the crook of his neck and kissed his shoulder. They’d had boundary lines. Bosch had told her that this was not his purpose in inviting her to stay with him, and she had said it would never come to that, because she had lost that part of herself—the capacity to connect.

But now here they were. Bosch wondered if this was her goodbye. If she would be gone tomorrow.

He put his hand on her back and moved his thumb and forefinger like an inchworm down her spine. He thought he heard a smothered giggle. If it was, he had never heard it before.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispered. “Even if this never happens again. Even if it was a mistake. I don’t want you to go. Not yet.”

She raised herself up and looked at him in the darkness. He could see a slight glint in her dark eyes. He could feel her breasts against his chest. She kissed him. It was not a long, impassioned kiss like the one she had started with. It was a quick kiss on the lips and then she climbed off.

“Is that a champagne bucket?” she asked. “You knew I was coming in?”

“No,” Bosch said quickly. “I mean, it is a champagne bucket but I use it for the ice pack for my knee.”

“Oh.”

“Why don’t you stay in here tonight?”

“No, I like my bed. Good night, Harry.”

She moved toward the door.

“Good night,” Bosch whispered.

She closed the door behind her. Bosch stared at it in the darkness for a long time.





Ballard





20



It was one a.m. and well into her official shift before Ballard completed the paperwork that went along with the arrest and booking of Theodore Bechtel on suspicion of breaking and entering and grand theft. After he was secured in a solo cell at the station, she walked through the parking lot to the storage rooms and retrieved a fresh box of shake cards. Once back in the detective bureau she set up in a back corner and soon was sifting through the reports on the human tumbleweeds, as Tim Farmer called them, that drifted across the streets of Hollywood on a nightly basis.

After an hour she had put six cards aside for further consideration and follow-up. Several hundred did not make the cut. Her forward progress was slowed when she came across another card written by Farmer. His words and observations held her once again.

This kid knows nothing better than the street. If he was put into a one-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen he’d move into the closet and sleep on the floor. He’s one of the rain people.



She wondered who the rain people were in Farmer’s estimation. People who couldn’t fit in with the rest of society? People who needed the rain?

Her rover squawked and Lieutenant Munroe called her to the watch office. She took the long way, going down the rear hallway of the station and then up to the front. This allowed her to see who was in the station and maybe get a sense of what was happening before speaking to Munroe.

But the station was empty as it was on most nights. Munroe was standing behind his desk, looking down at the deployment screen, which showed the locations of cars and personnel in the field. He didn’t look up but knew she had entered the room.

“Ballard, we’ve got a hot shot and I need you to get out there and honcho it,” he said.

“What’s the call?” Ballard asked.

“A woman calls in, says she’s locked in the bathroom of a house up on Mount Olympus. Says she’s been raped and managed to get to the bathroom with her cell phone. Says the guy’s still there, trying to break the door down. I rolled two units and a sergeant. They get there and guess who the guy is? Danny fucking Monahan. It’s a he-said-she-said, and I want you out there to make the call.”

“Did they transport the victim to the rape center?”

“Nope. She’s still there. She took a shower while she was in the bathroom.”

“Shit. They should’ve transported her anyway.”

“They’re not sure she’s a victim, Ballard. Just get out there and see for yourself. This should be right up your alley.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean. Just get up there. And don’t forget your rover.”

He handed a slip of paper over the screen to her. It had the address written on it and the name and age of the person reporting the incident: Chloe Lambert, 22.