Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(88)

“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.