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The Night Fire

Page 33

by Connelly, Michael


  Bosch seemed to understand the currents that were going through her. He gave her a moment before asking, “So, Olivas been by?”

  “Yes, actually,” Ballard said. “This morning. Probably felt he had to.”

  “He’s had a good week.”

  “Damn right. First he gets credit on the Hilton case. Now all of this. He’s going to clear Montgomery, Banks, and Manley. The guy’s going four for four.”

  “That’s a hell of an average. All because of you.”

  “And you.”

  “Maybe it’ll get you off the late show.”

  “No, I don’t want that. I’d still never work for him. Olivas. And if not RHD, where am I going to go? Besides, after midnight is when it all happens in this town. I like the dark hours. As soon as they let me, I’m going back.”

  Bosch smiled and nodded. He had known that would be her answer.

  “What about you?” Ballard asked. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Today’s my day for visiting,” Bosch said. “I’m going to go see Margaret Thompson next.”

  Ballard nodded.

  “Are you going to tell her about John Hilton?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Not sure she needs to know all that.”

  “Maybe she already does.”

  “Maybe. But I doubt it. I don’t think she would have called me in the first place if she’d known. I don’t think she would have done that to me, you know? Led me to finding out about him.”

  Bosch was silent after that and Ballard waited a moment before speaking.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know he was important to you. And to have this … truth come out …”

  “Yeah, well …,” Bosch said. “True heroes are hard to come by, I guess.”

  They were silent another moment and Bosch wanted to change the subject.

  “When I went there last, to her house,” he said, “you know, to look through his office—before we knew why he took the murder book … anyway, I found a box in his closet where he kept old cases. Not full murder books, but copies of some chronos, reports, and summaries from old cases.”

  “That he had worked?” Ballard asked.

  “Yeah, from his own cases. And there was one—it was a sixty-day summary from a case I had worked with him. This girl rode her bike under the Hollywood freeway … and then she disappeared. A few days later she was found dead. Murdered. And we never cleared it.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Sarah Freelander.”

  “When was the murder?”

  “Nineteen eighty-two.”

  “Wow, that’s old. And never solved?”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “I’m going to ask Margaret for that box,” he said.

  Ballard could tell that Bosch’s eyes were seeing the case from long ago. Then he seemed to come back to the present. He brightened and smiled at her.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “I guess I’ll let you rest. Any idea when you’ll be out of here?”

  “They’re just worried about infection now,” Ballard said. “Otherwise, it’s all good. So I think they’re going to watch it another day and then let me go. Two days at the most.”

  “Then I’ll be back tomorrow. You need anything?”

  “I’m good. Unless you want to go take my dog for a walk.”

  Bosch paused.

  “I didn’t think so,” Ballard said, smiling.

  “I’m not really good with animals,” Bosch said. “I mean, did you want—”

  “Don’t worry about it. Selma has been checking on her and taking her out.”

  “Then good. That’s perfect.”

  Bosch stood up, squeezed her right hand, and then headed toward the door.

  “Sarah Freelander,” Ballard said.

  Bosch stopped and turned around.

  “If you work that case, I work it with you.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Yeah,” Bosch said. “That’s a deal.”

  He started to leave the room. Ballard stopped him again.

  “Actually, Harry, I need one more thing from you.”

  He came back to the bed.

  “What?”

  “Can you take a picture of all the flowers and stuffed animals? I want to remember all of this.”

  “Sure.”

  Bosch pulled his phone and stepped to one side so he could get the whole display of good wishes in the frame.

  “You want to be in it?” he asked.

  “God, no,” Ballard said.

  Bosch took three shots from slightly different angles, then opened the camera app on the phone to select the best shot to send her. As he clicked on the “All Photos” option, he saw the shot he had taken while searching Clayton Manley’s office. He had forgotten about it in all the activity that had occurred later. It was a photo of a document on Manley’s computer before it had been purged.

  The document was named TRANSFER and contained only a thirteen-digit number followed by the letters G.C. Bosch realized now that G.C. might stand for Grand Cayman.

  “Harry, something wrong?” Ballard asked.

  “Uh, no,” Bosch said. “Something’s right.”

  EPILOGUE

  She always sat facing the door. She always came as soon as they opened at 11 so she could get her café con leche and Cuban toast before he arrived. This time was no different. It was early, before the lunch rush at El Tinajon. Otherwise they wouldn’t make the Cuban toast. It wasn’t on the menu—you had to ask for it.

  In her peripheral vision she saw a woman come from the kitchen and she thought it was Marta with her toast. But it wasn’t. The woman sat down across from her, and there was a familiarity about her.

  “Batman’s not coming,” she said.

  Now Cava recognized her.

  “You lived,” she said.

  Ballard nodded.

  “He gave me up, didn’t he?” Cava said.

  “No,” Ballard said. “Batman’s not talking. It was Michaelson.”

  “Michaelson …”

  She seemed genuinely surprised.

  “Grand Cayman was the nexus,” Ballard said. “He was headed there when they grabbed him. Then we found your offshore account there—thanks to Harry Bosch. That led to the feds finding his at the same bank. Once the feds got to his money, the game was over. He gave everybody up just so he could keep enough to take care of his family.”

  “Family first,” Cava said.

  “And he told us how to find you.”

  “The only mistakes I have ever made came from trusting men.”

  “They can let you down. Some of them.”

  Cava nodded. Ballard watched her hands.

  “Don’t move your hands,” she said. “You’re under arrest.”

  Those last three words were the cue. Soon, members of the task force—FBI, Vegas Metro, LAPD—came down the back hallway and through the kitchen and the front door, weapons drawn, no chances taken with the Black Widow.

  Ballard stood up and backed away from the table. Men moved in on Cava, took her by the arms, held her tightly, and searched her. They found the curved knife in the homemade forearm scabbard that Ballard had missed that day four weeks earlier. They found a pistol in the purse she had put down on the floor.

  As she was being cuffed, Cava kept her eyes on Ballard. She smiled slightly when she was led away from the table and toward the front door. There was a van waiting to transport her to the bureau’s Las Vegas field office. It took off as soon as the side door was slammed shut.

  “Way to go, Renée.”

  It was Kenworth from Vegas Metro. He moved behind her and took the recorder off her belt as she detached the mini-microphone from inside the opening of her blouse. She pulled the wire up and out and handed it to him.

  “She didn’t really give up anything,” Ballard said.

  “She exhibited knowledge of the conspiracy and crimes,” Kenworth said. “That’s what the prosecutor will say. And I say:
good job.”

  “I have to make a call now.”

  She pulled her phone and hit one of the names on her list of favorites as she stepped into the rear hall for privacy.

  “Harry, we got her.”

  “No hitches?”

  “No hitches. She even had the knife. It was in this elastic strap on her forearm. I just missed it that day.”

  “Anybody would have.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, she talk to you? Say anything?”

  “She said you can never trust men.”

  “Word to the wise, I guess. How do you feel?”

  “I feel good. But she sort of smiled at me when they were taking her out of here. Like she was saying this isn’t over.”

  “What else could she do? Anyway, she gave me that smile too.”

  “It was weird, though.”

  “Vegas is weird. When are you coming back?”

  “I’ll go to the bureau’s field office and see what they need from me. Then I’ll head back as soon as I’m clear.”

  “Good. Let me know.”

  “You working on Freelander?”

  “Yeah, and I found the guy. The one she said no to. He’s still around.”

  “Don’t do anything until I get back.”

  “Roger that.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author had the help of many in the writing of this book. They include Rick Jackson, Mitzi Roberts, Tim Marcia, and David Lambkin on the law enforcement side and Daniel Daly and Roger Mills on the legal side.

  With regard to researching and editing I wish to thank Asya Muchnick, Linda Connelly, Jane Davis, Heather Rizzo, Terrill Lee Lankford, Dennis Wojciechowski, John Houghton, Henrik Bastin, Pamela Marshall, and Allan Fallow.

  Many thanks to all.

  Author’s Note: The steps a law enforcement agency must take to obtain a court-approved wiretap are many. They were shortened for dramatic purposes in this novel.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MICHAEL CONNELLY is the author of thirty-two previous novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds of Truth, and The Late Show. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series and the Lincoln Lawyer series, have sold more than seventy-four million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He is the executive producer of Bosch, starring Titus Welliver, and the creator and host of the podcast Murder Book. He spends his time in California and Florida.

  To find out more, visit Michael’s website, or follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

  www.michaelconnelly.com

  /MichaelConnellyBooks

  @Connellybooks

  Also by Michael Connelly

  Fiction

  The Black Echo

  The Black Ice

  The Concrete Blonde

  The Last Coyote

  The Poet

  Trunk Music

  Blood Work

  Angels Flight

  Void Moon

  A Darkness More Than Night

  City of Bones

  Chasing the Dime

  Lost Light

  The Narrows

  The Closers

  The Lincoln Lawyer

  Echo Park

  The Overlook

  The Brass Verdict

  The Scarecrow

  Nine Dragons

  The Reversal

  The Fifth Witness

  The Drop

  The Black Box

  The Gods of Guilt

  The Burning Room

  The Crossing

  The Wrong Side of Goodbye

  The Late Show

  Two Kinds of Truth

  Dark Sacred Night

  Non-fiction

  Crime Beat

  Ebooks

  Suicide Run

  Angle of Investigation

  Mulholland Dive

  The Safe Man

  Switchblade

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Orion Fiction,

  an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.,

  Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © 2019 Hieronymus Inc.

  The moral right of Michael Connelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (eBook) 978 1 4091 8607 6

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

 

 

 


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