“I’m ready. Is he okay?”
“He will be.”
“Great.”
As she was heading down the fire road, her phone regained service and a text from Rourke came through. She was checking in and wanting an update. Ballard called her and told her to continue to stand by. As soon as Bosch was free, they would need to make a decision on what to do: set up a trap for his captors should they return, or clear out and proceed in another way.
She retrieved the crowbar from her city car’s roadside emergency kit, grabbed the rover out of the charging dock, and headed back up the fire road. Halfway up she heard the rat-a-tat sound of a dirt bike behind her. She turned and saw a rider on a lime-green bike come to a stop on Coyote Street and look up at her. He was wearing a matching helmet with a darkly tinted visor. They stared at each other for a few seconds before the rider turned the wheel and walked the bike into a U-turn before taking off.
Knowing that the first option of waiting for the return of the captors was now moot, she called Rourke on the radio and ordered the airship back into flight. She asked Rourke to circle the compound as a backup measure, keeping an eye out for the lime-green dirt bike.
Ballard was out of breath from hustling up the hill to the shed. She handed the crowbar to Sisto like she was passing a baton and he took it inside the shed while she trailed behind. She bent over and put her hands on her thighs and watched as Sisto threaded the crowbar through the loop on the cage door. He then turned the bar and the loop popped off its weld points. He opened the door and Ballard came over and joined Lourdes in carefully helping Bosch out and lowering him to his feet on the dirt floor. Lourdes opened a pocket knife and cut the bindings off his hands and feet.
“Standing up feels good,” he said.
He painfully tried a few steps, putting an arm around each woman’s neck.
“I think we need an RA, Harry,” Lourdes said.
“No, I don’t need that,” Bosch protested. “I can walk. Just let me...”
He dropped his arms from them and hobbled toward the doorway on his own. The sound of the airship off in the distance was coming closer.
“Call them off,” Bosch said. “These guys might be coming back. We can take them then.”
“No, I blew it,” Ballard said. “They know we’re here. Lime-green dirt bike?”
Bosch nodded.
“Yeah, him.”
“He saw me when I went back for the crowbar. Saw the cars.”
“Shit.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
Bosch walked out into the clearing and looked up at the sun. Ballard watched him. She guessed that during the night, he might have come to the grim conclusion that he’d never see the big orange ball again.
“Harry, let’s go get you looked at and get some stitches on that cheek,” Lourdes said. “Then we’ll go over gang books and draw warrants for every one of the motherfuckers you identify.”
Ballard knew that the SFPD must have extensive photo books of known members of the SanFers. If Bosch made IDs of those who had revealed themselves to him during the night, then they could make arrests.
“I don’t think they were SanFers,” Bosch said. “I think Tranquillo called in the eMe for this. Probably made sure all of his boys had alibis for the night.”
“And Cortez never showed up?” Lourdes asked.
“Nope. I think he was coming by today. With his dogs.”
Bosch turned to Ballard.
“How did you find me?” he asked.
“Your daughter,” Ballard said. “The tracking app on your phone.”
“Did she come up?”
“No, I told her to stay away from the house.”
“I have to call her. They took my phone and crunched it.”
“You can use mine as soon as it gets service.”
Lourdes pulled her phone and checked it, then held it up.
“Two bars,” she said.
She handed Bosch the phone and he punched in a number. Ballard only heard his side of the conversation.
“Hey, it’s me. I’m okay.”
He listened and then continued in a calming voice.
“No, really. I got a little roughed up but no big deal. Where are you?”
Ballard read the relief on Bosch’s face. Maddie had listened to her and stayed away from the house.
“My phone got crunched, so if you need me, call this number for Detective Lourdes,” he said. “You can also call Detective Ballard. You have that number, right?”
He listened and nodded, even though his daughter wouldn’t see it.
“Uh, no, she’s gone now,” he said. “She left a couple days ago. We can talk about that later.”
He then listened for a long time before making a final response.
“Love you, too. I’ll see you soon.”
He disconnected the phone and handed it back to Ballard. He looked shaken by the call, or maybe the realization of how close he had come to losing everything.
Bosch turned to Lourdes and Sisto.
“I’ll come in tomorrow to look at the eMe book,” he said. “I just want to go home now.”
“You can’t go home,” Ballard said quickly. “It’s a crime scene. So is this. We need to run this by the book: call out Major Crimes, find out how they got to you. How they got to your house.”
“And you need stitches,” Lourdes said.
Ballard saw the realization break on Bosch’s face. He had a long day ahead of him.
“Fine, I’ll go to the ER. And you can call out the troops. But I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Bosch started unsteadily walking toward the dirt road leading down. His limp was more pronounced than when Ballard had seen it before.
She saw him look up at the airship passing overhead. He raised his arm and sent a thumbs-up as a thank-you.
37
By the time Ballard was released by the detectives from Major Crimes it was almost six and she had not slept in more than twenty-four hours. With her next shift starting in five hours it was not worth driving down to the beach or out to her grandmother’s house in Ventura in rush-hour traffic. Instead, she drove south to Hollywood Station. She left her city ride in the parking lot, got a change of clothes out of her van, and then took an Uber to the W Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. She knew from many previous stays there that they gave a deep law enforcement discount, had a dependable room service menu, and were liberal about checkout time. There was a cot at the station in a storage room known as the Honeymoon Suite, but she knew from experience she couldn’t sleep there. Too many intrusions. She wanted comfort, food, and solid sleep in the limited time she had.
She got a room with a northern view of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Capitol Records Building, and the Hollywood sign. But she closed the drapes, ordered a salad with grilled chicken, and took a shower. A half hour later she was eating on the bed, bundled in an oversize bathrobe, her wet hair slicked back and down her neck.
Her laptop was open on the bed and distracting her from what was now less than four hours of available sleep time. But she couldn’t help herself. She had downloaded the GRASP files from the thumb drive Professor Calder had given her that morning. She had told herself she would make only a quick survey of the data before going to sleep but the shower had helped push back her fatigue and she became transfixed.
What had drawn her attention initially was that there was a murder in the division just two nights before Daisy Clayton was abducted and murdered. This case was quickly cleared by arrest, according to the data.
Ballard was unable to enter the department’s database remotely but was able to access two brief Los Angeles Times reports on the case in the newspaper’s murder blog, which documented every murder that occurred in the city. According to the first story, the killing had occurred in a tattoo parlor on Sunset called ZooToo. A female tattoo artist named Audie Haslam was murdered by a customer. Haslam owned the shop and was working a solo shift when someone entered, pulled a knife and robbed her. Haslam was then walked into a back room used for storage and stabbed multiple times during a brutal struggle. She bled out on the floor.