Still, she didn’t regret it. The sunsets alone were worth the price of admission.
“So what’s the plan?” Bosch finally asked.
“No plan,” Ballard said. “I’m going to watch and wait. If I get a shot at that van, I’ll take it. But this is my thing. You don’t have to stay, Harry. Thank you for your help.”
“No, I’m cool. I want to know what this guy’s up to. I just thought you might have to bail for a hot date and I was going to say I would stay on watch.”
“A hot date?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day. I thought maybe—”
“Uh, no, no hot date. You’re my date if you’re staying.”
“Happy to. I wish I had flowers.”
An hour of intermittent banter went by. Ballard checked on Pinto again and sent a message to the day-care center informing them that he would likely be staying overnight.
The sun dropped behind the ocean. The badge buyer was seen in and out of the van, mingling with people from the other vehicles parked along the street. Ballard and Bosch took turns using the public restrooms on the beach, and eventually their cover became strained as beachgoers left with the sun. Soon the Defender stood out as one of the last few cars in the lot.
“We gotta move,” Ballard said. “We’re sitting out here in plain sight.”
“Where to?” Bosch asked.
“That’s the thing. I don’t see a better angle on the van. We could cross the street and park, but we wouldn’t have eyes on it.”
“So maybe we stick here.”
Ballard considered not moving.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’m going to take a walk over there, see what I can see and hear.”
“You sure?” Bosch asked. “If he sees you, you’re burned as far as any walk-bys tomorrow or after.”
“I got some things here that will help with that. I’m going to go.”
“Your call.”
Bosch’s tone suggested he thought she was making the wrong call, but Ballard got out and opened the back door of the car to get to her disguise box. She took off her jacket and pulled on an old gray hoodie. She added the Dodgers cap with the frayed edge to its bill that she had worn into the Eldorado and pulled the hood up over it. She took the Glock and its holster off her hip and put it in the box.
“You’re going naked?” Bosch asked.
“I’ve got my boot gun,” Ballard said. “I’m going to go a block north, then cut across and come back down like I’ve been walking. I’ve got my earbud in and I’ll call you on approach.”
“Got it. Be careful.”
“Always.”
Ballard walked to the north end of the parking lot, which was at least a hundred yards away from the badge buyer’s van. She waited a solid five minutes before there was enough of a break in the traffic for her to cross. She then walked south toward the line of parked vehicles. She kept her head down and her hands in the front pockets of the hoodie, one of them holding her phone.
As she approached, she pulled out her phone and called Bosch. He picked up right away.
“I see you,” he said. “It took you long enough.”
“Had to wait to cross,” Ballard said. “You see our guy anywhere?”
“The van is dark. I think he’s in one of the big RVs.”
“I’ll see what I can see.”
Ballard could see through the front windshields of the parked motor homes, giving her a limited angle on activities inside. She passed two campers and a large RV, and each was dark. The next RV had its interior lights on but appeared to be vacant.
Then she saw where everybody was. Two more vehicles down, an RV was parked in a spot where the cliff was concave enough to offer space for a circle of folding chairs around a flaming grill. The firelight shone on the faces of several men and women in the chairs, including a bearded man who Ballard believed was the badge buyer.
She reported all this to Bosch in a low voice as she approached the circle.
“They’ve got themselves a bonfire on the other side of one of the RVs,” she said. “I think our guy is in the circle.”
“Okay,” Bosch said. “What are you going to do?”
“Pick my way by and see if the van’s unlocked.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Ballard was now too close to the fire circle to risk speaking to Bosch. She kept her head down and worked her way around the circle. There was no sidewalk. She had to go between the line of campers and the cliff; otherwise she’d be in the traffic lanes. She counted five men and two women sitting around the flaming grill. They weren’t cooking anything, just warming themselves. One of the men called out to her as she passed.
“Hey, sweetie, you want a beer?” he said.
Ballard couldn’t tell which one had said it. “No, thanks,” she said.
She kept going, not turning toward the group.
“Then how about a ride?” the voice called.
Ballard didn’t respond.
“On my lap,” the man added.
This was met with raucous laughter from the circle. Even the women joined in, one issuing a high-pitched cackle that rose above the noise of traffic off the highway.
Ballard passed two more pickups with camper shells plastered with bumper stickers. Most had catchy slogans that derided liberal ideologies or the sitting president or both. She passed a thirty-five-foot-long RV with a name painted in script on the side: Road Warrior. She laughed to herself, remembering a game she played as a teenager with Tutu when they’d driven on a freeway. They would put the word anal in front of the RVs’ names.
“What’s so funny?” Bosch asked.
“Nothing, really,” Ballard said. “I’m passing by the Anal Road Warrior.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you later. I’m going to check out the van.”
Ballard cut in front of the RV and started walking down the other side of the string of vehicles. This put her only a few feet from traffic and in the blinding glare of the headlights of cars whizzing by.
She got to the white van and saw that it was completely dark inside. She went to the driver’s door and tried the handle.
“It’s unlocked,” she said. “I’m going in. You got me?”
“I see you,” Bosch said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“He can’t see me from there and we need to know what he’s up to.”
“Still don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Come on, Harry. You know you’d be in here if it were you.”
Ballard climbed into the driver’s seat and cautiously looked through the windshield in the direction of the circle. From this angle, she could see only one of the seated people, a woman in a folding chair with a built-in cupholder for her beer.
Ballard took a quick look through the glove box and storage areas in the front. She did not find her badge, but in a cupholder there was a key ring with two keys and a chip fob on it. It said YOU-STORE-IT on the fob and provided an address on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica. The numbers 22 and 23 were stamped on the keys.
Ballard split the curtains behind the front seats and ducked into the back. The rear windows were blacked out and the interior was pitch-dark. Ballard’s face immediately came into contact with something wet and spongy.
“Shit.”
She struggled to get the light on her phone on.
“What is it?” Bosch said. “What’s wrong?”
She turned her light on. There was a damp beach towel hanging from a makeshift clothesline strung diagonally from the back corner of the van across its interior. The wet weight of the gray-and-white-striped towel made the line droop in the middle.