THE MIDDAY DRIVE out to Santa Monica was long. Bosch had to take the long way, the 101 to the 405 and then down, because the 10 was still a week away from being reopened. By the time he got into Sunset Park it was after three. The house he was looking for was on Pier Street. It was a small Craftsman bungalow set on the crest of a hill. It had a full porch with red bougainvillea running along the railing. He checked the address painted on the mailbox against the envelope that contained the old Christmas card on the seat next to him. He parked at the curb and looked at the card once more. It had been addressed to him five years earlier, care of the LAPD. He had never responded to it. Not until now.

As he got out he could smell the sea and guessed that there might be a limited ocean view from the house’s western windows. It was about ten degrees cooler than it had been at his home and so he reached back into his car for the sport coat. He walked to the front porch while putting it on.

The woman who answered the white door after one knock was in her mid-sixties and looked it. She was thin, with dark hair, but the gray roots were beginning to show and she was ready for another dye job. She wore thick red lipstick, a white silk blouse with blue seahorses on it over navy blue slacks. She readily smiled a greeting and Bosch recognized her, but he could see that his own image was completely alien to her. It had been almost thirty-five years since she had seen him. He smiled back anyway.

“Meredith Roman?”

She lost her smile as quickly as she had found it before.

“That’s not my name,” she said in a clipped tone. “You have the wrong place.”

She moved to close the door but Bosch put his hand on it to stop her. He tried to be as unthreatening about it as he could. But he could see panic starting in her eyes.

“It’s Harry Bosch?” he said quickly.

She froze and looked Bosch in the eyes. He saw the panic go away. Recognition and memories flooded her eyes like tears. The smile came back.

“Harry? Little Harry?”

He nodded.

“Oh, darling, c’mere.” She drew him into a tight hug and talked in his ear. “Oh, so good to see you after-let me look at you.”

She pushed him back and held her hands wide as if appraising a roomful of paintings at once. Her eyes were animated and sincere. It made Bosch feel good and sad at the same time. He shouldn’t have waited so long. He should have visited for reasons other than the one that brought him here now.

“Oh, come in, Harry. Come in.”

Bosch entered a nicely furnished living room. The floor was red oak and the stucco walls were clean and white. The furniture was mostly matching white rattan. The place was light and bright but Bosch knew he was there to bring darkness.

“Meredith is no longer your name?”

“No, Harry, not for a long time.”

“What do I call you?”

“My name is Katherine. With a K. Katherine Register. Spelled like the cash register but you pronounce it ree as in reefer. That’s what my husband used to say. Boy, he was so straight. Outside of me the closest that man ever came to something illegal was to say the word.”

“He used to say that?”

“Have a seat, Harry, for crying out loud. Yes, used to. He passed away five years ago last Thanksgiving.”

Bosch sat down on the couch and she took the chair across the glass coffee table.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know. You never even knew him and I’ve been a different person for a long time. Can I get you something? Some coffee or maybe something stronger?”

It occurred to him that she had sent him the card on the Christmas soon after her husband’s death. He was hit with another wave of guilt for not having responded.

“Harry?”

“Oh, uh, no, I’m fine. I…do you want me to call you by your new name?”

She started laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and he joined in.

“Call me any damn thing you want.” She laughed girlishly, a laugh he remembered from a long time before. “It’s great to see you. You know, to see how, uh…”

“I turned out?”

She laughed again.

“I guess so. You know, I knew you were with the police because I had read your name in some of the news stories.”

“I know you knew. I got the Christmas card you sent to the station. That must have been right after your husband died. I, uh, I’m sorry I never wrote back or visited. I should have.”

“That’s okay, Harry, I know you’re busy with the job and a career and all…I’m glad you got my card. Do you have a family?”

“Uh, no. How about you? Any children?”

“Oh, no. No children. You have a wife, don’t you, a handsome man like you.”

“No, I’m alone right now.”

She nodded, seeming to sense that he wasn’t here to reveal his personal history to her anyway. For a long moment they just both looked at each other and Bosch wondered what she really thought of his being a cop. The initial delight in seeing each other was descending into the uneasiness that comes when old secrets come close to the surface.

“I guess…”

He didn’t finish the thought. He was grappling for a way into the conversation. His interviewing skills had deserted him.

“You know, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d take a glass of water.” It was all he could think of.

“Be right back.”

She got up quickly and went to the kitchen. He heard her getting ice out of a tray. It gave him time to think. It had taken him an hour to drive to her house but he hadn’t given one thought to what this would be like or how he would get to what he wanted to say and ask. She came back in a few minutes with a glass of ice water. She handed it to him and put a round coaster made of cork on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him.

“If you’re hungry, I can bring out some crackers and cheese. I just didn’t know how much time you-”

“No, I’m fine. This is great, thanks.”

He saluted her with the glass and drank half of it, then put it down on the table.

“Harry, use the coaster. Getting rings out of the glass is murder.” Bosch looked down at what he had done.

“Oh, sorry.”

He corrected the placement of his glass.

“You’re a detective.”

“Yes. I work in Hollywood now…Uh, but I’m not really working right now. I’m on sort of a vacation.”

“Oh, that must be nice.”

Her spirits seemed to lift, as if she knew there was a chance he was not here on business. Bosch knew it was time to get to the point.

“Uh, Mer-uh, Katherine, I need to ask you about something.”

“What is it, Harry?”

“I look around here and I see you have a very nice home, a different name, a different life. You’re no longer Meredith Roman and I know you don’t need me to tell you that. You’ve got…I think what I’m saying is the past may be a difficult thing to talk about. I know it is for me. And, believe me, I don’t want to hurt you in any way.”

“You’re here to talk about your mother.”

He nodded and looked down at the glass on the cork coaster.

“Your mother and I were best friends. Sometimes I think I had almost as much a hand in raising you as she did. Until they took you away from her. From us.”

He looked back up at her. Her eyes were looking hard at distant memories.

“I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about her. We were just kids. Having a good time, you know. We never thought either of us could get hurt.”

She suddenly stood up.

“Harry, come here. I want to show you something.”

He followed her down a carpeted hallway and into a bedroom. There was a four-poster bed with light blue coverings, an oak bureau and matching bedside tables. Katherine Register pointed to the bureau. There were several photos in ornate stand-up frames on top. Most of them were of Katherine and a man who seemed much older than she was in the photos. Her husband, Bosch guessed. But she pointed to one that was to the right side of the grouping. The photo was old, its color faded. It was a picture of two young women with a tiny boy of three or four.