"Hey, it's Bosch, what are you up to?" I said as casually as I could.

"Nothing, just hanging out."

"You at the hotel?"

"Yeah, why, what's up?

"Nothing. I just thought you might want a cup of coffee or something. I'm out and about and have some time to kill. I could be at your hotel in a couple minutes." "Oh, well, thanks but I think I'm going to stay in tonight."

Of course you can't come out, I thought. You're not even there.

"I'm kind of jet-lagged, to tell you the truth. It always hits me the second day. Plus, tomorrow we've got the early start."

"I understand."

"No, it's not that I don't want to. Maybe tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Are we still on for eight?"

"I'll be out front."

We hung up and I felt the first weight of doubt in my stomach. She was up to something, playing me in some way.

But then I tried to dismiss it. Her assignment was to keep tabs on me. She'd been upfront about that. Maybe I had this latest thing all wrong.

I made another circuit around the parking lot, looking for a Crown Vic or an LTD, but didn't see one. I quickly drove out of the lot then and back onto Paradise Road. At Flamingo I turned west and went back across the strip and over the freeway. I pulled into the lot of a steakhouse near the Palms, the casino favored by many of the locals because it was off the strip and it drew a lot of celebrities. The last time Eleanor and I had talked civilly she told me she was thinking of switching her allegiance from the Bellagio to the Palms. The Bellagio was still where the money went, but most of that went into baccarat and pai gow and craps. Poker was a different skill and it was the only game where you weren't playing against the house. She had heard through the local grapevine that all the celebrities and athletes that came over from L.A. to the Palms were playing poker and losing lots of cash while they learned.

In the steakhouse bar I ordered a New York strip and a baked potato. The waitress tried to talk me out of ordering the steak medium-well but I remained firm. In the places I had grown up I never got any food that was pink in the middle and I couldn't start enjoying it now. After she took the order back to the kitchen I thought about an army kitchen I once wandered into at Fort Benning. There were complete sides of beef being boiled gray through and through in a dozen huge vats. A guy with a shovel was scooping oil off the surface of one of the vats and dumping it in a bucket. That kitchen was the worst thing I had ever smelled until I went into the tunnels a few months later and one time crawled into a place where the VC hid their dead from the army statistic takers.

I opened the Poet file and was settling into a thorough read when my phone buzzed. I answered without checking the ID screen.

"Hello?"

"Harry, it's Rachel. You still want to get that coffee? I changed my mind."

My guess was that she had hurried to the Embassy Suites so she could be there and not be caught in a lie.

"Um, I just ordered dinner on the other side of town."

"Shit, I'm sorry. Well, that'll teach me. You by yourself?"

"Yeah, I've got some stuff to work on here."

"Well, I know what that's like. I pretty much eat by myself every night."

"Yeah, me too. If I eat." "Really? What about your kid?"

I was no longer comfortable or trusting while talking to her. I didn't know what she was doing. And I didn't feel like going over my sad marital or parental history.

*'Uh, listen, I'm getting a look from somebody here. I think cell phones are against the rules."

"Well, we don't want to break the rules. I'll see you tomorrow at eight then."

"Okay, Eleanor. Good-bye."

I was about to close the phone when I heard her voice.

"Harry?"

"What?"

"I'm not Eleanor."

"What?"

"You just called me Eleanor."

"Oh. That was a mistake. Sorry."

"Do I remind you of her?"

"Maybe. Sort of. Not now, but from a while back."

"Oh, well, I hope not from too far back."

She was referring to Eleanor's fall from grace in the bureau. A fall so bad that even a hardship posting in Minot was out of the question.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Rachel."

"Good night, Harry."

I closed the phone and thought about my mistake. It had shot up right out of the subconscious but now that it was out in the open it was obvious. I didn't want to think about that. I wanted to retreat into the file in front of me. I knew I would be more comfortable studying the blood and madness of some other person and time.

AT 8:30 I knocked on the door of Eleanor Wish's house and the Salvadoran woman who lived there and took care of my daughter answered. Marisol had a kind but worn face. She was in her fifties but looked much older. Her story of surviving was devastating and whenever I thought about it I was left feeling lucky about my own story. Since day one, when I had unexpectedly shown up at this house and discovered I had a daughter, Marisol had treated me kindly. She had never viewed me as a threat and was always completely cordial and respectful of my position as both father and outsider. She stepped back and let me in.

"She sleeping," she said.

I held up the file I was carrying.

"That's okay. I have work. I just want to go sit with her for a while. How are you doing, Marisol?"

"Oh, I am fine."

"Eleanor went to the casino?"

"Yes, she go." "And how was Maddie tonight?"

"Maddie, she a good girl. She play."

Marisol always kept her reports to a minimum. I had tried speaking to her in Spanish before, thinking the reason she spoke so little was because of her English skills. But she said little more to me in her native language, preferring to keep her reports on my daughter's life and activities to a few words in any language.

"Okay, well, thank you," I said. "If you want to go to bed I'll just let myself out later. I'll make sure the door is locked."

I had no key to the house but the front door would lock after I closed it.

"Yes, is okay."

I nodded and headed down the hallway to the left. I entered Maddie's room and closed the door. There was a night-light plugged into the far wall and it cast a blue glow across the room. I made my way to the side of her bed and turned on the bed table light. I knew from experience that Maddie would not be disturbed by the light. The five-year-old's dreams were so deep she could seemingly sleep through anything, even a Lakers playoff game on the television or a 5.0 earthquake.

The light revealed a nest of tangled dark hair on the pillow. Her face was turned away from my view. I used my hand to sweep the ringlets back off her face and I leaned down and kissed her cheek. I turned my head sideways so my ear was closer to her. I checked for the sound of breathing and was rewarded. One little moment of unfounded fear fell away from me.

I walked over to the bureau and turned off the baby monitor, the other half of which I knew was in the TV room or Marisol's bedroom. There was no need for it now. I was there.

Maddie slept in a queen-size bed with a cover spread that had all manner of cats printed on it. With her little body taking up so little space in the bed, there was plenty of room for me to prop the second pillow against the headboard and climb on next to her. I slipped my hand under the covers and placed it gently on her back. I waited without moving until I could feel the slight rise and fall of her breathing. With the other hand I opened the Poet file and started to read.

At dinner I had gotten through most of the file. This included the suspect profile authored in part by Agent Rachel Walling as well as the investigative reports and crime scene photos that accumulated while the investigation was current and the bureau was tracking the killer dubbed the Poet across the country. That was eight years earlier, when the Poet killed eight homicide detectives, traveling from east to west, before his run came to an end in Los Angeles.