The bottom line was I didn't want to call Graciela McCaleb and tell her that her husband's killer was still out there and that the FBI would handle it. I still wanted to handle it. I owed that to her and to Terry and I always paid what I owed.

Back on the road the coffee and sugar got me going again and I pressed on toward the City of Angels. When I hit the 10 freeway I also hit the rain and traffic slowed to a crawl. I flipped on the radio to KFWB and learned it had rained all day and wasn't expected to stop until the end of the week. There was a live report from Topanga Canyon where residents were sandbagging their doors and garages, expecting the worst. Mud slides and flooding were the dangers. The catastrophic fires that swept through the hills the year before had left little ground cover to hold the rain or soil. It was all coming down.

I knew the weather would cost me an extra hour getting home. I checked my watch. It was just past midnight. I had planned to wait until getting home to call Kiz Rider but decided it might be too late to call by then. I opened my phone and called her at home. She picked up right away.

"Kiz, it's Harry. You up?"

"Sure, Harry. I can't sleep when it rains."

"I know what you mean."

"So what's the good word?"

"Everybody counts or nobody counts."

"Which means?"

"I'm in if you're in."

"Come on, Harry, don't put that on me."

"I'm in if you're in."

"Come on, man, I'm already in."

"You know what I mean. This is your salvation, Kiz. We got sidetracked. We both did. You and I know what we should be doing. It's time we both went back to it."

I waited. There was a long period of silence from her, then finally she spoke.

"This is going to upset the man. He's got me on a lot of things."

"If he's the man you say he is he'll understand. He'll get it. You'll be able to make him get it."

More silence.

"Okay, Harry, okay. I'm in."

"All right then, I'll come down tomorrow and sign up."

"All right, Harry. I'll see you then."

"You knew I'd call, didn't you?"

"Put it this way, I have the papers you have to fill out sitting on my desk."

"You were always too smart for me."

"I meant what I said about us needing you. That's the bottom line. But I also didn't think you'd last long out there on your own. I know guys who have pulled the pin and gone the PI route, sold real estate, cars, appliances, even books. It worked fine for most of them, but not you, Harry. I figured you knew that, too."

I didn't say anything. I was staring into the darkness beyond the reach of my lights. Something Kiz had just said triggered the avalanche.

"Harry, you still there?"

"Yeah, listen, Kiz, you just said books. You knew a guy who retired and sold books. Is that Ed Thomas?"

"Yeah, I came to Hollywood about six months before he put in his papers. He left and opened a bookstore down in Orange."

"I know. You ever been there?"

"Yeah, one time he had Dean Koontz signing one of his books there. I saw it in the paper. He's my favorite and he doesn't sign books too many places. So I went down. There was a line out the door and down the sidewalk but as soon as Ed saw me he ushered me right on up to the front and he introduced me and I got my book signed. It was embarrassing, actually."

"What's the name of it?"

"Um… I think it was Strange Highways."

That deflated me. I thought I was about to make a leap in logic and a connection.

"No, actually, it was after that," Kiz said. "It was Sole Survivor-the plane crash story."

I realized what she was saying and how we'd gotten confused.

"No, Kiz, what's the name of Ed's bookstore?"

"Oh, it's called Book Carnival. I think that was what it was called when he bought the business. Otherwise I think he'd have called it something else, something mysterious, since he sells mostly mystery books there."

Book Car as in Book Carnival. I involuntarily pressed the accelerator down harder.

"Kiz, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later."

I closed the phone without waiting for a good-bye from her. Glancing between the road and the phone's display I scrolled through my recent calls list and pressed the connect button after highlighting Rachel Waiting's cell number. She answered before I even heard it ring.

"Rachel, it's Harry. Sorry to call so late but it's important."

"I'm in the middle of something," she whispered.

"You're at the field office still?"

"That's right."

I tried to think of what would keep her there after midnight on a day that had started so early.

"Is it the trash barrel? The burned book?"

"No, we haven't gotten there yet. It's something else. I have to go."

Her voice was somber and because she had not used my name I got the idea there were other agents present and that whatever she was in the middle of was not good.

"Rachel, listen, I have something. You have to come to L.A."

Her tone changed. I think she could tell by the urgency in my voice that this was serious.

"What is it?"

"I know the Poet's next move."

I'll have to call you back." Rachel closed her phone and slid it into the pocket of her blazer. Bosch's last words echoed in her heart.

"Agent Walling, I'd appreciate it if you could stay in our conversation."

She looked up at Alpert.

"Sorry."

She looked past him at the telecommunication screen where Brass Doran's face was larger than life. She was smiling.

"Agent Doran, continue," Alpert said.

"Actually, I'm finished. That's all we have at this time. We can confirm through the latents that Robert Backus was at that trailer. We cannot confirm that he was in it when it exploded."

"What about the DNA?"

"The DNA evidence gathered by Agent Walling, at great danger, I might add, and later by the ERT will only be useful if we have something to compare it with. That is, if we somehow find a source of Robert Backus's DNA. Or we use it to identify the body that was in the trailer as someone else."

"What about Backus's parents? Can't we extract his DNA from-"

"We went that route before. His father was dead and cremated before we thought of it-the science wasn't really there back then-and his mother has never been located. There is some thought that she might have been his first victim. She disappeared some years ago without the proverbial trace."

"This guy thought of everything."

"In the case of the mother it was more likely a revenge thing for her abandonment. It is hard to believe that he did something back then in order to prevent later DNA extraction."

"All I meant was that we are genuinely fucked."

"I am sorry, Randal, but the science can only go so far."

"I know that, Agent Doran. Can you tell me anything else? Anything new?"

"I guess not."

"Terrific. Okay, so then I will tell the director just that. That we know Backus was in that trailer-we have forensics and witness accounts to that effect. But as of this time we cannot take the next step and say he is dead and good riddance."

"Is there no way we can convince the director to sit tight and give us more time to sew it all up? For the good of the investigation."

Rachel almost laughed. She knew the good of the investigation would always take second place to political considerations in the Hoover Building in D.C. "I have already tried," Alpert said. "The answer is no. There is too much at stake. The cat is out of the bag on this-thanks to the explosion in the desert. If that was Backus blown to bits out there, then fine, we'll eventually confirm it and everything will be fine. If that was not Backus and he has some other play in mind, the director has to get on record with this now or the consequences of the blowback could be fatal. So he is going on record with what we know now: Backus was there, Backus is the suspect in the killings in the desert, Backus may or may not be dead. There is no dissuading him at this point."