“It’s okay, Frankie.”

Without moving his hands away from his face, Sheehan spoke.

“You see, Harry, I became the very thing that I spent all these years hunting. I wanted to kill him right there and then. I would have if my guys hadn’t come in. I’m never going to be able to forget that.”

“It’s okay, man.”

Sheehan drank some beer and seemed to recover somewhat.

“After I did what I did, that opened the door. The other guys, they did that thing with the pencil – popped his fucking ear drum. We all became monsters. Like Vietnam, going wild in the villages. We probably would’ve killed the guy but you know what saved him? The girl. Stacey Kincaid saved him.”

“How’s that?”

“They found the body. We got the word and went out to the scene. We left Harris in a cell. Alive. He was lucky the word came when it did.”

He stopped to take another gulp of beer.

“I went out there – just a block from Harris’s place. She was pretty much decomposed, the young ones go fast. But I remember how she looked. Like a little angel, her arms out like she was flying…”

Bosch remembered the pictures from the newspapers. Stacey Kincaid had been a pretty little girl.

“Harry, leave me alone now,” Sheehan said quietly. “I’m going to walk back.”

“No, let me give you a ride.”

“No thanks. I’m walking.”

“You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine. Just a little worked up. That’s all. This is going to stay between us, right?”

“Till the end, man.”

Sheehan tried a weak smile. But he still didn’t look at Bosch.

“Do me one favor, Hieronymus.”

Bosch remembered when they had been a team. They only used their formal names, Hieronymus and Francis, when they were talking seriously and from the heart.

“Sure, Francis. What?”

“When you catch the guy who did Elias, I don’t care if it’s a cop or not, shake his hand for me. You tell him he’s my hero. But tell him he missed a good chance. Tell him he should’ve gotten Harris, too.”

A half hour later Bosch opened the door to his home. He found his bed empty. But this time he was too tired to stay awake waiting for Eleanor. He started stripping off his clothes and thinking about his plans for the next day. He finally sat down on the bed ready for sleep and reached for the light. The moment he was in darkness, the phone rang.

He turned the light back on and picked up the phone.

“You bastard.”

A woman’s voice – familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“Who is this?”

“Carla Entrenkin, who do you think? Do you really think I wouldn’t know what you did?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened?”

“I just watched Channel Four. Your buddy Harvey Button.”

“What did he have?”

“Oh, he blew it up real big. Let’s see if I can quote him correctly. ‘A link between Elias and an Internet prostitution ring was found in Elias’s office, a source close to the investigation says. It is believed by this source that Elias may have had liaisons with at least one of the women who advertised her services as a dominatrix on the web site.’ I think that about sums it up. I hope you are happy.”

“I didn’t – ”

“Don’t bother.”

She hung up. Bosch sat there a long time thinking about what she had said.

“Chastain, you asshole,” he said out loud.

He turned out the light again and dropped back on the bed. He was soon asleep and having the same dream again. He was riding Angels Flight, going up. Only now there was a little blond girl seated across the aisle from him. She looked at him with sad and empty eyes.

BOSCH had a surprise waiting for him when he pushed the supply cart stacked with file boxes through the door of Deputy Chief Irving’s conference room. It was quarter to eight on Sunday morning. There were six FBI agents already crowded into the room and waiting. The surprise was the lead agent who stepped over to Bosch, his hand out and a smile on his face.

“Harry Bosch,” the man said.

“Roy Lindell,” Bosch replied.

Bosch pushed the cart over to the table and took the man’s hand.

“You’re on this? What happened to OC?”

“Organized crime was getting boring. Especially after the Tony Aliso case. Hard to top that one, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.”

A couple of years earlier they had worked the Aliso murder – the “Trunk Music” case, according to the local media. Bosch and Lindell had started out as adversaries, but by the time the case was concluded in Las Vegas there was a respect between the two that certainly wasn’t shared between the two agencies they worked for. Bosch immediately took Lindell’s assignment to the Elias case as a good sign.

“Listen,” Lindell said, “I think we have a few minutes. You want to grab a cup of coffee and talk about things?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

As they walked down the hall to the elevator they were met by Chastain, who was heading to the conference room. Bosch introduced Lindell.

“You guys going for coffee? I’ll come with you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Bosch said. “We’ve got some stuff to talk about… and I don’t want it coming out of Harvey Button’s mouth on the news later. Know what I mean?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bosch.”

Bosch said nothing. Chastain looked at Lindell and then back at Bosch.

“Never mind the coffee,” he said. “I don’t need artificial stimulants, anyway.”

When they were alone at the elevator lobby Bosch warned Lindell about Chastain.

“He’s leaking,” he said. “You see Channel Four last night?”

“The Internet dominatrix thing?”

“Yeah. Six people knew about that. Me, my two partners, Chastain, Carla Entrenkin and Deputy Chief Irving. I can vouch for my partners and I doubt Entrenkin would leak anything negative about Elias. Either Irving or Chastain talked to Harvey Button. My bet is on Chastain. Irving’s been trying to put a clamp on things from the start.”

“Well, was the story bullshit or what?”

“Looks that way. We can’t make a connection. Whoever leaked it did it to smear Elias, even things up a bit.”

“I’ll watch him. But you know sometimes leaks aren’t from the obvious source.”

The elevator opened and Lindell stepped on, leaving Bosch standing there thinking about Irving and whether it was possible that he was the leak.

“You coming?” Lindell asked.

Bosch stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor.

“You check the news this morning?” Lindell asked. “How’s it going out there?”

“So far so good. A couple fires last night, but that was about it. No looting and it’s pretty quiet now. Supposed to be rain coming in by tomorrow. Maybe that will help.”

They went into the cafeteria and took their coffees to a table. Bosch checked his watch and saw it was five before eight. He looked at Lindell.

“So?”

Lindell laughed.

“So what the fuck. We going to divvy this up or what?”

“Yeah. I got a deal for you, Roy. A good deal.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“You can have it. I’ll step back and let you run the show. I just want one thing. I want my team to run with the original case. Stacey Kincaid. We’ll take the original murder book and review everything RHD did on the case. Then we’ll take everything Elias did and go from there.”

Lindell’s eyes narrowed their focus as he wondered what this meant. Bosch continued.

“It looks like Elias’s plan was to go into court this week and try to prove that Michael Harris didn’t kill her. He was going to name her killer and – ”

“Who?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. We don’t know. He was keeping it in his head instead of his files. But that’s why I want the case. Because if he had a bead on somebody, that somebody’s a pretty good suspect for the Angels Flight murders.”

Lindell looked down at his smoking coffee and was quiet a long moment.