The Harry Bosch Novels Vol I Part 116

Getting to the freeway was so frustrating that Bosch believed he could actually feel his blood pressure rising. His skin began to feel tight around his eyes, his face grew warm. There was some kind of Sunday morning performance at the Hollywood Bowl and traffic on Highland was backed up to Fountain. Bosch tried taking some side streets but so were many of the people going to the Bowl. He was deep into this quagmire before he cursed himself for not remembering that he had the bubble and siren. Working homicide, it had been so long since he had to race to get anywhere that he had forgotten.

After he slid the bubble onto the roof and hit the siren, the cars began to part in front of him and he remembered how easy it could be. He had just gotten onto the Hollywood Freeway and was speeding north through the Cahuenga Pa.s.s when Jerry Edgar's voice came up on the rover on the seat next to him.

"Harry Bosch?"

"Yeah, Edgar, listen. I want you to call the sheriff's department, Valencia station, and tell them to get a car to Sylvia's house code three. Tell them to make sure she's okay."

Code three meant lights and siren, an emergency. He gave Edgar her address.

"Make the call now and then come back up."

"Okay, Harry. What's going on?"

"Make the call now!"

Three minutes later Edgar was back on the radio.

"They're on the way. What've you got?"

"I'm on my way, too. What I want you to do is go in to the division. I left a note on my desk. It's from the Follower. Secure it and then call Rollenberger and Irving and tell 'em what's happening."

"What is happening?"

Bosch had to swerve into the median to avoid hitting a car that pulled into the lane in front of him. The driver hadn't seen Bosch coming and Bosch knew he was going too fast - a steady ninety-three - for the siren to give much of a warning to the cars ahead of him.

"The note's another poem. He says he is going to take the blonde off my hands. Sylvia. There's no answer at her house but there still may be time. I don't think I was supposed to find the note until Monday, when I came in for work."

"On my way. Be careful, buddy. Stay cool."

Stay cool, Bosch thought. Right. He thought of what Locke had told him about the Follower being angry, wanting to get back at him for putting down the Dollmaker. Not Sylvia, he hoped. He wouldn't be able to live with it.

He picked the radio back up.

"Team One?"

"Yo," Sheehan replied.

"Go get him. If he's there, bring him in."

"You sure?"

"Bring him in."

There was a lone sheriff's car in front of Sylvia's house. When Bosch pulled to a stop, he saw a uniform deputy standing on the front step, back to the door. It looked as if he was guarding the place. As if he was protecting a crime scene.

As he started to get out, Bosch felt a sharp stabbing pain on the left side of his chest. He held still for a moment and it eased. He ran around the car and across the lawn, working his badge out of his pocket as he went.

"LAPD, what've you got?"

"It's locked. I walked around, all windows and doors secured. No answer. Looks like n.o.body's -"

Bosch pushed past him and used his key to open the door. He ran from room to room, making a quick search for obvious signs of foul play. There were none. The deputy had been right. n.o.body was home. Bosch looked in the garage and Sylvia's Cherokee was not there.

Still, Bosch made a second sweep of the house, opening closets, looking under beds, looking for any indication that something was amiss. The deputy was standing in the living room when Bosch finally came out of the bedroom wing.

"Can I go now? I was pulled off a call that seems a little more important than this."

Bosch noted the annoyance in the deputy's voice and nodded for him to go. He followed him out and got the rover out of the Caprice.

"Edgar, you up?"

"What do you have there, Harry?"

There was the sound of genuine dread in his voice.

"Nothing here. No sign of her or anything else."

"I'm at the station, you want me to put a BOLO out?"

Bosch described Sylvia and her Cherokee for the Be On Look Out dispatch that would go out to all patrol cars.

"I'll put it out. We got the task force coming in. Irving, too. We'll be meeting here. There's nothing else to do but wait."

"I'm going to wait here a while. Keep me posted. ...Team One, you up?"

"Team One," Sheehan said. "We went up to the door. n.o.body home. We're standing by. If he shows, we'll bring him in."

Bosch sat in the living room, his arms folded in front of him, for more than an hour. He now knew why Georgia Stern had held herself this way at Sybil Brand. There was comfort in it. Still, the silence of the house was nerve-racking. He was staring at the portable phone he had put on the coffee table, waiting for it to ring, when he heard a key hit the lock on the front door. He jumped up and was moving toward the entry when the door opened and a man stepped in. It wasn't Locke. It wasn't anyone Bosch knew, but he had a key.

Without hesitating Bosch moved into the entrance and slammed the man up against the door as he turned to close it.

"Where is she?" he shouted.

"What? What?" the man cried out.

"Where is she?"

"She couldn't come. I'm going to watch it for her. She's got another open in Newhall. Please!"

Bosch realized what was happening just as the pager on his belt sounded its shrill tone. He stepped away from the man.

"You're the Realtor?"

"I work for her. What are you doing? n.o.body's supposed to be here."

Bosch pulled the pager off his belt and saw the readout was his home phone number.

"I have to make a call."

He went back to the living room. Over his shoulder he heard the real estate man say, "Yeah, you do that! What the h.e.l.l is going on here?"

Bosch punched the number into the phone and Sylvia picked up after one ring.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, Harry, where are you?"

"At your place. Where have you been?"

"I picked up a pie at Marie Callendar's and took it and the flowers I cut to the Fontenots. I just felt like doing -"

"Sylvia, listen to me. Is the door locked?"

"What? I don't know."

"Put the phone down and go make sure. Make sure the sliding door to the porch is locked, too. And the door to the carport. I'll wait."

"Harry, what is -"

"Go do it now!"

She was back in a minute. Her voice sounded very timid.

"Okay, everything's locked."

"Okay, good. Now listen, I'm coming there right now and it will only take me half an hour. In the meantime, no matter who comes to the door, don't answer it and don't make any sound. Understand?"

"You're scaring me, Harry."

"I know that. Do you understand what I said?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Bosch thought for a moment. What else could he tell her?

"Sylvia, after we are done here. I want you to go to the closet near the front door. On the shelf there is a white box. Take it down and take out the gun. There are bullets in the red box in the cabinet over the sink. The red box, not the blue. Load the gun."

"I can't do - what are you telling me?"

"Yes, you can, Sylvia. Load the gun. Then wait for me. If anybody comes through the door and it's not me, protect yourself."

She didn't say anything.

"I'm on my way. I love you."

While Bosch was on the freeway going south, Edgar came up on the radio and told him Sheehan and Opelt still had made no sighting of Locke. The presidents had been dispatched to USC but Locke was not at his office, either.

"They're going to sit on both locations. I'm working on a warrant for the house now. But I don't think the PC is there."

Bosch knew he was probably right. Mora's identification of Locke as the man hanging around p.o.r.no sets and the names of three of the victims in his book were not probable cause to search his house.

He told Edgar that he had located Sylvia and was headed to her now. After signing off, he realized that her trip to the Fontenot house might have saved her life. He saw a symbiotic grace in that. A life taken, a life saved.

Before opening the door to his house he loudly announced he was there, then turned the key and walked into Sylvia's trembling arms. He held her to his chest and said into the radio, "We're all safe here," then turned it off.

They sat down on the couch and Bosch told her everything that had happened since they had last been together. He could tell by her eyes that it scared her more knowing what was going on than not.

She, in turn, explained that she had to get out of the house because the Realtor was holding an open house. That was why she had gone to Bosch's house after visiting the Fontenots. He explained that he had forgotten about the open house.

"You might need to get a new Realtor after today," he said.

They laughed together to let some of the tension go.

"I'm sorry," he said. "This should never have involved you."

They sat in silence for a while after that. She leaned against him as if she was weary of everything.

"Why do you do this, Harry? You deal with so much - the most awful people and the things they do. Why do you keep going?"

He thought about that but knew there was no real answer and that she wasn't expecting one.

"I don't want to stay here," he said after a while.

"We can go back to my house at four."

"No, let's just get out of here."

The two-room suite at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica gave them a sweeping view of the ocean across a wide beach. It was the kind of room that came with two full-length terrycloth robes and gold foilwrapped chocolates left on the pillow. The suite's front door was off the fourth landing of a five-story atrium with a wall of gla.s.s that faced the ocean and would capture the entire arc of the sunset.

There was a porch with two chaise lounges and a table and they had lunch delivered by room service there. Bosch had brought the rover in with him but it was turned off. He would keep in touch as the search for Locke went on, but he was out of it for the day.

He had called in and talked to Edgar and then Irving. He told them he would stay with Sylvia, though it seemed unlikely that the Follower would make a move now. He was not needed anyway because the task force was in a holding pattern, waiting for Locke to turn up or something else to break.

Irving had said the presidents had contacted the dean of the psychology department at USC who, in turn, contacted one of Locke's graduate a.s.sistants. She reported that Locke had mentioned on Friday that he would be in Las Vegas for the weekend, staying at the Stardust. He taught no cla.s.ses on Mondays, so he would not be back at the school until Tuesday.

"But we checked the Stardust," Irving said. "Locke had a reservation but never checked in."

"What about the warrant?"