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?”
“We’ve had three turn-downs from three judges. You know it’s pretty weak when a judge won’t rubber-stamp a search warrant for us. We’re going to have to let that jell for a while. In the meantime, we’ll be watching his house and his office. I’d like to leave it that way until he surfaces and we can talk to him.”
Bosch heard the doubt in Irving’s voice. He wondered how Rollenberger had explained the leap in the investigation from Mora to Locke as the suspect.
“You think we’re wrong?”
He realized there was a quiver of doubt in his own voice.
“I don’t know. We traced the note. Partially. It was left at the front desk sometime Saturday night. The deskman went back for coffee about nine, got sidetracked by the watch commander and when he came back out it was there on the counter. He had an Explorer put it in your slot. The only thing it means for sure is that we were wrong about Mora. Anyway, the point is, we could be wrong again. Right now all we have are hunches. Good hunches, mind you, but that’s all. I want to proceed a little more carefully this time.”
The translation was, you screwed us up with your hunch on Mora. We are going to be more skeptical this time. Bosch understood this.
“What if the Vegas trip was a cover? The note says something about moving on. Maybe Locke’s running.”
“Maybe.”
“Should we put out a BOLO, get an arrest warrant?”
“I think we’re going to wait until at least Tuesday, Detective. Give him a chance to come back. Just two more days.”
It was clear Irving wanted to sit tight. He was going to wait for events to control what he would do next.
“Okay, I’ll check in later.”
They napped in the king-size bed until it was dark and then Bosch turned on the news to see if any of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours had leaked.
It hadn’t, but midway through the newscast on 2, Bosch stopped flipping through the channels with the selector. The story that stopped him was an update on the Beatrice Fontenot killing. A photo of the girl, her hair in corn-rows, appeared on the right side of the screen.
The blonde anchor said, “Police announced today that they have identified a suspected gunman in the death of sixteen-year-old Beatrice Fontenot. The man they are looking for is an alleged drug dealer who was a rival of Beatrice’s older brothers, Detective Stanley Hanks said. He said the shots fired at the Fontenot house were in all probability meant for the brothers. Instead, a bullet struck Beatrice, an honor student at Grant High in the Valley, in the head. Her funeral is scheduled for later this week.”
Bosch turned off the television and looked back at Sylvia, who was propped up on two pillows against the wall. They didn’t say anything.
After a room service dinner, which they ate with almost no conversation in the front room of the suite, they took turns in the shower. Bosch went second and as the coarse water stung his scalp, he decided that it was time for him to lose all his baggage, to come clean. He trusted his faith in her, in her desire to know all of him. And he knew that if he did nothing, he was risking what they had each day he kept the secrets of his life inside. Somehow, he knew facing her was facing himself. He had to accept what he was, where he had come from and what he had become if he was to be accepted by her.
They were in their bleached white bathrobes, she in the chair by the sliding door, he standing near the bed. Beyond her through the door, he could see the full moon casting a shifting reflection on the Pacific. He didn’t know how to start.
She had been leafing through a hotel magazine filled with suggestions for tourists on what to do in the city. None of them were things that people who lived here ever did. She closed it and put it on the table. She looked at him and then looked away. She started before he could say a word.
“Harry, I want you to go home.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, put his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. He had no idea what was going on.
“What do you mean?”
“Too much death.”
“Sylvia?”
“Harry, I’ve done so much thinking this weekend that I can’t think anymore. But I know this, we have to be apart for a while. I have to sort things out. Your life, it’s…”
“Two days ago you said our problem was that I held things back from you. Now you’re saying you don’t want to know about me. Your-”
“I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about what you do.”
He shook his head.
“Same thing, Sylvia. You should know that.”
“Look, it’s been a rough couple of days. I just need some time to decide if this is right for me. For us. Believe me, I’m thinking about you, too. I’m not sure I’m the right one for you.”
“I am, Sylvia.”
“Please don’t say that. Don’t make it any more difficult. I-”
“I don’t want to go back to being without you, Sylvia. That’s all I know right now. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Harry, I don’t want to hurt you and I would never ever ask you to change for me. I know you and I don’t think you could change even if you wanted to. So… what I have to decide is whether I can live with that and live with you… I do love you, Harry, but I need some time…”
She was crying now. Bosch could see it in the mirror. He wanted to get up to hold her but he knew it was the wrong move. He was the cause of her tears. There was a long silence, both of them sitting in private pain. She was looking down into her lap where her hands held each other. He looked out at the ocean and saw a drift-fishing boat cut across the reflected path of the moon on its way toward the Channel Islands.
“Say something to me,” she finally said.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said. “You know that.”
“I’ll go into the bathroom until you get dressed and leave.”
“Sylvia, I want to know that you are safe. I would like to ask you to let me sleep in the other room. In the morning, we’ll figure something out. I’ll leave then.”
“No. We both know nothing will happen. That man, Locke, he’s probably far away, running from you, Harry. I’ll be safe. I’ll take a taxi to school tomorrow and I’ll be safe. Just give me some time.”
“Time to decide.”
“Yes. To decide.”
She got up and walked quickly by him to the bathroom. He put his arm out but she brushed by it. After the door closed he could hear her pull tissues from the dispenser. Then he could hear her crying.
“Please leave, Harry,” she said after a while. “Please.”
He heard her turn the water on, so she wouldn’t hear him if he said anything. Bosch felt like a fool to be sitting there in his luxury bathrobe. It ripped when he pulled it off.
