house to the back door.
He knocked again. When there was no reply, he removed a set of lock picks that he kept behind his badge in his leather wallet and went to work on the dead bolt. It took him six minutes to open the door. He was greeted by the beeping of the burglar alarm. He located the box on the wall to the left of the back door and punched in the four numbers he had seen Gables enter at the front door two evenings before. The beeping stopped. Bosch was in. He left the door open and started looking around the house.
It was a post–World War II ranch house. Bosch had been in a thousand of them over the years and all the investigations. After a quick survey of the entire house he started his search in a bedroom that had been converted to a home office. There was a desk and a row of file cabinets along the wall where a bed would have been. There was a line of windows over the cabinets.
There was also a metal locker with a padlock on it. Bosch opened the venetian blinds over the file cabinets, and light came into the room. He moved to the metal locker and started there, pulling his picks out once again.
He knelt on the floor so he could see the lock closely. It turned out to be a three-pin breeze, taking less than a minute for him to open. A moment after the hasp snapped free he heard a voice come from behind him.
“Detective, don’t move.”
Bosch froze for a moment. He recognized the voice. Diane Gables. She had known he would come back. He slowly started to raise his hands, holding his fingers close together so he could hide the picks between them.
“Easy,” Gables commanded. “If you attempt to reach for your weapon I will put two bullets into your skull. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Can I stand up? My knees aren’t what they once were.”
“Slowly. Your hands always in my sight line.”
“Absolutely.”
Bosch started to get up slowly, turning toward her at the same time. She was pointing a handgun with a suppressor attached to the barrel.
“Easy,” he said. “Just take it easy here.”
“No, you take it easy. I could shoot you where you stand and be within my rights.”
Bosch shook his head.
“No, that’s not true. You know I’m a cop.”
“Yeah, a rogue cop. What did you think you were going to find here?”
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Randolph and McIntyre. Maybe others. You killed them.”
“And, what, you thought I’d just keep the evidence around? Hide it in a locker in my home?”
“Something like that. Can I sit down?”
“The chair behind the desk. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Bosch slowly sat down. She was still standing in the doorway. He now had 60 percent of his body shielded by the desk. He had his back to the file cabinets. The light was coming in from behind and above him. He noticed she had now lowered the muzzle to point at his chest. This was good, though from this range he doubted the Kevlar would completely stop a bullet from a nine-millimeter, even with the suppressor slowing it down. He kept his hands up and close to his face.
“So now what?” he asked.
“So now you tell me what you think you’ve got on me.”
Bosch shook his head as if to say
“And that’s it? Are you kidding me?”
“That’s it. Till now.”
He nodded at her weapon. It seemed to confirm all hunches.
“So, without a real case and the search warrant to go with it, of course you decided to break in here to see what you could find.”
“Not exactly.”
“We have a problem, Detective Bosch.”
“No, you have the problem. You’re a killer and I’m onto you. Put the weapon down. You’re under arrest.”
She laughed and waggled the gun in her hand.
“You forget one thing. I have the gun.”
“But you won’t use it. You don’t kill people like me. You kill the abusers, the predators.”
“I could make an exception. You’ve broken the law by breaking in here. There are no gray areas. Who knows, maybe you came to
Bosch started lowering his hands to the desktop.
“Be careful, Detective.”
“I’m tired of holding them up. And I know you’re not going to shoot me. It’s not part of your program.”
“I told you, programs change.”
“How do you pick them?”
She stared at him a long time, then finally answered.
“They pick themselves. They deserve what they get.”
“No judge, no jury. Just you.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t wished you could do the same thing.”
“Sure, on occasion. But there are rules. We don’t live by them, then where does it all go?”
“Right here, I guess. What am I going to do about you?”
“Nothing. You kill me and you know it’s over. You’ll be like one of them — the abusers and the predators. Put the gun down.”
She took two steps into the room. The muzzle came up toward his face. Bosch saw that deadly black eye rising in slow motion.
“You’re wearing a vest, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I could see it in your eyes. The fear comes up when the gun comes up.”
Bosch shook his head.
“I’m not afraid. You won’t shoot me.”
“I still see fear.”
“Not for me. It’s for you. How many have there been?”
She paused, maybe to decide what to tell him, or maybe just to decide what to do. Or maybe she was stuck on his answer about the fear.
“More than you’ll ever know. More than anybody will ever know. Look, I’m sorry, you know?”
“About what?”
“About there being only one real way out of this. For me.”
The muzzle steadied, its aim at his eyes.
“Before you pull that trigger, can I show you something?”
“It won’t matter.”
“I think it will. It’s in my inside jacket pocket.”
She frowned, then made a signal with the gun.
“Show me your wrists. Where’s your watch?”
Bosch raised his hands and his jacket sleeves came down, showing his watch on his right wrist. He was left- handed.
“Okay, take out whatever it is you need to show me with your right hand. Slowly, Detective, slowly.”
“You got it.”
Bosch reached in and with great deliberation pulled out the folded document. He handed it across the desk to her.
“Just put it down and then lean away.”
He followed her instructions. She waited for him to move back and then picked up the document. With one
