Page 105

“Only if they knew you gave it to me,” Bosch said.

“Not happening, Harry.”

“I had to ask. Anyway, thanks for leveling with me. If I come up with anything, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I hope you do. Come up with something, I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

Bosch hung up, pocketed the phone, and picked up the binoculars. He scanned the hillside across the pass once more, looking for anything that might narrow down his search for the house Novak lost in a divorce. He was about to drop the glasses and give up when he noticed a coastal oak at the rear of the last house on the ridge — the end of Lakeridge Drive. Out of habit, he raised the glasses up and into the limbs, looking for a nest.

There was no nest, but something else caught his eye. The shimmering reflection of the sun in the tree. There were pieces of glass hanging from the branches. Pieces of colored glass held together by wire or string.

Like wind chimes.

Bosch pulled back and studied the house. It was large, with three levels going down the hillside. He could not see the front. The rear of the house was almost completely glass, with windows commanding a wide view across the pass and, Bosch imagined, a wider view of Hollywood to the south.

But behind the glass, all the shades were down, as would be the case if the house was closed up and empty.

Bosch grabbed the Thomas Guide, carried it and the binoculars inside, and locked the slider behind him. He went to his laptop on the dining table. He figured out the address from the map book, plugged it into Google Maps, and went to a street view of the property. A six-foot fence surrounded it and the driveway that rose up an incline to the house. Only the top level of the house could be seen from the street. There was a large picture window that gave anyone in the house a full view of the cul-de-sac and the street leading up to it.

Using the arrows on the keyboard, Bosch rotated the view on his screen and followed Lakeridge Drive as it sloped down the hill to a stop sign at Lakeridge Road, the main artery into the hillside neighborhood. There was another tributary street here called Longdale Lane. He followed this street and came to a cul-de-sac. He turned the focus to the properties on the circle and quickly came to one surrounded by a chain-link construction fence with a home developer’s sign attached. Through the fence he could see that the land had been cleared and was ready for the building of a new house. At the bottom of the image, it said MAY 2025. The photo was less than a year old. Bosch figured if the land had been empty then, a property there now would still be under construction and he would be able to use it as a pass-through to a firebreak that was clearly marked on the Thomas Guide map.

Bosch closed the laptop and went down the hall to the bedroom. In the walk-in closet he grabbed a duffel bag off the shelf and started filling it with all the things he thought he might need. When he was finished and turned to leave, he checked the hook where Carmen usually hung her nightgown. It was there, and seeing it was somehow reassuring to him. He touched it for a moment, then stepped out.

He went to the hallway closet, but not to return the map book. That was going in the duffel bag. Instead, he punched the combination into the gun safe bolted to the shelf. He believed that he might need something bigger than a boot gun.

43

BOSCH DROVE DOWN the hill and crossed the 101 on the bridge known as the Mulholland Viaduct. It took him to Lakeridge Road, which led up the hillside to the three-way stop at Lakeridge Drive and Longdale Lane. He drove up Longdale to the dead end and parked against the curb in front of the construction fence. To his surprise, the property looked unchanged from the Google photo taken back in May. The project had stalled, probably because of a delay in either money or permits, and Bosch guessed it was the latter. The property was located on a hillside and in a fire danger zone. Bosch knew from renovating and rebuilding his own house after an earthquake that those two factors guaranteed a high level of scrutiny of plans by the city and a long road to permitting.

Either way, it was a break for Bosch. He had anticipated seeing an active site on the lot and assumed that he would have to wait till the workday ended before sneaking though the property to the firebreak beyond. Now he only had to contend with the fence, and he saw that the heavy chain that secured the two sides of the entrance gate was loose enough for him to squeeze through with his duffel bag.

He got out, opened the back of the Jeep, and retrieved the bag. He had a construction hard hat in a box of disguises and undercover paraphernalia he had carried in his trunk as a cop. He put it on in case a neighbor saw him crossing the lot, then added a lime-green safety vest. He knew that sometimes it was best to hide in plain sight. Rather than sneaking through the lot, he would be wide open and act like he was supposed to be there.

After locking the Jeep, he approached the lot without hesitation, like he was there for a purpose. He ducked under the chain, went through the gate, and trudged through the dirt to the rear of the property. There, another gate in the fencing allowed access to the top of the ridge and the firebreak.

“Hello?”

Bosch stopped in his tracks and turned in the direction of the voice. A woman was looking over the wooden fence that separated the cleared lot from the house to the right.

“Uh, hi,” Bosch said. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” the woman said. “Can you tell me what’s going on with the project? I haven’t seen anybody out there in weeks.”

“Uh, they’re still dealing with permits. That’s actually why I’m here. I have to check something on the firebreak.”

“What do you have to check?”

“Access. The fire department needs to be able to access the property from the firebreak or no permit.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. It’s new.”

He nodded to put a button on the conversation.

“Thank you,” the woman said. “I hope you get your permits.”