Michael Connelly - The Wrong Side of Goodbye

Noise from an electric saw being used on an upper level of the building covered Bosch’s approach. He got all the way up on the man, then grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. He shoved him back against the wall and jammed the barrel of his pistol into the man’s neck.

It was Sloan. Before Bosch could say a word, the man brought his arm up, knocked the gun away, and then spun Bosch into the wall. Sloan pulled his own gun and it was now pressed into Bosch’s neck. Sloan’s elbows pinned Harry’s arms up and against the wall.

“What the fuck are you doing, Bosch?”

Bosch stared at him. He opened up his right palm in surrender and let his gun drop into his left until he was holding it by the barrel.

“I was going to ask you the exact same thing,” he said.

“I’m watching out for her,” Sloan said. “Just like you.”

Sloan stepped back. He withdrew his weapon and swung it behind his back and tucked it under his belt. It left Bosch with the upper hand but he knew he didn’t need it. He holstered his weapon.

“What’s going on, Sloan? You work for them.”

“I worked for the old man. The company on the paychecks changed but I never stopped working for him. Including right now.”

“He really sent you that day you came to my house?”

“That’s right. He was too sick to call or talk. He thought he was dying and wanted to know who or what you’d found.”

“You knew what I was doing.”

“That’s right. Just like I knew when you found her.”

He jerked his head in the direction of Vibiana’s building.

“How?”

“They’ve got you wired Bosch. You and your lawyer. They’re tracking your phones, your cars. You’re old-fashioned. You never look up.”

Bosch realized Haller had nailed it. They had watched him from a drone.

“And you’re part of all of that?” he asked.

“I acted like I was,” Sloan said. “They kept me on after Mr. Vance died. Until last night, when they burned out a DNA lab. I quit. Now I’m going to watch over her. It’s what he would have wanted and I owe him that.”

Bosch studied him. He could be a Trojan horse sent in by Trident and the corporation. Or he could be sincere. Bosch reviewed the information that he had recently gathered on Sloan. That he had been with Vance for twenty-five years. That he had attempted to revive Vance after he was already dead. That he had called the police to report the death instead of attempting to avoid an investigation. Bosch thought it added up to sincerity.

“Okay,” he said. “If you want to watch over her, then let’s do it right. This way.”

They stepped through the open doorway and out from under the scaffolding. Bosch looked up at the windows of the lofts on the fourth floor. He saw Vibiana looking down. He pulled his phone and called her as he headed toward the entrance of her building. She skipped the greeting.

“Who is he?” she said.

“He’s a friend,” Bosch said. “He worked for your grandfather. We’re coming up.”

After Bosch left Vibiana in Sloan’s capable hands, he headed north toward the Santa Clarita Valley. He had promised Captain Trevino that he would give him an answer on the job offer by the end of the day. As he had told Haller, he intended to take the job. He was excited about the idea of being a full-time cop again. It didn’t matter if his turf was two square miles small or two hundred square miles large. He knew it was about cases and about always being on the right side of things. He’d found both in San Fernando and decided he would be there for as long as they would have him.

But before he could accept the offer, he needed to make things right with Bella Lourdes and assure her he was not taking her job but only holding it until she got back. He got to Holy Cross by 4 p.m. and hoped to catch Lourdes before she was released. He knew that getting out of a hospital was sometimes a daylong process and he believed he was on safe ground.

Once he got to the hospital, he retraced the path he had taken before to the trauma floor. He located Lourdes’s private room but entered to find the bed empty and unmade. There was still a bouquet of flowers on a chest of drawers. He checked a small closet, and on the floor, there was a pale green hospital gown. On the clothes bar, there were two metal hangers that probably once held the going-home outfit brought by Bella’s partner, Taryn.

Bosch wondered if Bella had been taken for a medical test or if she had a last therapy session that had drawn her out of her room. He walked down the hall to the nursing station and inquired.

“She hasn’t left yet,” a nurse told him. “We’re waiting for the doctor to sign the paperwork and then she’ll be ready to go.”

“So where is she?” he asked.

“In her room, waiting.”

“No, she’s not. Is there a cafeteria around?”

“Just the one on the first floor.”

Bosch took the elevator down and looked around the small and uncrowded cafeteria. There was no sign of Lourdes.

He knew he could have missed her. As he was going down in one elevator she could have been going up in another.

But a low-grade feeling of panic started to creep into Bosch’s chest. He remembered Taryn being outraged that Lourdes was suffering the indignity of being treated in the same hospital as her abductor and rapist. Bosch had sought to assure her that Dockweiler would be stabilized and moved downtown to the jail ward at the county hospital. But he knew that no arraignment had been set yet for Dockweiler because of his precarious health status. He realized that if Dockweiler’s medical condition was too critical for even a bedside arraignment in the hospital jail ward, then it could also be too critical for a transfer from Holy Cross to County.

He wondered if Taryn had told Bella that Dockweiler was in the same medical center or if she had figured it out on her own.

He went to the information desk in the hospital’s main lobby outside the cafeteria and asked if there was a specific ward for treatment of spinal injuries. He was told spinal trauma was on the third floor. He jumped on an elevator and went back up.

The elevator opened on a nursing station that was located in the middle of a floor plan resembling an H . Bosch saw a uniformed Sheriff’s deputy leaning over the counter and small-talking with the duty nurse. Harry’s anxiety kicked up another notch.

“This is the spinal trauma center?” he asked.

“It is,” the nurse said. “How can I—”

“Is Kurt Dockweiler still being treated here?”

Her eyes made a furtive move toward the deputy, who straightened up off the counter. Bosch pulled the badge off his belt and displayed it.

“Bosch, SFPD. Dockweiler’s my case. Where’s he at? Show me.”

“This way,” the deputy said.

They headed down one of the hallways. Bosch could see an empty chair outside a room several doors down.

“How long have you been fucking off at the nursing station?” he asked.

“Not long,” the deputy said. “This guy’s not going anywhere.”

“I’m not worried about that. Did you see a woman get off the elevator?”

“I don’t know. People come and go. When?”

“When do you think? Now.”

Before the deputy could answer, they got to the room and Bosch put his hand out to his left to hold him back. He saw Bella Lourdes standing at the foot of the bed in Dockweiler’s room.

“Stay here,” he said to the deputy.

Bosch slowly entered the room. Lourdes gave no indication she had noticed him. She was staring intently down at Dockweiler, who lay in the elevated bed surrounded by all manner of medical apparatus and tubes, including the breather that went down his throat and kept his lungs pumping. His eyes were open and he was staring back at Lourdes. Bosch easily read his eyes. He saw fear.