Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

His daughter reached across the space between their seats and grabbed his hand. He looked over and held her eyes. She had started to cry again. Bosch squeezed her hand and nodded.

“It’s going to be all right, Maddie.”

She nodded back and held on.

After the plane leveled off, the flight attendant came around and offered them food and drink but both Bosch and his daughter declined. Madeline watched a movie about teenage vampires and then folded her seat down flat-one of the perks of first class-and went to sleep.

Soon she was soundly asleep and he envisioned some sort of internal healing process taking place. The armies of sleep charging through her brain and attacking the bad memories.

He bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. As the seconds, minutes and hours moved backwards, he watched her sleep and wished for the impossible, that time would move backwards far enough for him to begin the whole day again. That was the fantasy. The reality was that his life was almost as significantly altered as hers was. She was with him now. And he knew that no matter what he had done or caused to happen until this point in his life, she would be his ticket to redemption.

If he could protect and serve her, he had the chance to make up for everything. For all of it.

His plan was to keep watch on her through the night. But his exhaustion eventually defeated him and he closed his eyes as well. Soon he dreamed of a place by a river. There was an outdoor table with a white tablecloth ruffled by the wind. He sat across the table from both Eleanor and Madeline and they smiled at him. It was a dream of a place that had never been and would never be.

The last hurdle was customs and immigration in Los Angeles. The agent at the entry booth swiped their passports and was ready to routinely stamp them when something on the computer caught his eye. Bosch held his breath.

“Mr. Bosch. You were in Hong Kong for less than a day?”

“That’s right. I didn’t even need to pack a bag. I just went to pick up my daughter.”

The agent nodded as though he understood and had seen it before. He stamped the passports. He looked at Madeline and said, “Welcome to L.A., young lady.”

“Thank you,” she said.

It was almost midnight by the time they got to the house on Woodrow Wilson Drive. Bosch carried the backpack into the guest room and his daughter followed. She was familiar with the room, having used it on several visits.

“Now that you’ll be living here full-time, we can fix up this room any way you want,” Bosch said. “I know you had a lot of posters and stuff back in Hong Kong. You can do whatever you want here.”

There were two cardboard boxes stacked in the corner that contained old case files Bosch had copied.

“I’ll get these out of here,” he said.

He moved them one at a time into his bedroom. He continued to talk to her as he moved up and down the hall.

“I know you don’t have a private bathroom but the guest bathroom in the hall is all yours. I don’t get many guests here, anyway.”

After moving the boxes, Bosch sat down on the bed and looked at his daughter. She was still standing in the middle of the room. The look on her face cut Bosch deeply. He could see the reality of the situation hitting her. It didn’t matter that she had repeatedly voiced a desire to live in L.A. She was now here permanently and grasping that fact was a daunting task.

“Maddie, I just want to tell you something,” he said. “I’m used to being your father four weeks a year. That was easy. This is going to be hard. I am going to make mistakes and I’m going to need you to be patient with me while I learn. But I promise you I will do the best I can.”

“Okay.”

“Now, what can I get you? Are you hungry? Tired? What?”

“No, I’m fine. I guess I shouldn’t have slept so much on the plane.”

“Doesn’t matter. You needed the sleep right then. And sleep is always good. It heals.”

She nodded and looked awkwardly around the room. It was a basic guest room. A bed, bureau and a table with a lamp.

“Tomorrow we’ll get you a TV to put in here. One of those flat screens. And also a computer and a desk. We’ll need to go shopping for a lot of things.”

“I think I need a new cell phone. Quick took mine.”

“Yeah, we’ll get you a new phone, too. I have your memory card from the old one, so you won’t lose your contacts.”

She looked over at him and he realized he had made a mistake.

“You have the card? Did you get it from Quick? Was his sister there?”

Bosch held his hands up in a calming gesture and shook his head.

“I never met Quick or his sister. I found your phone but it was broken. All I got was the memory card.”

“She tried to save me. She found out that Quick was going to sell me and tried to stop it. But he kicked her out of the car.”

Bosch waited for her to say more but that was it. He wanted to ask her many questions about the brother and sister and everything else but his role as father overtook his role as cop. Now wasn’t the right time. He had to get her calmed and situated. There would be time later to be a cop, to ask about Quick and He and to tell her what happened to them.

He studied her face and she seemed to be drained of emotion. She still looked tired, even after all the sleep on the plane.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Maddie. I promise.”

She nodded.

“Um, do you think I can just be alone for a little while in here”

“Sure you can. It’s your room. I think I should make some calls, anyway.”

He got up and headed to the door. He hesitated as he was closing it behind him and looked back at her.

“You’ll tell me if you need anything, right?”

“Yes, Dad. Thanks.”

He closed the door and went out to the living room. He pulled his phone and called David Chu.

“It’s Bosch. Sorry to call so late.”

“No problem. How is it going over there”

“I’m back in L.A.”

“You’re back? What about your daughter?”

“She’s safe. What’s the status on Chang?”

There was a hesitation before Chu answered. He didn’t want to be the messenger.

“Well, he walks in the morning. We don’t have anything to file on him.”

“What about the extortion?”

“I took a last run at Li and Lam today. They won’t file a formal complaint. They’re too scared of the triad. Li said somebody called already and threatened him.”

Bosch thought for a moment about the threatening call he had received on Friday. He assumed it was the same caller.

“So Chang walks out of the DDC in the morning and heads to the airport,” he said. “He gets on a plane and we never see him again.”

“Looks like we lost this one, Harry.”

Bosch shook his head, his rage boiling over.

“Goddamn those motherfuckers.”

Bosch realized his daughter might be able to hear him. He opened one of the living room sliders and stepped out onto the rear deck. The sound from the freeway traffic down in the pass would help muffle his conversation.

“They were going to sell my kid,” he said. “For her organs.”

“God,” Chu said. “I thought they were just trying to intimi-date you.”

“Yeah, well, they took her blood and she must’ve matched somebody with a lot of money because the plan changed.”

“Well, they could’ve tested her blood to make sure she was clean before they…”

He stopped, realizing the alternate scenario wasn’t comforting. He changed directions.

“Is she back here with you, Harry?”

“I told you, she’s safe.”