Bosch looked down at his pager. The number belonged to Lindell’s cell phone. The emergency code 911 was printed on the little screen after it. He looked back up at Kate Kincaid.

“So I finally summoned the courage I didn’t have for all those months and years. I confronted him. And he told me. And he laughed at me. He asked me why I cared now since I didn’t care while Stacey was alive.”

Now Bosch’s cell phone began to ring inside his briefcase. Kate Kincaid slowly stood up.

“I’ll let you take that in private.”

As he reached to his briefcase, he watched her pick her purse up and walk across the room in the direction of the hallway to her dead daughter’s bedroom. Bosch fumbled with the briefcase’s release but eventually got it open and got to the phone. It was Lindell.

“I’m at the house,” the FBI agent said, his voice tight with adrenaline and excitement. “Kincaid and Richter are here. It’s not very pretty.”

“Tell me.”

“They’re dead. And it doesn’t look like it was an easy ride for them. They were knee-capped, both of them shot in the balls . . . You still with the wife?”

Bosch looked in the direction of the hallway.

“Yes.”

Just as he said it he heard a single popping sound from down the hallway. He knew what it was.

“Better bring her over here,” Lindell said.

“Right.”

Bosch closed the phone and placed it back in the briefcase, his eyes still on the hallway.

“Mrs. Kincaid?”

There was no answer. All he heard was the rain.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

BY the time Bosch cleared the scene in Brentwood and got up the hill to The Summit it was almost two o’clock. Driving through the rain on the way he could think only of Kate Kincaid’s face. He had gotten to Stacey’s room less than ten seconds after hearing the shot, but she was already gone. She had used a twenty-two and placed the muzzle in her mouth, firing the bullet up into her brain. Death was instant. The kick of the gun had knocked it out of her mouth and onto the floor. There was no exit wound, often the case with a twenty-two. She simply appeared as though she was sleeping. She had wrapped herself in the pink blanket that had been used by her daughter. Kate Kincaid looked as though she was serene in death. No mortician would be able to improve on that.

There were several cars and vans parked in front of the Kincaid residence. Bosch had to park so far away that his raincoat was soaked through by the time he got to the door. Lindell was there waiting for him.

“Well, this certainly’s turned all to shit,” the FBI agent said by way of greeting.

“Yeah.”

“Should we have seen it coming?”