Chapters (64)
- PART ONE
- One
- Two
- Three
- PART TWO
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- PART THREE
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- PART FOUR
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- PART FIVE
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Fifty-two
- Fifty-three
- PART SIX
- Fifty-four
- Fifty-five
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY
“So what’s all of this tell us?”
“It’s a hitter’s gun. You take it when you know it’s going to be a head shot.”
I nodded my agreement.
“So this was planned. The killer knew just what he was going to do. He waits in the garage, sees Jerry come out and comes right up to the car. The window goes down or it was already down, and the guy pops Jerry twice in the head, then reaches in for the briefcase that has the laptop, the cell phone, the portfolio and, we think, the Eli Wyms file.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, what about the suspect?”
“The guy they sweated the first night?”
“No, that was Carlin. They cut him loose.”
Cisco looked surprised.
“How’d you find out it was Carlin?”
“Bosch told me this morning.”
“Are you saying they have another suspect?”
I nodded.
“He showed me a photo of a guy coming out of the building at the time of the shooting. He had a gun and was wearing an obvious disguise.”
I saw Cisco’s eyes flare. It was a point of professional pride that he provide me with information like that. He didn’t like it happening the other way around.
“He didn’t have a name, just the photo,” I said. “He wanted to know if I had ever seen the guy before or if it was one of the clients.”
Cisco’s eyes darkened as he realized that his inside source was holding out on him. If I’d told him about the FBI calls, he probably would have picked the table up and thrown it through the window.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” he said quietly through a tight jaw.
I looked at Lorna.
“Bosch said he was coming back later to show the photo to Wren.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Make sure you look at it, too. I want everybody to be on alert for this guy.”
“Okay, Mickey.”
I nodded. We were finished. I put a credit card on the tab and pulled out my cell phone to call Patrick. Calling my driver reminded me of something.
“Cisco, there’s one other thing I want you to try to do today.”
Cisco looked at me, happy to move on from the idea that I had a better source on the investigation than he did.
“Go to Vincent’s liquidator and see if he’s sitting on one of Patrick’s surfboards. If he is, I want it back for Patrick.”
Cisco nodded.
“I can do that. No problem.”
Twenty-four
Twenty-four
Waylaid by the slow-moving elevators in the CCB, I was four minutes late when I walked into Judge Holder’s courtroom and hustled through the clerk’s corral toward the hallway leading to her chambers. I didn’t see anyone and the door was closed. I knocked lightly and I heard the judge call for me to enter.