Bosch’s plan was to proceed at an angle and make his way back to the entrance road. He would then move parallel to it until he got to the Cosgrove home. He wasn’t sure what he was doing or looking for. He was following his instincts, and they told him Cosgrove, with his money and power, was at the center of things. He felt the need to move in closer to him, to see where and how he lived.

The water was only a few inches deep but the mud sucked at Bosch’s boots and made his progress slow. Several times the wet earth refused to let go of its grip and he almost pulled his foot right out of its boot.

The water floor reflected the starscape above and made Bosch feel as though he was completely exposed in his trespass. Every twenty yards or so he would move in under a tree for cover and so that he could rest for a moment and listen. The grove was deathly quiet, with not even the occasional buzz of insects in the air. The only sound was in the distance, and Bosch didn’t know what was making it. It was a steady whooshing and he thought it might be some sort of irrigation pump keeping water in the grove.

After a while the grove began to feel like a maze to him. The fully mature trees stood thirty feet high and appeared to be exact duplicates of one another. The trees had been planted along astonishingly straight lines. This made every direction in which Bosch looked appear to be the same. He began to fear that he would become lost and wished he had brought something with him to mark the trail.

Finally, after a half hour, he made it to the entrance road. He already felt exhausted, as though his boots were made of concrete. But he decided not to abandon the mission. He proceeded along a parallel, moving from tree to tree in the first row next to the road.

Almost an hour later, Bosch saw the lights of the mansion up ahead through the branches of the last few rows of trees. He plodded on, noting that the whooshing sound was growing louder as he got nearer and nearer to the lights.

When he got to the end of the grove, he crouched on the side of the embankment and studied what lay before him. The mansion was an exotic take on a French château. It was only two stories high but had steeply pitched roof angles and turreted corners. Something about it reminded Bosch of a smaller version of the Château Marmont back in L.A.