He held fast to his conviction that he could not give up the email he had sent to Chu. He could not put his partner in potential danger, nor could he allow Drummond to erase the solution to the case. Banks’s confession was too important to barter with.

Bosch had no doubt that Drummond had already examined his phone, but it was password protected. The phone was set to lock after three failed attempts to enter the code. If Drummond kept trying after that he would eventually trigger a data purge. That gave Bosch high confidence in the recording safely getting to Chu without Drummond knowing. Harry decided that he must do nothing that would change that.

He needed something else now. He needed a play, a script, something that he could work with.

What?

His mind grew desperate. There had to be something. He started with the fact that Drummond had shot Banks because he knew he had talked to Bosch. Working it from there, Bosch could say Banks showed him something, some kind of evidence that he kept hidden as his ace in the hole. Something with which he could turn the tables on Cosgrove and Drummond, if he ever had the chance.

What?

Bosch suddenly thought he had something. The gun again. Follow the gun. It had been the rule of the entire investigation. There was no reason to change it now. Banks had said he was the National Guard company’s inventory officer. He was the one who packed the souvenir guns in the bottom of the equipment cartons for shipping back to the States. He was the fox guarding the henhouse. Bosch would tell Drummond that the fox had made a list. Banks had kept a list of serial numbers to the weapons and it contained the names of who got which gun. That list included the name of the soldier who got the gun that killed Anneke Jespersen. That list was hidden, but with Banks dead, it would soon come to light. Only Bosch could lead Drummond to it.

Bosch grew excited with hope. He actually thought the play could work. It wasn’t completely there yet, but it could work. It needed embellishment. It needed a reason to create genuine concern in Drummond, a legitimate fear that the list would come out and expose him now that Banks was dead.

Bosch began to believe he had a chance. He just needed to wrap the basic story in more detail and believability. He just needed—