It took him less than a minute to open the cuff. He then brought his arms around and removed the other cuff even faster. He was free. He got up and immediately headed in the direction of the barn door, promptly tripping over Banks’s body and falling face-first into the straw. He stood back up, got his bearings, and tried again, walking with his arms out in front of him. When he made it to the door, he reached to his left, moving his hands up and down the wall until he found the light switch.

Finally there was light in the barn. Bosch quickly moved back to the huge double doors. He had heard Drummond slide the outside bar home but he tried to move the doors anyway, pushing hard but failing. He tried it twice more and got the same result.

Bosch stepped back and looked around. He had no idea if Drummond and Cosgrove were coming back in a minute or a day, but he felt the need to keep moving. He walked back around the body toward the darker recesses of the barn. He found another set of double doors on the rear wall, but those were locked as well. He turned around and surveyed the interior but saw no other doors and no windows. He cursed out loud.

He tried to calm himself and think. He put himself outside and tried to remember looking at the barn in the wash of the headlights as they had pulled up. It was an A-frame structure, and he remembered that there was a door up in the loft for loading and unloading hay.

Bosch moved quickly to a wooden ladder built next to one of the main support beams and started climbing. The loft was still crowded with bales of hay that had never been removed after the barn was abandoned. Bosch made his way around them to the small set of double doors. These doors were locked, too, but this time from the inside.

It was a simple flip-over hasp with a heavy-duty padlock. Bosch knew he could break the lock if he had the right picks but they were in his badge wallet, which was in Drummond’s pocket. A watch buckle wouldn’t work. He found his escape thwarted again.

He bent forward to study the hasp as best he could in the dim light. He was thinking about trying to kick the doors open, but the wood seemed solid and the hasp assembly was anchored by eight wood screws. Trying to kick it open would have to be only a loud and final resort.