Bosch leaned back on his haunches and looked down as if appraising Drummond’s injuries. Drummond worked hard to crank up a smile. Bosch saw ruby-red blood on his teeth. He’d punctured a lung in the crash. He said something but Bosch didn’t hear it.

Harry leaned back over him again.

“What did you say?”

“I forgot to tell you . . . in the alley, I put her down on her knees . . . and then I made her beg . . .”

Bosch pulled back as the fury racked through his body. He stood up and turned away from Drummond and looked down toward the château. Mendenhall was nowhere in sight.

He turned back to Drummond. Bosch’s face was a mask of anger. Vengeance clawed at him from every nerve ending. He dropped to his knees and gathered the front of Drummond’s shirt in his fist. He leaned down and spoke through clenched teeth.

“I know what you want but I’m not going to give it to you, Drummond. I hope you live a long and painful life. In a prison. In a bed. In a place that stinks of shit and piss. Breathing through a tube. Eating through a tube. And I hope that every day, you want to die but can’t do a fucking thing about it.”

Bosch released his grip and pulled back. Drummond was no longer smiling. He was staring into his own bleak future.

Bosch stood up, brushed the dirt off his knees, and then turned and started down the hill. He saw Mendenhall walking back up, the flashlight in her hand.

“They’re coming,” she said. “Is he . . .?”

“Still breathing. How’s your eye?”

“I got whatever it was out. It stings.”

“Have them take a look at it when they get here.”

Bosch walked past her and on down the hill. On the way, he pulled out his phone so he could call home.

SNOW WHITE

2012

It was 7 P.M. in Copenhagen when Bosch made the call. It was picked up promptly by Henrik Jespersen at his home.

“Henrik, it’s Harry Bosch in L.A.”

“Detective Bosch, how are you? Do you have news on Anneke?”

Bosch paused. It seemed like an odd phrasing for the question. Henrik seemed breathless, as if he knew this was the call he had been waiting twenty years for. Bosch didn’t make him wait any longer.

“Henrik, there has been an arrest in your sister’s murder. We have the killer and I wanted—”

“Endelig!”