The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,98
a lot of money.”
Bosch laughed.
“I think you should go to law school,” he said.
She didn’t see the humor in that. She kept her eyes down.
“Hey, if you don’t feel like eating that, let’s take it to go and then go over to that ice-cream place you like, where they cold brew it, or whatever it’s called.”
“Dad, I’m not a little girl. You can’t make everything right with ice cream.”
“So, lesson learned. I should have just shut up and hoped you never found out.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m allowed to feel this way. I love you.”
“And I love you, and that’s what I’m trying to say: I’m going to be around for a long while. I’m going to send you to law school and then I’m going to sit in the back of courtrooms and watch you send bad people away.”
He waited for a reaction. A smile or a smirk, but he got nothing. “Please,” he said. “Let’s not worry about this anymore. Okay?”
“Okay,” Maddie said. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
She waved the cute guy over and asked him for to-go boxes.
An hour later Bosch had dropped his daughter back at her car and was heading north on the 5 freeway toward L.A. It had been a double-whammy of a day: John Jack Thompson injecting pain and uncertainty into his life, then Bosch doing the same to his daughter and feeling like some sort of criminal for it.
The bottom line was that he was still having a hard time with Thompson. Bosch was almost seventy years old and he had seen some of the worst things people can do to each other, yet something done decades ago and long before his knowledge of it had sent him reeling. He wondered if it was a side effect of the pills he was taking each morning. The doctor had warned there could be mood swings.
On top of all that, he realized he was experiencing FOMO: he wanted to be there when Ballard took down Elvin Kidd for killing John Jack Thompson’s son. Not because he wanted to see the arrest itself—Bosch had never taken particular joy in putting the cuffs on killers. But he wanted to be there for the son. The victim. John Hilton’s own father apparently didn’t care who had killed him, but Bosch did and he wanted to be there. Everybody counted or nobody counted. It might have been a hollow idea to Thompson. But it wasn’t to Bosch.
BALLARD
41
Ballard had her earbuds in and was listening to a playlist she had put together for building an edge and keeping it. She was squeezed between two large Special Ops officers in the back of a black SUV. It was seven a.m. and they were on the 10 freeway heading out to Rialto to take down Elvin Kidd.
Two SUVs, nine officers, plus one already in an observation post outside Kidd’s home in Rialto. The plan was to make the arrest when Kidd emerged from his house to go to work. Going into the residence of an ex-gang member was never a good plan; they would wait for Kidd to step out. The last report from the man in the OP had been that the suspect’s truck and attached equipment trailer were backed into the driveway. No movement or light had been reported inside the house.
The arrest plan had been approved by the Special Ops lieutenant, who was in the lead SUV. Ballard’s role was as observer and then arresting officer. She would step in after Kidd was in custody and read the man his rights.
In the second SUV the men had carried on a conversation as though Ballard was not among them. The dialogue crisscrossed in front of her without so much as a What do you think? or a Where do you come from? thrown Ballard’s way. It was just nervous chatter and Ballard knew everybody had different ways of getting ready for battle. She put her earbuds in and listened to Muse and Black Pumas, Death Cab, and others. Disparate songs that all built and held an edge for her.
Ballard saw the driver talking into a rover and pulled out her buds.
“What’s up, Griffin?” she asked.
“Lights on in the house,” Griffin said.
“How far out are we?”
“ETA twenty minutes.”
“We need to step it up. This guy might be ready to boogie. Can we go to code three on the freeway?”
Griffin relayed the request by radio to Lieutenant Gonzalez in the lead SUV and soon they were moving toward