a try and the beer would help, if only on a temporary basis. It had been the last one in the refrigerator and he had vowed that it would be the last one for him as well. He had his daughter to raise now and he would need to be the best he could be with her.
As if thoughts of her conjured her presence, he heard the sliding door open.
“Hey, Mads.”
“Dad.”
In only the one word her voice sounded different, troubled. He opened his eyes and squinted in the afternoon sunlight. She had already changed out of her dress and was wearing blue jeans and a shirt that had come from the bag her mother had packed for her. Bosch had noticed she wore more of the few things her mother had put into the backpack in Hong Kong than all of the clothes they had shopped for together.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
“I’m really sorry about your partner.”
“Me, too. He made a bad mistake and paid for it. But I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like the punishment fit the crime, you know?”
Bosch’s mind momentarily shifted to the ghastly scene he’d encountered inside the manager’s office of Fortune Fine Foods & Liquor. Ferras facedown on the floor, shot four times in the back. Robert Li cowering in the corner, shaking and moaning, staring at his sister’s body near the door. After killing Ferras she had turned the gun on herself. Mrs. Li, the matriarch of this family of killers and victims, was standing stoically in the doorway when Bosch got there.
Ignacio had not seen Mia coming. She had dropped her mother off at the store and then driven away. But something made her come back, sneaking down the alley in her car and parking in the back lot. It was speculated afterward in the squad room that she had spotted Ferras on his surveillance and knew that the police were about to close in. She had driven home, retrieved the gun her murdered father had kept below the front counter at his store, and then gone back to the store in the Valley. It was unclear and would always remain a mystery what her plan was. Perhaps she was looking for Lam or her mother. Or maybe she was just waiting for the police. But she returned to the store and came in through the employee entrance in the back at approximately the same time Ferras entered through the front door to single-handedly attempt to arrest Robert. She watched Ferras enter her brother’s office and then came up behind him.
Bosch wondered what Ignacio’s final thoughts were as the bullets ripped through his body. He wondered if his young partner was amazed that lightning could strike twice, the second time finishing the job.
Bosch pushed the vision and the thoughts away. He sat up and looked at his daughter. He saw the burden in her eyes and knew what was coming.
“Dad?”
“What is it, baby?”
“I made a bad mistake, too. Only I’m not the one who paid for it.”
“What do you mean, sweetheart?”
“When I was talking to Dr. Hinojos, she said I have to unburden. I have to tell what’s bothering me.”
Tears started to flow now. Bosch sat sideways on the lounge chair and took his daughter by the hand and guided her to a seat right next to him. He put his arm across her shoulders.
“You can tell me anything, Madeline.”
She closed her eyes and held a hand over them. She squeezed his hand with the other.
“I got Mom killed,” she said. “I got her killed and it should’ve been me.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re not respons-”
“No, wait, listen to me. Listen to me. Yes, I am. I did it, Dad, and I need to go to jail.”
Bosch pulled her into a crushing hug and kissed the top of her head.
“You listen to me, Mads. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here with me. I know what happened but it doesn’t make you responsible for what other people did. I don’t want you thinking that.”
She pulled back and looked at him.
“You know? You know what I did?”
“I think you trusted the wrong person…and the rest, all the rest, is on him.”
She shook her head.
“No, no. The whole thing was my idea. I knew you would come and I thought maybe you’d make her let me go with you back here.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
Bosch shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you couldn’t have known what Quick would do, that he would take your plan and make it his.”
She bowed her head.
“Doesn’t matter. I killed my mother.”
“Madeline, no. If anybody is responsible, it’s me. She got killed in something that had nothing to do with you. It was a robbery and it happened because I was stupid, because I showed my money in a place I should never have shown it. Okay? It’s on me, not you. I made the mistake.”
She could not be calmed or consoled. She shook her head violently and the force threw tears into Bosch’s face.
“You wouldn’t have even been there, Dad, if we didn’t send that video. I did that! I knew what it would do! That you would be on the very next plane! I was going to escape before you landed. You would get there and everything would be all right but you would tell Mom it wasn’t safe for me there and you would take me back with you.”
Bosch just nodded. He had put roughly the same scenario together a few days before, when he realized Bo-Jing Chang had nothing to do with the murder of John Li.
“But now Mom is dead! And they’re dead! And everybody’s dead and it’s all my fault!”
Bosch grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her in toward him.
“How much of this did you tell Dr. Hinojos?”
“None.”
“Okay.”
“I wanted to tell you first. You have to take me to jail now.”
Bosch pulled her into another hug and held her head against his chest.
“No, baby, you’re staying here with me.”
He gently caressed her hair and spoke calmly.
“We all make mistakes. Everybody. Sometimes, like with my partner, you make a mistake and you can’t make up for it. You don’t get the chance. But sometimes you do. We can make up for our mistakes here. Both of us.”
Her tears had slowed. He heard her sniffle. He thought maybe this was why she had come to him. For a way out.
“We can maybe do some good and make up for the things we did wrong. We’ll make up for everything.”
“How?” she said in a small voice.
“I’ll show you the way. I’ll show you and you’ll see that we can make up for this.”
Bosch nodded to himself. He hugged his daughter tightly and wished he never had to let her go.