The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,140

the house now. But I don't think the PC is there.”

Bosch knew he was probably right. Mora's identification of Locke as the man hanging around porno sets and the names of three of the victims in his book were not probable cause to search his house.

He told Edgar that he had located Sylvia and was headed to her now. After signing off, he realized that her trip to the Fontenot house might have saved her life. He saw a symbiotic grace in that. A life taken, a life saved.

Before opening the door to his house he loudly announced he was there, then turned the key and walked into Sylvia's trembling arms. He held her to his chest and said into the radio, “We're all safe here,” then turned it off.

They sat down on the couch and Bosch told her everything that had happened since they had last been together. He could tell by her eyes that it scared her more knowing what was going on than not.

She, in turn, explained that she had to get out of the house because the Realtor was holding an open house. That was why she had gone to Bosch's house after visiting the Fontenots. He explained that he had forgotten about the open house.

“You might need to get a new Realtor after today,” he said.

They laughed together to let some of the tension go.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “This should never have involved you.”

They sat in silence for a while after that. She leaned against him as if she was weary of everything.

“Why do you do this, Harry? You deal with so much—the most awful people and the things they do. Why do you keep going?”

He thought about that but knew there was no real answer and that she wasn't expecting one.

“I don't want to stay here,” he said after a while.

“We can go back to my house at four.”

“No, let's just get out of here.”

The two-room suite at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica gave them a sweeping view of the ocean across a wide beach. It was the kind of room that came with two full-length terrycloth robes and gold foil–wrapped chocolates left on the pillow. The suite's front door was off the fourth landing of a five-story atrium with a wall of glass that faced the ocean and would capture the entire arc of the sunset.

There was a porch with two chaise lounges and a table and they had lunch delivered by room service there. Bosch had brought the rover in with him but it was turned off. He would keep in touch as the search for Locke went on, but he was out of it for the day.

He had called in and talked to Edgar and then Irving. He told them he would stay with Sylvia, though it seemed unlikely that the Follower would make a move now. He was not needed anyway because the task force was in a holding pattern, waiting for Locke to turn up or something else to break.

Irving had said the presidents had contacted the dean of the psychology department at USC who, in turn, contacted one of Locke's graduate assistants. She reported that Locke had mentioned on Friday that he would be in Las Vegas for the weekend, staying at the Stardust. He taught no classes on Mondays, so he would not be back at the school until Tuesday.

“But we checked the Stardust,” Irving said. “Locke had a reservation but never checked in.”

“What about the warrant?”

“We've had three turn-downs from three judges. You know it's pretty weak when a judge won't rubber-stamp a search warrant for us. We're going to have to let that jell for a while. In the meantime, we'll be watching his house and his office. I'd like to leave it that way until he surfaces and we can talk to him.”

Bosch heard the doubt in Irving's voice. He wondered how Rollenberger had explained the leap in the investigation from Mora to Locke as the suspect.

“You think we're wrong?”

He realized there was a quiver of doubt in his own voice.

“I don't know. We traced the note. Partially. It was left at the front desk sometime Saturday night. The deskman went back for coffee about nine, got sidetracked by the watch commander and when he came back out it was there on the counter. He had an Explorer put it in your slot. The only thing it means for sure is that we were wrong about Mora. Anyway, the point is, we could