16

16

IT WAS FOUR hours before the badge buyer emerged through the curtains of his van and opened the door to step out. In the interim, Ballard checked the webcam of the pet day-care center where she left her dog, Pinto, when she was at work, and she dealt with calls from Colleen Hatteras, Tom Laffont, and Maddie Bosch. She told Hatteras and Laffont that she was working on non-cold-case matters and they should not expect to see her in the office until Thursday. She told Maddie Bosch that she had been cleared to begin work with the OU team the following day. She was welcome to come to the bullpen, take the desk her father had used the year before, and start looking at cases.

Ballard was careful not to call Maddie a volunteer, because she wasn't. Ballard had received the green light from Captain Gandle to take the younger Bosch onto the team if the police union gave its approval. This was the most difficult step because the union, which represented the rank and file of the department, was not in the business of allowing its members to do unpaid police work and objected to such a precedent. Ballard handled that by agreeing to pay Madeline Bosch four hours of overtime per week as a member of the unit. If she chose to work more than those four hours, that was between her and the union. Ballard knew she could cover the overtime with money from a National Institute of Justice grant she had received to review cold cases. It was money she could use at her discretion and she decided that having Maddie Bosch and her sworn law enforcement powers on the unit was worth it. She could pay Maddie for four hours a week for at least five years before the grant money ran out.

"He changed clothes," Bosch said.

He was watching through Ballard's binoculars.

"He probably had a nice nap too," Ballard said. "What's he doing?"

"Talking to the guy from the RV in front of the van," Bosch said. "They look like they're very familiar with each other."

"Why not? They're neighbors. They've probably been camped out there for months, nobody from the city doing a thing about it."

"What do you think the average house on the beach here goes for? A couple million?"

"Easy. Probably double that."

"It must make them so happy to have these people out here."

"Harry, that's a heartless way to describe the unhoused."

"I guess I'm not woke."

"You, not woke? Shocking."

Ballard knew Bosch wasn't heartless. But like many in Los Angeles, he was losing patience and empathy as he watched the city he loved slide into chaos because of a problem the government and its citizens seemingly had no solutions for.

They lapsed into an uneasy silence as Ballard thought about the price of the double-wide she had bought a block off the beach in Paradise Cove last year. She had needed all of the inheritance from her grandmother and the proceeds from the sale of her house in Ventura to buy into what was known as the most expensive trailer park in the world.

Still, she didn't regret it. The sunsets alone were worth the price of admission.

"So what's the plan?" Bosch finally asked.

"No plan," Ballard said. "I'm going to watch and wait. If I get a shot at that van, I'll take it. But this is my thing. You don't have to stay, Harry. Thank you for your help."

"No, I'm cool. I want to know what this guy's up to. I just thought you might have to bail for a hot date and I was going to say I would stay on watch."

"A hot date?"

"It's Valentine's Day. I thought maybe—"

"Uh, no, no hot date. You're my date if you're staying."

"Happy to. I wish I had flowers."

An hour of intermittent banter went by. Ballard checked on Pinto again and sent a message to the day-care center informing them that he would likely be staying overnight.

The sun dropped behind the ocean. The badge buyer was seen in and out of the van, mingling with people from the other vehicles parked along the street. Ballard and Bosch took turns using the public restrooms on the beach, and eventually their cover became strained as beachgoers left with the sun. Soon the Defender stood out as one of the last few cars in the lot.

"We gotta move," Ballard said. "We're sitting out here in plain sight."

"Where to?" Bosch asked.

"That's the thing. I don't see a better angle on the van. We could cross the street and park, but we wouldn't have eyes on it."

"So maybe we stick here."

Ballard considered not moving.

"Tell you what," she said. "I'm going to take a walk over there, see what I can see and hear."

"You sure?" Bosch asked. "If he sees you, you're burned as far as any walk-bys tomorrow or after."

"I got some things here that will help with that. I'm going to go."

"Your call."

Bosch's tone suggested he thought she was making the wrong call, but Ballard got out and opened the back door of the car to get to her disguise box. She took off her jacket and pulled on an old gray hoodie. She added the Dodgers cap with the frayed edge to its bill that she had worn into the Eldorado and pulled the hood up over it. She took the Glock and its holster off her hip and put it in the box.

"You're going naked?" Bosch asked.

"I've got my boot gun," Ballard said. "I'm going to go a block north, then cut across and come back down like I've been walking. I've got my earbud in and I'll call you on approach."

"Got it. Be careful."

"Always."

Ballard walked to the north end of the parking lot, which was at least a hundred yards away from the badge buyer's van. She waited a solid five minutes before there was enough of a break in the traffic for her to cross. She then walked south toward the line of parked vehicles. She kept her head down and her hands in the front pockets of the hoodie, one of them holding her phone.

As she approached, she pulled out her phone and called Bosch. He picked up right away.

"I see you," he said. "It took you long enough."

"Had to wait to cross," Ballard said. "You see our guy anywhere?"

"The van is dark. I think he's in one of the big RVs."

"I'll see what I can see."

Ballard could see through the front windshields of the parked motor homes, giving her a limited angle on activities inside. She passed two campers and a large RV, and each was dark. The next RV had its interior lights on but appeared to be vacant.

Then she saw where everybody was. Two more vehicles down, an RV was parked in a spot where the cliff was concave enough to offer space for a circle of folding chairs around a flaming grill. The firelight shone on the faces of several men and women in the chairs, including a bearded man who Ballard believed was the badge buyer.

She reported all this to Bosch in a low voice as she approached the circle.

"They've got themselves a bonfire on the other side of one of the RVs," she said. "I think our guy is in the circle."

"Okay," Bosch said. "What are you going to do?"

"Pick my way by and see if the van's unlocked."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Ballard was now too close to the fire circle to risk speaking to Bosch. She kept her head down and worked her way around the circle. There was no sidewalk. She had to go between the line of campers and the cliff; otherwise she'd be in the traffic lanes. She counted five men and two women sitting around the flaming grill. They weren't cooking anything, just warming themselves. One of the men called out to her as she passed.

"Hey, sweetie, you want a beer?" he said.

Ballard couldn't tell which one had said it. "No, thanks," she said.

She kept going, not turning toward the group.

"Then how about a ride?" the voice called.

Ballard didn't respond.

"On my lap," the man added.

This was met with raucous laughter from the circle. Even the women joined in, one issuing a high-pitched cackle that rose above the noise of traffic off the highway.

Ballard passed two more pickups with camper shells plastered with bumper stickers. Most had catchy slogans that derided liberal ideologies or the sitting president or both. She passed a thirty-five-foot-long RV with a name painted in script on the side: Road Warrior . She laughed to herself, remembering a game she played as a teenager with Tutu when they'd driven on a freeway. They would put the word anal in front of the RVs' names.

"What's so funny?" Bosch asked.

"Nothing, really," Ballard said. "I'm passing by the Anal Road Warrior."

"What?"

"Never mind. I'll tell you later. I'm going to check out the van."

Ballard cut in front of the RV and started walking down the other side of the string of vehicles. This put her only a few feet from traffic and in the blinding glare of the headlights of cars whizzing by.

She got to the white van and saw that it was completely dark inside. She went to the driver's door and tried the handle.

"It's unlocked," she said. "I'm going in. You got me?"

"I see you," Bosch said. "But I don't think it's a good idea."

"He can't see me from there and we need to know what he's up to."

"Still don't think it's a good idea."

"Come on, Harry. You know you'd be in here if it were you."

Ballard climbed into the driver's seat and cautiously looked through the windshield in the direction of the circle. From this angle, she could see only one of the seated people, a woman in a folding chair with a built-in cupholder for her beer.

Ballard took a quick look through the glove box and storage areas in the front. She did not find her badge, but in a cupholder there was a key ring with two keys and a chip fob on it. It said YOU-STORE-IT on the fob and provided an address on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica. The numbers 22 and 23 were stamped on the keys.

Ballard split the curtains behind the front seats and ducked into the back. The rear windows were blacked out and the interior was pitch-dark. Ballard's face immediately came into contact with something wet and spongy.

"Shit."

She struggled to get the light on her phone on.

"What is it?" Bosch said. "What's wrong?"

She turned her light on. There was a damp beach towel hanging from a makeshift clothesline strung diagonally from the back corner of the van across its interior. The wet weight of the gray-and-white-striped towel made the line droop in the middle.

"Renée, what's wrong?" Bosch repeated, his voice rising.

"Nothing," Ballard said. "I walked into a wet towel on, like, a clothesline. It's gross. But I'm in the back and I've got my phone light on. Let me know if you see it through the curtains."

She did a quick sweep with the light across the rear of the van. "Anything?" she asked.

"Not really," Bosch said. "But I'm a lot farther away than the people in the fire circle."

"I'll be quick."

"What do you see?"

She swept the light across the space slowly.

"Queen-size mattress at the back," she said. "Looks like it's on top of a built-in box. A large plywood box for storage. The bed's not made. There are clothes and other shit hanging in nets on the side walls."

She moved toward the back. There was a sheet hanging off the unmade mattress and over the edge of the wooden box. Ballard swiped the sheet away to see if there was a latch or handle for opening the box.

There was a padlock.

"Shit," she said.

"What?" Bosch responded, panic in his voice.

"The bed sits on this built-in storage unit. But it's got a lock on it."

"Did you bring picks with you?"

"No, but it's a combo."

"You see any hinges?"

"Hold on."

She put the phone down on the carpeted floor of the van and moved to the bed. The mattress was no more than four inches thick. It was easy for her to push up and roll back so she could examine the top of the wooden box.

There was a seam halfway back on the top of the box and two metal hinges. She put the light close to one and saw three screws holding each side of the hinge.

"Two hinges, three screws each," she said. "I need a Phillips-head."

"That'll take too long," Bosch said. "Just get out of there. We'll figure something else out."

Ballard swept the light across the full rear compartment of the van. On the floor under the back of the driver's seat there was a red metal box that was either for tools or first aid. She crawled over, pulled the box out, and flipped the lid open. The box contained tools, and there was a Phillips-head screwdriver clipped to the top of it.

"I have a screwdriver right here, courtesy of our badge buyer."

"Just be quick, Renée, okay? I'm going to change position to see if I can get a direct look at the circle jerks."

Ballard smiled. "I've got six screws to remove," she said. "I'll be as fast as I can."

She moved back to the box and went to work. It was a homemade job, and the screws anchoring the hinges to the plywood had loosened over time from the repeated opening and closing of the lid. They turned easily and Ballard had all six out in less than five minutes.

"How are we doing?" she asked. "Screws are out and I'm going to open the lid."

"I've got eyes on the circle," Bosch said. "I can't see everybody, but I'll be able to see if anybody moves toward the van."

"Good."

"But don't waste time. See what's there and get the hell out."

Ballard didn't respond. She held her phone light up with one hand and raised the lid with the other. She folded it down over the padlock.

The box was filled to the top with haphazardly folded clothing. She swept the light across. There were several pairs of jeans, jackets, and shoes. Still holding the light up, she started grabbing clothes and pulling them out of the box, digging down to the bottom.

Soon she saw the glint of metal and began uncovering weapons. There were rifles, handguns, boxes of ammo, combat knives, and more.

"There are enough weapons here to start a little war," Ballard said, "but he still needs four machine guns. This guy's—"

She stopped talking when she flipped over an assault vest with metal plates and saw LAPD stenciled across the front and back.

"What?" Bosch said. "I lost you."

"He's got an LAPD SWAT vest. What the fuck is this guy up to?"

"We'll figure it out. What about your badge?"

"Not here, as far as I can tell."

"Okay, then, why don't you get the hell out of there. Now, Renée."

"I can't just leave it like this. He'll know we're onto his ass. I need to put everything back like I found it."

"You're going to give me a heart attack here."

"I'm fine, Harry."

"For now. Just hurry it up."

"Yes, Dad."

She put the phone down next to her knee so she could put everything back into the box. She had to carefully refold some of the clothes so they would look the way she had found them. She closed the lid and started screwing the hinges back into place.

She had just moved to the second hinge when she heard Bosch's voice in her earbud.

"Renée, listen to me. He's coming to the van. He and another guy. It's too late to get out. You need to hide."

"Hide? It's a van, Harry."

"I know, but they're right there. Hide. Now. "

Ballard abandoned the hinge and flipped the mattress back down. She grabbed her phone and killed the light, then climbed onto the mattress, bunched an insulated blanket into a ball, and propped the two pillows on either side of it. She slid down between the pile and the back doors of the van. In the darkness she looked for a handle she could use to open the back doors if she needed to escape, but she saw nothing. The handle was beneath the level of the built-in storage box.

She reached down, slid the left leg of her jeans up, and pulled her Ruger out of her ankle holster.

She heard the voices of two men outside the van. The front doors opened and the men got in.