Harry Bosch - 12 - Echo Park: A Novel by Michael Connelly

Author:Michael Connelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780316734950
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2006-10-11T19:58:04+00:00

20

ON THE WAY DOWN the hallway in ICU Bosch passed a woman who had just left Kiz Rider’s room. He recognized her as Rider’s former lover. They had met briefly a few years earlier when Bosch happened to see Rider at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.

He nodded to the woman as she passed but she didn’t stop to talk. He knocked once on Rider’s door and went in. His partner looked much better than she had the day before but still not even close to a hundred percent. She was conscious and alert when Bosch entered her room and her eyes tracked him to the side of her bed. There was no longer a tube in her mouth but the right side of her face drooped and Bosch immediately feared that she had suffered a stroke during the night.

“Don’t worry,” she said in slow, slurred words. “They’ve made my neck numb and it’s working on half of my face, too.”

He squeezed her hand.

“Okay,” he said. “Other than that how do you feel?”

“Not so good. It hurts, Harry. It really hurts.”

He nodded.

“Yeah.”

“I have surgery on my hand in the afternoon. That’s going to hurt, too.”

“But then you’ll be on the road to recovery. Rehab and all of that good stuff.”

“I hope so.”

She sounded depressed and Bosch didn’t know what to say. Fourteen years earlier, when he had been about her age, Bosch had woken up in the hospital after taking a bullet in his left shoulder. He still remembered the screaming pain that had set in every time the morphine started to wear off.

“I brought the papers,” he said. “You want me to read ’em to you?”

“Yeah. Nothing good, I suppose.”

“No, nothing good.”

He held the Times front page up so she could see the mug shot of Waits. He then read the lead story and then the sidebar. When he was finished he looked over at her. She looked distressed.

“You okay?”

“You should’ve left me, Harry, and gone after him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the woods. You could’ve gotten him. Instead you saved me. Now look at the shit you’re in.”

“It comes with the territory, Kiz. The only thing I could think about out there was getting you to the hospital. I feel really guilty about everything.”

“What exactly do you have to feel guilty about?”

“A lot. When I came out of retirement last year I made you leave the chief’s office and partner with me again. You wouldn’t have been there yesterday if I—”

“Oh, please! Would you shut your fucking mouth!”

He didn’t remember ever hearing her use such language. He did what she told him.

“Just shut up,” she said. “No more of that. What else did you bring me?”

Bosch held up the copy of the Gesto murder book.

“Oh, nothing. I brought this for me. To read if you were asleep or something. It’s the copy of the Gesto file I made back when I retired the first time.”

“So what are you going to do with that?”

“Like I said, I was just going to read it.

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