Ballard walked down a path of garden stones to the sidewalk. She looked both ways as if deciding which way to go. Her eyes scanned the cars on the street but it was now too dark to see into any of them. The Midnight Men could be watching and waiting and she would not know. She pulled her phone and angled her face down to the screen as if picking music to listen to, but she continued to scan the street, her eyes just under the line of the hat’s brim. She then put the phone away, glanced up at the streetlight that was out, as if noticing it for the first time, then turned south toward Oakwood.
Ballard walked briskly to the intersection and turned right. As soon as she got to the alley she turned right again and picked up her pace. Going through the trash enclosure and into the yard took less than three minutes from her closing of the front door. She doubted there had been time for an intrusion but she pulled the gun out from below the back of the windbreaker and entered the house through the door off the deck. Holding the gun at the ready position, she moved through the rooms, careful to stay away from windows that might reveal she had already returned to the house.
She checked the garage last, moving completely around the Audi and looking in and under it. She found no sign of a break-in.
Back inside, she surveyed the house once more, looking for the best place to wait and be ready. She decided on the home office because it was the most centrally located room and it also offered two options for hiding should an intrusion occur. There was a closet with a sliding door that had a large unused space. And along the wall to the left of the doorway, there was a standing four-drawer file cabinet that provided a blind from the entrance.
Ballard took the desk chair and sat down. She put the gun down on the desk and pulled her phone. She called Lisa Moore, though she did not expect her to take the call — not after the message Ballard had left the Thursday before. The call went to voice mail and Ballard disconnected. She then wrote a text.
Lisa, call me back if you want to have a part in taking down the MM. I’m sitting on the next victim’s house. Are you working tonight?
She sent off the message, satisfied that she had at least given Moore the chance to be involved in her own case. She next called Neumayer’s desk phone because she didn’t have his cell. And the first flaw in her hasty plan emerged. The call went to voice mail and she heard Neumayer’s voice: “This is Detective Neumayer. I am going to be out of town until January nineteenth and will respond to your call then. If this is an emergency, dial nine-one-one. If this is about an ongoing case, please call the direct line to the detective bureau and ask for Detective Moore or Detective Clarke. Thank you.”
Ballard knew she should now call Robinson-Reynolds or at the very least Ronin Clarke, but she did neither. She decided to wait and see if she got a call back from Lisa Moore.
Her rash and incomplete planning was now beginning to weigh on Ballard. She thought about calling Bosch and taking him up on his offer to be there as backup. But she knew she couldn’t leave Hannah Stovall unguarded, no matter how unlikely it was that the Midnight Men knew her current location. She tried to examine her motives in moving so quickly with a plan that was so incomplete. She knew it was all wound up in her growing disillusion with the job, the department, the people that surrounded her. But not with Bosch. Bosch was the constant. He was more steadfast than the whole department.
She tried to push the grim thoughts away by pulling up the video from the playroom at Dog House to check on Pinto. The image on the screen was grainy and small but she managed to see Pinto lying low under a bench, watching the action of the other dogs, possibly too timid to join in. She had quickly reached a point where she loved the little dog, and she wondered why someone had mistreated and abandoned him.
Somehow, in the crosscurrents of thought, she came to a decision. Maybe it was all in the moment, but she knew the moment had been a long time coming.
She clicked off the video feed and composed a short email to Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds. She reread it twice before hitting the send button.
Immediately, she was flooded with a feeling of relief and certainty. She had made the right decision. There was no looking back.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a call back from Lisa Moore’s cell number.
“What the fuck are you doing, Renée?”
“What am I doing? Let’s see. I got a solid lead and I’m following it. I know that may sound like out-of-the-box thinking but — ”
“You’re suspended. You’re on the bench.”
“You think the Midnight Men are on the bench? You think you scared them away? Your little move last week to take the lieutenant down a notch just made them change things up, Lisa. They’re still out there, and I know where they’re going. They’re coming to me.”
“Where are you?”
“I’ll tell you what, stand by. I’ll call you when I need you.”
“Renée, listen to me. Something’s wrong. Your judgment is off. Wherever you are, you need backup and you need a plan. You’re giving the department all they need to get rid of you with a stunt like this. Don’t you see that?”
“It’s too late. I got rid of them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just quit. I sent the lieutenant my resignation.”
“You can’t do that, Renée. You’re too good a cop.”
“I already did.”
“Then, what are you doing right now? Get out of there and call in backup. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way. You — ”
“I’ve always been in harm’s way. But I’m not a cop anymore. That means no rules. I’ll call you when I need you. If I need you.”
“I don’t get it. What are you — ”
Ballard disconnected. And immediately she felt the euphoria and assuredness of her decision start to slip away.
“Shit,” she said.
She stood up and slid her phone into her back pocket. Picking up the gun, she held it down by her side. She walked to the door, having decided to take another sweep of the house so she would know the layout by heart should she need to maneuver in the dark.
She had just entered the hallway when the house started shaking. Not an earthquake, just a low vibration. A tremor. She realized that someone was opening the garage door.
43
Ballard quickly backed into the darkened office. She stood at the doorway at first and waited. The hallway offered a straight-shot view to the living room and the front door. Through an arched entry on the left was the kitchen and through that she could see the edge of the door to the garage. She fixed on that point, her gun still held down at her side.
Soon the tremor in the floor began again and she knew the garage door was closing. A few moments later, she saw the doorknob start to turn on the kitchen door. The door opened inward, at first blocking Ballard’s view of who was coming in.
Then the door closed and a man in dark blue coveralls stood there as she had, listening to the house. Ballard ducked further back into the shadows of the home office but kept one eye on the man. She didn’t breathe.
The man wore black synthetic gloves and a green ski mask that had been rolled up off his face because he did not expect anyone to be in the house. He would pull it down when Hannah Stovall came back from her walk. He had a fanny pack strapped around the coveralls, with the pouch in front. His eyebrows and sideburns revealed that he had red hair.
“Okay, I’m in,” he said. “Any sign of her?”
Ballard froze. He was talking to someone. She then saw the white earbud in his right ear. There was no cord. It was a Blue-tooth connection to a phone held in a runner’s armband on his upper right arm.
Ballard hadn’t planned for that — that they would be in constant communication. Another flaw in a very flawed plan.
“Okay,” the man said. “I’ll take a look around. Let me know when you see her.”
The man moved out of the sliver of view Ballard had of the kitchen. She heard the refrigerator open and then close. She then heard footsteps on the wood flooring and could tell he had moved into the living room. She also heard a sound she could not identify. It was a slapping sound that was spaced at various intervals. She heard his voice again but it was farther away this time.