Добавить в цитаты Настройки чтения

Страница 56 из 61

“Child-proof locks,” she said. “He can’t get out.”

Bosch nodded and gave his attention back to Pratt.

“Like I said, you want a lot,” he said. “What are you giving back?”

“I can give you the Garlands, easy,” Pratt said desperately. “Anthony took me up there two weeks ago and led me to the girl’s body. And Maury Swa

He didn’t finish.

“You?”

Pratt lowered his eyes and slowly nodded his head.

Bosch tried to put everything aside so that he could think clearly about Pratt’s offer. The blood of Freddy Olivas and Deputy Doolan was on Pratt’s hands. Bosch didn’t know whether he’d be able to sell the deal to a prosecutor. He didn’t know if he could even sell it to himself. But in that moment, he was willing to try if it meant he would finally get to the man who killed Marie Gesto.

“No promises,” he said. “We’ll go see a prosecutor.”

Bosch moved to the last important question.

“What about O’Shea and Olivas?”

Pratt shook his head once.

“They were clean on this.”

“Garland fu

“He was just covering his bets. If O’Shea got suspicious, T. Rex could keep him in line because it would look like a payoff.”

Bosch nodded. He felt the burn of humiliation over what he had thought about O’Shea and said to him.

“That wasn’t the only thing you got wrong,” Pratt said.

“Yeah, what else?”

“You said I went to the Garlands with this thing. I didn’t. They came to me, Harry.”

Bosch shook his head. He didn’t believe Pratt for the simple reason that if the Garlands had had the idea to buy off a cop, their first overture would have been to the source of their problem: Bosch. That never happened and that made Bosch feel confident that the scheme had been hatched by Pratt as he tried to juggle retirement, a possible divorce, a mistress and whatever other secrets his life held. He had gone to the Garlands with it. He had gone to Maury Swa

“Tell it to the prosecutor,” Bosch said. “Maybe he’ll care.”

He looked at Rachel and she nodded.

“Rachel, you take the Jeep with Swa

“Good idea.”

Bosch signaled Pratt up.

“Let’s go.”

Pratt stood up again and came face-to-face with Bosch.

“Harry, you’ve got to know something first.”

“What’s that?”

“Nobody was supposed to get hurt, okay? It was a perfect plan with nobody getting hurt. It was Waits-he turned it all to shit out there in the woods. If he had just done what he’d been told, everybody would still be alive and everybody’d be happy. Even you. You would’ve solved the Gesto case. End of story. That’s how it was supposed to be.”

Bosch had to work to hold back his anger.

“Nice fairy tale,” he said. “Except for the part of the story where the princess never wakes up and the real killer walks, everybody lives happily ever after. Keep telling yourself that one. You might actually be able to live with it someday.”

Bosch roughly took him by the arm and led him toward the opening in the hedge.