9 Dragons

possible the inevitable.
    “I’m not stupid, you know. You’re here. Sun Yee’s here. She should be here. She would be here but something’s happened to her.”
    Bosch felt an invisible punch hit him square in the chest. Madeline was still hugging the pillow in front of her and looking out the window with tear-filled eyes.
    “Maddie, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you but this wasn’t the right time?.”
    “When is the right time?”
    Bosch nodded.
    “You’re right. Never.”
    He reached back and put his hand on her knee but she immediately pushed it away. It was the first sign of the blame he would always carry.
    “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I can say. When I landed this morning your mother was there at the airport, waiting for me. With Sun Yee. She only wanted one thing, Maddie. To get you home safe. She didn’t care about anything else, including herself.”
    “What happened to her?”
    Bosch hesitated but there was no other way to respond but with the truth.
    “She got shot, baby. Somebody was shooting at me and she got hit. I don’t think she even felt it.”
    Madeline put her hands over her eyes.
    “It’s all my fault.”
    Bosch shook his head, even though she wasn’t looking at him.
    “Maddie, no. Listen to me. Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think that. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. Everything here is my fault.”
    She didn’t respond. She hugged the pillow closer and kept her eyes on the roadside as it passed by in a blur.
    An hour later they were at the drop-off curb at the airport. Bosch helped his daughter out of the Mercedes and then turned to Sun. They had said little in the car. But now it was time to say good-bye and Bosch knew his daughter could not have been rescued without Sun’s help.
    “Sun Yee, thank you for saving my daughter.”
    “You saved her. Nothing could stop you, Harry Bosch.”
    “What will you do? The police will come to you about Eleanor, if not everything else.”
    “I will handle these things and make no mention of you. This is my promise. No matter what happens, I will leave you and your daughter out of it.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Good luck,” he said.
    “Good luck to you, too.”
    Bosch shook his hand and then stepped back. After another awkward pause, Madeline stepped forward and hugged Sun. Bosch saw the look on his face, even behind the disguise of the sunglasses. No matter their differences, Bosch knew Sun had found some sort of resolve in Madeline’s rescue. Maybe it allowed him to find refuge in himself.
    “I am so sorry,” Madeline said.
    Sun stepped back and broke the embrace.
    “You go on now,” he said. “You have a happy life.”
    They left him standing there and headed into the main terminal through the glass doors.
    Bosch and his daughter found the first-class window at Cathay Pacific and Harry bought two tickets on the 11:40 p.m. flight to Los Angeles. He got a refund for his intended flight the next morning but still had to use two credit cards to cover the overall cost. But he didn’t care. He knew that first-class passengers were accorded special status that moved them quickly through security checks and first onto planes. Airport and airline staff and security were less likely to concern themselves with first-class travelers, even if they were a disheveled man with blood on his jacket and a thirteen-year-old girl who couldn’t seem to keep tears off her cheeks.
    Bosch also understood that his daughter had been left traumatized by the past sixty hours of her life, and while he couldn’t begin to know how to care for her in this regard, he instinctively felt that any added comfort couldn’t hurt.
    Noting Bosch’s unkempt appearance, the woman behind the counter mentioned to him that the first-class waiting lounge offered showering facilities to travelers. Bosch thanked her for the tip, took their boarding passes and then followed a first-class hostess to security. As expected, they breezed through the checkpoint on the power of their newfound status.
    They had almost three hours to kill and though the previously mentioned shower facility was tempting, Bosch decided that food might be a more pressing need. He couldn’t remember when and what he had last eaten and he assumed his daughter had been equally deprived of nourishment.
    “You hungry, Mads?”
    “Not really.”
    “They fed you?”
    “No, uh-uh. I couldn’t eat, anyway.”
    “When did you last eat something?”
    She had to think.
    “I had a