9 Dragons

I was talking to Dr. Hinojos, she said I have to unburden. I have to tell what’s bothering me.”
    Tears started to flow now. Bosch sat sideways on the lounge chair and took his daughter by the hand and guided her to a seat right next to him. He put his arm across her shoulders.
    “You can tell me anything, Madeline.”
    She closed her eyes and held a hand over them. She squeezed his hand with the other.
    “I got Mom killed,” she said. “I got her killed and it should’ve been me.”
    “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re not respons-”
    “No, wait, listen to me. Listen to me. Yes, I am. I did it, Dad, and I need to go to jail.”
    Bosch pulled her into a crushing hug and kissed the top of her head.
    “You listen to me, Mads. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here with me. I know what happened but it doesn’t make you responsible for what other people did. I don’t want you thinking that.”
    She pulled back and looked at him.
    “You know?
You know
what I did?”
    “I think you trusted the wrong person…and the rest, all the rest, is on him.”
    She shook her head.
    “No, no. The whole thing was my idea. I knew you would come and I thought maybe you’d make her let me go with you back here.”
    “I know.”
    “How do you know?” she demanded.
    Bosch shrugged.
    “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you couldn’t have known what Quick would do, that he would take your plan and make it his.”
    She bowed her head.
    “Doesn’t matter. I killed my mother.”
    “Madeline, no. If anybody is responsible, it’s me. She got killed in something that had nothing to do with you. It was a robbery and it happened because I was stupid, because I showed my money in a place I should never have shown it. Okay? It’s on me, not you. I made the mistake.”
    She could not be calmed or consoled. She shook her head violently and the force threw tears into Bosch’s face.
    “You wouldn’t have even been there, Dad, if we didn’t send that video. I did that! I knew what it would do! That you would be on the very next plane! I was going to escape before you landed. You would get there and everything would be all right but you would tell Mom it wasn’t safe for me there and you would take me back with you.”
    Bosch just nodded. He had put roughly the same scenario together a few days before, when he realized Bo-Jing Chang had nothing to do with the murder of John Li.
    “But now Mom is
dead!
And they’re
dead!
And everybody’s
dead
and it’s all
my
fault!”
    Bosch grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her in toward him.
    “How much of this did you tell Dr. Hinojos?”
    “None.”
    “Okay.”
    “I wanted to tell you first. You have to take me to jail now.”
    Bosch pulled her into another hug and held her head against his chest.
    “No, baby, you’re staying here with me.”
    He gently caressed her hair and spoke calmly.
    “We all make mistakes. Everybody. Sometimes, like with my partner, you make a mistake and you can’t make up for it. You don’t get the chance. But sometimes you do. We can make up for our mistakes here. Both of us.”
    Her tears had slowed. He heard her sniffle. He thought maybe this was why she had come to him. For a way out.
    “We can maybe do some good and make up for the things we did wrong. We’ll make up for everything.”
    “How?” she said in a small voice.
    “I’ll show you the way. I’ll show you and you’ll see that we can make up for this.”
    Bosch nodded to himself. He hugged his daughter tightly and wished he never had to let her go.

Bonus Materials
    Q &A with Michael Connelly

AUTHOR MICHAEL CONNELLY FIRES OFF
    Nine Bullets About
Nine Dragons
    “Eight bullets, eight dragons. And then there would be him. Bosch would be the ninth dragon, as unstoppable as a bullet.” Where does the title
Nine Dragons
come from?
    Hong Kong has many sections. One of the biggest is called Kowloon, which means ‘Nine Dragons.” It comes from a legend. During one of the old dynasties the emperor was chased by the Mongols into the area that is now Hong Kong. He saw the eight mountain peaks that surrounded the area and protected him and wanted to call the place Eight Dragons. But one of his guards reminded him that the emperor was a dragon too. So they called it Kowloon, meaning nine dragons. I was told this story by a researcher who was showing me around Hong Kong the first time I visited. I loved the story and immediately started