9 Dragons

alert. She had not been dragged from sleep.
    “Eleanor, what’s going on? Where’s Madeline?”
    He walked out of Gandle’s office and headed toward his cubicle.
    “I don’t know. She hasn’t called me and doesn’t answer my calls. How do you know what’s going on?”
    “I don’t but I got a…a message from her. Tell me what you know.”
    “Well, what did her message say?”
    “It didn’t say anything. It was a video. Look, just tell me what’s going on there.”
    “She didn’t come home from the mall after school. It was Friday, so I let her go with her friends. She usually checks in about six and asks for more time, but this time she didn’t. Then when she didn’t come home I called and she wouldn’t answer my call. I left her a bunch of messages and I got really angry. You know her, she probably got angry back and she didn’t come home. I’ve called her friends and they all claim not to know where she is.”
    “Eleanor, it’s after five in the morning there. Did you call the police?”
    “Harry…”
    “What?”
    “She did this once before.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    Bosch dropped heavily into the seat at his desk and huddled down, holding the phone tight against his ear.
    “She stayed with a friend all night to ‘teach me a lesson,’” Eleanor said. “I called the police then and it was all very embarrassing because they found her at her friend’s. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But she and I have been having problems. She’s at that age, you know? She acts much older than she really is. And it seems like she doesn’t like me very much right now. She talks about wanting to live in L.A. with you. She-”
    Bosch cut her off.
    “Listen, Eleanor, I understand all of that but this is different. Something’s happened.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Panic flooded her voice. Bosch recognized his own fear in it. He was reluctant to tell her about the video but felt he now had to. She needed to know. He described the thirty seconds of video, leaving nothing out. Eleanor made a high-pitched keening sound that only a mother could make for a lost daughter.
    “Oh my God, oh my God.”
    “I know, but we’re going to get her back, Eleanor. I-”
    “Why did they send it to you and not me?”
    He could tell she was starting to cry. She was losing it. He didn’t answer her question because he knew it would only make it worse.
    “Listen to me, Eleanor, we need to keep it together. You have to do this for her. You’re there, I’m not.”
    “What do they want?, money”
    “No…”
    “Then, what?”
    Bosch tried to speak calmly, hoping it would be contagious over the phone when the impact of his words came through.
    “I think it’s a message to me, Eleanor. They’re not asking for money. They’re just telling me that they have her.”
    “You? Why? What do they-Harry, what did you do?”
    She said the last question in a tone of accusation. Bosch feared it was a question he might be impaled on for the rest of his life.
    “I’m on a case involving a Chinese triad. I think-”
    “They took her to get to you? How did they even know about her?”
    “I don’t know yet, Eleanor. I’m working on it. We have a suspect in cust-”
    Again she cut him off, this time with another wail. It was the sound of every parent’s worst nightmare come to life. In that moment Bosch realized what he was going to do. He lowered his voice further when he spoke.
    “Eleanor, listen to me. I need you to pull yourself together. You need to start making calls. I’m coming over. I’ll be there before dawn Sunday morning. In the meantime, you have to get to her friends. You have to find out who she was with at the mall and where she went. Anything you can find out about what happened. Do you hear me, Eleanor?”
    “I’m hanging up and calling the police.”
    “No!”
    Bosch looked around and saw that his outburst had drawn attention from across the squad room. After the incident in the interview room, he was already the subject of concern across the whole squad. He slid further down into his seat and crouched over his desk so no one could see him.
    “What? Harry, we have to-”
    “Listen to me first and then you do what you think you need to do. I don’t think you should call the police. Not yet. We can’t take the chance that the people who have her will know. We might never get her back then.”
    She didn’t respond. Bosch could hear her crying.
    “Eleanor? Listen to me! Do you want