City Of Bones

photos in which Julia was a subject was she looking at the camera. Her eyes were always staring off in the distance or at one of the other individuals posed with her.
    In the last position on the mantel, as if hidden behind the other photos, was a small gold-framed shot of a much younger Julia Brasher with a slightly older man. Bosch reached behind the photos and lifted it out so he could see it better. The couple was sitting at a restaurant or perhaps a wedding reception. Julia wore a beige gown with a low-cut neckline. The man wore a tuxedo.
    “You know, this man is a god in Japan,” Julia called from the kitchen.
    Bosch put the framed photo back in its place and walked to the kitchen. Her hair was down and he couldn’t decide which way he liked it best.
    “Bill Evans?”
    “Yeah. It seems like they have whole channels of the radio dedicated to playing his music.”
    “Don’t tell me, you spent some time in Japan, too.”
    “About two months. It’s a fascinating place.”
    It looked to Bosch like she was making a risotto with chicken and asparagus in it.
    “Smells good.”
    “Thank you. I hope it is.”
    “So what do you think you were running from?”
    She looked up at him from her work at the stove. A hand held a stirring spoon steady.
    “What?”
    “You know, all the travel. Leaving Daddy’s law firm to go swim with sharks and dive into volcanoes. Was it the old man or the law firm the old man ran?”
    “Some people would look at it as maybe I was running toward something.”
    “The guy in the tuxedo?”
    “Harry, take your gun off. Leave your badge at the door. I always do.”
    “Sorry.”
    She went back to work at the stove and Bosch came up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed his thumbs into the indentations of her upper spine. She offered no resistance. Soon he felt her muscles begin to relax. He noticed her empty wine glass on the counter.
    “I’ll go get the wine.”
    He came back with his glass and the bottle. He refilled her glass and she picked it up and clicked it off the side of his.
    “Whether to something or away from something, here’s to running,” she said. “Just running.”
    “What happened to ‘Hold fast’?”
    “There’s that, too.”
    “Here’s to forgiveness and reconciliation.”
    They clicked glasses again. He came around behind her and started working her neck again.
    “You know, I thought about your story all last night after you left,” she said.
    “My story?”
    “About the bullet and the tunnel.”
    “And?”
    She shrugged her shoulders.
    “Nothing. It’s just amazing, that’s all.”
    “You know, after that day, I wasn’t afraid anymore when I was down in the darkness. I just knew that I was going to make it through. I can’t explain why, I just knew. Which, of course, was stupid, because there are no guarantees of that-back then and there or anywhere else. It made me sort of reckless.”
    He held his hands steady for a moment.
    “It’s not good to be too reckless,” he said. “You cross the tube too often, you’ll eventually get burned.”
    “Hmm. Are you lecturing me, Harry? You want to be my training officer now?”
    “No. I checked my gun and my badge at the door, remember?”
    “Okay, then.”
    She turned around, his hands still on her neck, and kissed him. Then she pulled back away.
    “You know, the great thing about this risotto is that it can keep in the oven as long as we need it to.”
    Bosch smiled.
    Later on, after they had made love, Bosch got up from her bed and went out to the living room.
    “Where are you going?” she called after him.
    When he didn’t answer she called out to him to turn the oven up. He came back into the room carrying the gold-framed photo. He got into the bed and turned on the light on the bed table. It was a low-wattage bulb beneath a heavy lamp shade. The room still was cast in shadow.
    “Harry, what are you doing?” Julia said in a tone that warned he was treading close to her heart. “Did you turn the oven up?”
    “Yeah, three-fifty. Tell me about this guy.”
    “Why?”
    “I just want to know.”
    “It’s a private story.”
    “I know. But you can tell me.”
    She tried to take the photo away but he held it out of her reach.
    “Is he the one? Did he break your heart and send you running?”
    “Harry. I thought you took your badge off.”
    “I did. And my clothes, everything.”
    She smiled.
    “Well, I’m not telling you anything.”
    She was on her