City Of Bones

suddenly grasped his forearm and pulled him back toward her. Her voice was now as thin as paper.
    “Harry, don’t let them-”
    The paramedic put a breathing mask over her face and her words were lost.
    “Officer, please get back,” the paramedic said firmly.
    As Bosch crawled backward on hands and knees he reached over and gripped Brasher’s ankle for a moment and squeezed it.
    “Julia, you’ll be all right.”
    “Julia?” said the second paramedic as he crouched next to her with a large equipment case.
    “Julia.”
    “Okay, Julia,” the paramedic said. “I’m Eddie and that there’s Charlie. We’re going to fix you up here. Like your buddy just said, you’re going to be all right. But you gotta be tough for us. You gotta want it, Julia. You gotta fight.”
    She said something that was garbled through the mask. Just one word but Bosch thought he recognized it. Numb.
    The paramedics started stabilizing procedures, the one called Eddie talking to her all the while. Bosch got up and moved over to Stokes. He pulled him up into a standing position and pushed him away from the rescue scene.
    “My ribs are broken,” Stokes complained. “I need the paramedics.”
    “Trust me, Stokes, there’s nothing they can do about it. So just shut the fuck up.”
    Two uniforms came up to them. Bosch recognized them from the other night when they had told Julia they would meet her at Boardner’s. Her friends.
    “We’ll take him to the station for you.”
    Bosch pushed Stokes past them without hesitation.
    “No, I got him.”
    “You need to stay here for OIS, Detective Bosch.”
    They were right. The Officer Involved Shooting team would soon descend on the scene and Bosch would be questioned as a primary witness. But he wasn’t putting Stokes into any hands he did not explicitly trust.
    He walked Stokes up the ramp toward the light.
    “Listen, Stokes, you want to live?”
    The younger man didn’t answer. He was walking with his upper body hunched forward because of the injury to his ribs. Bosch tapped him lightly in the spot Edgewood had kicked him. Stokes groaned loudly.
    “Are you listening?” Bosch asked. “Do you want to stay alive?”
    “Yes! I want to stay alive.”
    “Then you listen to me. I’m going to put you in a room and you don’t talk to anybody but me. You understand that?”
    “I understand. Just don’t let them hurt me. I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what happened, man. She said get against the wall and I did what I was told. I swear to God all I did was-”
    “Shut up!” Bosch ordered.
    More cops were coming down the ramp and he just wanted to get Stokes out of there.
    When they got to daylight, Bosch saw Edgar standing on the sidewalk talking on his cell phone and using his other hand to signal a transport ambulance into the parking garage. Bosch pushed Stokes toward him. As they approached, Edgar closed the phone.
    “I just talked to the lieutenant. She’s on the way.”
    “Great. Where’s your car?”
    “Still at the car wash.”
    “Go get it. We’re taking Stokes to the division.”
    “Harry, we can’t just leave the scene of a-”
    “You saw what Edgewood did. We need to get this shit-bag to a place of safety. Go get your car. If we get any shit for it, I’ll take it.”
    “You got it.”
    Edgar started running in the direction of the car wash.
    Bosch saw a utility pole near the corner of the apartment building. He walked Stokes to it and recuffed him with his arms around it.
    “Wait here,” he said.
    He then stepped away and ran a hand through his hair.
    “What the hell happened back there?”
    He didn’t realize he had spoken out loud until Stokes started answering the question, stammering about him not doing anything wrong.
    “Shut up,” Bosch said. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Chapter 32
    BOSCH and Edgar walked Stokes through the squad room and down the short hallway leading to the interview rooms. They took him into room 3 and cuffed him to the steel ring bolted to the middle of the table.
    “We’ll be back,” Bosch said.
    “Hey, man, don’t leave me in here,” Stokes began. “They’ll come in here, man.”
    “Nobody’s coming in but me,” Bosch said. “Just sit tight.”
    They left the room and locked it. Bosch went to the homicide table. The squad room was completely empty. When a cop went down in the division everybody responded. It was part of keeping the faith in the blue religion. If it was you who went down, you’d want