Lost Light

the corner of the ceiling and rolled an extended finger in the air. I heard the elevator start coming.
    When the doors opened he escorted me on. We went down to the basement but not to a car. He walked me up the ramp after yelling to a garage man to open the roll-up door. As the door went up I was hit with sunlight and had to squint.
    “I take it you aren’t giving me a ride back to my car.”
    “You can take it any way you want to. Have a good day.”
    He left me there at the top of the ramp and turned around to get under the door before it reclosed on him. I watched him disappear as the steel curtain dropped. I tried to think of a clever line to throw at him but I was too damn tired and let it go.

20
    The bureau had been in my house. That was expected. But the agents had been subtle about it. The place hadn’t been torn apart and left for me to put back together. It had been methodically searched and most things had been left exactly in place. The dining room table, where I had left the spread of files relating to Angella Benton’s murder, had been cleared. It looked like they might have even polished the empty surface with Pledge when they were through. I had been left nothing. My notes, my files, my reports were all gone and so it seemed was the case. I didn’t dwell on it. I looked at my murky reflection in the polished surface of the table for a few moments and decided I needed to sleep before making my next move.
    I grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and went out through the slider to the back deck to watch the sun come up over the hills. The cushion on the lounge chair had morning dew on it so I flipped it over and sat down. I put my legs up and leaned back into the soft comfort. There was a slight chill in the air but I still had my jacket on. I put the water bottle on the arm of the chair and tucked my hands into the pockets of the jacket. It felt good to be home after the night in the cube.
    The sun was just cresting the hills on the other side of the Cahuenga Pass. The sky was filled with diffused light as its rays refracted off the billions of microscopic particles that hung in the air. Soon I would need sunglasses but I was too dug in to get up to get them. I closed my eyes instead and soon fell asleep. I dreamt of Angella Benton, of her hands, of a woman I never knew in life but who came alive in my dreams and reached out to me.
    I woke up a couple hours later with the sun burning through my eyelids. Soon I realized that the pounding I had thought was in my head was actually coming from the front door. I got up, knocking the unopened water bottle off the arm of the lounge chair. I made a grab for it but missed. It rolled off the deck and down into the brush below. I walked to the rail and looked down. Steel pylons held my house cantilevered over the canyon. I could not see the bottle down there.
    Whoever it was out front knocked again and then I heard a muffled version of my name. I went in off the deck and crossed the living room to the front hallway. He was pounding on the door again when I finally opened it. It was Roy Lindell and he wasn’t smiling.
    “Rise and shine, Bosch.”
    He started to push by me into the house but I put my hand on his chest and pushed him backwards. I shook my head and he picked up the vibe. He pointed in the house and put a question mark in his eyes. I nodded and stepped out through the door, pulling it closed behind me.
    “Let’s take my car,” he said in a low voice.
    “Good. ’Cause mine’s in Woodland Hills.”
    His bureau car was parked illegally at the front curb. We got in and headed up Woodrow Wilson to the curve that took it around toward Mulholland. I didn’t think he was taking me anywhere. We were just driving.
    “What happened to you?” he asked. “I heard through the grapevine you got picked up last night.”
    “That’s right. By your BAM squad. They put the bam on me, you could say.”
    Lindell looked over at me and then back at the road.
    “You don’t look the worse for wear. You even got some color in your cheeks.”
    “Thanks for noticing, Roy. Now what do you want?”
    “You think they’ve got your house bugged?”
    “Prob’ly. I haven’t had time to check. What do you want? Where are we going?”
    Though I guessed I knew. Mulholland wound around the hill to an overlook with views, depending on the smog ratio, from the Santa Monica Bay to the spires of downtown.
    As expected, Lindell pulled into the small