The Narrows

addictions. I'm here because my daughter lives out here. With her mother. I've been trying to get to know her. I guess she's my addiction."
    "How old is she?"
    "She'll be six soon."
    "That's nice. Her mother being Eleanor Wish, the former FBI agent?"
    "That's her. What can I do for you, Agent Walling?"
    She smiled. She liked Bosch. He got to the point. He apparently didn't let anybody or anything intimidate him. She wondered where that came from. Was it from carrying a badge or carrying other baggage?
    "You can call me Rachel for starters. But I think it's more like what can I do for you. You wanted me to contact you, didn't you?"
    He laughed but not with any humor attached to it.
    "What are you talking about?"
    "The interview. The looks, the nods and smiles, all that. You chose me as sort of a pen pal in there. Tried to connect. Tried to even it up, turn it from three against one to a game of two on two."
    Bosch shrugged and looked out the balcony. "That was just sort of a shot in the dark. I… I don't know, I just sort of thought you weren't getting a fair shake there, that's all. And I guess I know what that's like."
    "It's been eight years since I got a fair shake from the bureau."
    He looked back at her. "All because of Backus?"
    "That and other things. I made some mistakes and the bureau never forgets."
    "I know what that is like, too." He stood up.
    "I'm having a beer," he said. "Do you want one, or is this a duty visit."
    "I could use one, duty or not." He got up and took the open beer off the dinette table and went to the small efficiency kitchen. He put the bottle in the sink and got two more out of the refrigerator. He cranked off the caps and brought them out to the seating arrangement. Rachel knew she had to be careful and alert. There was a thin line between who played whom in these situations.
    'This place comes with glasses in the cabinet but I wouldn't trust them," he said, handing her a bottle. "Bottle's fine."
    She took hers and made sure she chinked it off his. She then took a short pull on the bottle. Sierra Nevada, it tasted good. She could tell he was watching to see if she was really drinking. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand even though she didn't have to.
    "That tastes right."
    "Sure does. So what part of this are they giving you? Or do you have to stand around and just keep quiet- like Agent Zigo?"
    Rachel gave him a short laugh.
    "Yeah, I don't think I've heard him utter a full sentence yet. But then again, I've only been here a couple days. Basically, they brought me in because they didn't have much of a choice. I've got my little back story with Bob Backus and the GPS was sent to me at Quantico, even though I haven't set foot there in eight years. As you picked up on in the RV, this could be about me. Maybe, maybe not, but it cuts me in."
    "And where did they bring you in from?"
    " Rapid City."
    Bosch grimaced.
    "No, that's good," she said. "Before that it was Minot, North Dakota. A one-agent office. I think in my second year there they actually had a spring."
    "Man, that hurts. In L.A. what they do if they want to get rid of you is give you what they call 'freeway therapy,' transfer you to the division furthest from where you live so you have to fight the traffic every day. Couple years of two-hour commutes and guys turn in their badges."
    "Is that what happened to you?"
    "No, but you probably already know what happened to me."
    She didn't respond to that, moving quickly back the other way. "In the bureau they have the whole country and then some. They don't call it freeway therapy, they call it 'hardship posting.' They send you where nobody wants to go. And there are a lot of places like that, places they can bury an agent if they want to. In Minot it was all reservation stuff and on the res they don't take so kindly to those of us of the FBI persuasion. Rapid City is only a small improvement. At least there are other agents in the office. My fellow outcasts. We actually have a good time because the pressure's off. Know what I mean?"
    "Yeah. How long have you been up there?"
    "Eight years altogether."
    "Jeez."
    She waved her free hand dismissively, as if it was all water under the bridge. She knew she was drawing him in. Revealing herself would make him trust her. She wanted his trust.
    'Tell me," he said. "Was it because you were the messenger? Because you shot Backus? Or because he got away?"
    "All that and other things. Consorting with the enemy, chewing gum in class,