The Reversal

were comparing apples and oranges. They found nothing that matched and believed that this was a onetime crime of opportunity and compulsion. I don’t think it was.”
    Bosch looked up from the photos to Rachel’s eyes.
    “You think he did this before.”
    “I think the idea that he had acted out before in this way is compelling. It would not surprise me if you were to find that he was involved in other abductions.”
    “You’re talking about more than twenty-four years ago.”
    “I know. And since there was no linking of Jessup to known unsolved murders, we are probably talking about missing children and runaways. Cases where there was never a crime scene established. The girls were never found.”
    Bosch thought of Jessup’s middle-of-the-night visits to the parks along Mulholland Drive. He thought he might now know why Jessup would light a candle at the base of a tree.
    Then a more stunning and scary thought pushed through.
    “Do you think a guy like this would use those crimes from so long ago to feed his fantasy now?”
    “Of course he would. He’s been in prison, what other choice did he have?”
    Bosch felt an urgency take hold inside. An urgency that came with the growing certainty that they weren’t dealing with an isolated instance of murder. If Walling’s theory was correct, and he had no reason to doubt it, Jessup was a repeater. And though he had been on ice for twenty-four years, he was now roaming the city freely. It would not be long now before he became vulnerable to the pressures and urges that had driven him to deadly action before.
    Bosch came to a fast resolve. The next time Jessup was seized by the pressures of his life and overcome by the compulsion to kill, Bosch was going to be there to destroy him.
    His eyes refocused and he realized Rachel was looking at him oddly.
    “Thank you for all of this, Rachel,” he said. “I think I need to go.”

Nineteen
    Thursday, March 4, 9 A.M .
    I t was only a hearing on pretrial motions but the courtroom was packed. Lots of courthouse gadflies and media, and a fair number of trial lawyers were sitting in as well. I sat at the prosecution table with Maggie and we were going over our arguments once again. All issues before Judge Breitman had already been argued and submitted on paper. This would be when the judge could ask further questions and then announce her rulings. I had a growing sense of anxiety. The motions submitted by Clive Royce were all pretty routine and Maggie and I had submitted solid responses. We were also ready with oral arguments to back them, but a hearing like this was also a time for the unexpected. On more than one occasion I had sandbagged the prosecution in a pretrial hearing. And sometimes the case is won or lost before the trial begins with a ruling in one of these hearings.
    I leaned back and looked behind us and then took a quick glance around the courtroom. I gave a phony smile and nod to a lawyer I saw in the spectator section, then turned back to Maggie.
    “Where’s Bosch?” I asked.
    “I don’t think he’s going to be here.”
    “Why not? He’s completely disappeared in the last week.”
    “He’s been working on something. He called yesterday and asked if he had to be here for this and I said he didn’t.”
    “He’d better be working on something related to Jessup.”
    “He tells me it is and that he’s going to bring it to us soon.”
    “That’s nice of him. The trial starts in four weeks.”
    I wondered why Bosch had chosen to call her instead of me, the lead prosecutor. I realized that this made me upset with Maggie as well as Bosch.
    “Listen, I don’t know what happened between you two on your little trip to Port Townsend, but he should be calling me.”
    Maggie shook her head as if dealing with a petulant child.
    “Look, you don’t have to worry. He knows you’re the lead prosecutor. He probably figures you are too busy for the day-to-day updates on what he’s doing. And I’m going to forget what you said about Port Townsend. This one time. You make another insinuation like that and you and I are going to have a real problem.”
    “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s just that—”
    My attention was drawn across the aisle to Jessup, who was sitting at the defense table with Royce. He was staring at me with a smirk on his face and I realized he had been watching Maggie and me, maybe even listening.
    “Excuse me a second,” I said.
    I got up and walked over to the defense table. I leaned