Page 47 of Resurrection Walk

“She’s parked in the back lot. She’s only been in there a few minutes.”

“I’m probably a half hour out. Call me back if she leaves.”

“Will do. But I’m happy to take the interview if you’re not feeling up to it.”

“I’m fine. Mickey wants me to do it. In case I have to testify at the hearing.”

“Got it. Well, I’m here.”

“On the bike?”

“No, I don’t do surveillance on the bike. Too conspicuous. I’m in Lorna’s Tesla.”

“Where do I meet you?”

“You’re in that old Cherokee, right?”

“Yeah, old, but new to me.”

“Just pull in and park at Vroman’s. I’ll see you.”

“On my way.”

A half hour later Bosch was in the bookstore’s back lot. He parked, and by the time he killed the engine and got out, Cisco was waiting for him behind the Cherokee.

“You know what she looks like?” Cisco asked.

“Just from the driver’s license you came up with,” Bosch said.

“She looks different now. Dyed her hair, wears glasses.”

“Huh.”

Cisco held up his phone and showed Bosch a photo of a woman with blond hair and black-framed glasses walking across the parking lot they were standing in. He had obviously gotten the shot earlier.

“That’s her?” Bosch asked.

“No, I just took this for laughs,” Cisco said.

“Right, sorry. Look, if you want to come in with me, we can do this together. I know Mickey said he —”

“No, you do it. I might scare her off.”

Bosch nodded. It was a reasonable concern. He knew that Haller used Cisco when he wanted an element of intimidation or needed protection himself. Finessing a reluctant witness into talking, one who might have gone so far as to change her name and looks as a protective measure, was not in his wheelhouse.

“Okay, then,” Bosch said. “Here goes. Text me that photo, would you?”

“Will do,” Cisco said. “Good luck.”

Bosch headed to the bookstore, going down a set of steps to a sidewalk where the handprints of various authors had been immortalized in concrete. He entered and nodded to a woman at the checkout counter to his left. The place was huge and on two levels. It also had an exit on the Colorado Boulevard side of the building. Bosch quickly realized he might have an issue finding Landon. It was possible that she was not even in the store and had simply used its parking lot, passed through like a customer, and gone on to any of the nearby shops and restaurants that lined Colorado. It had been almost an hour since Cisco watched her enter. That seemed to Bosch like a long time to spend browsing in a bookstore.

He decided to start on the second floor and quickly search the store before raising an alarm with Cisco. He went up a wide set of stairs in the center and realized that he would not be able to scan the second level from one position. The bookshelves were too high. He moved along the main aisle, looking right and left down each row of shelving. It took him five minutes to cover the entire second level and another five to do the search again. There was no sign of Madison Landon.

He went down the steps to search the first level but spotted the woman from Cisco’s photograph in line at the register, holding a stack of books. Bosch indiscriminately grabbed a book off a bestsellers’ table and got into the checkout line behind Madison Landon.

When he got there, he read the spines of the books she was holding in both hands. They were all books about raising a child. Landon did not appear to be pregnant but judging from the titles, it looked like she was getting ready for motherhood. One of the books wasRaising Your Child Alone.

“I raised a child alone,” Bosch said.

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