AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bosch’s tone suggested he thought she was making the wrong call, but Ballard got out and opened the back door of the car to get to her disguise box. She took off her jacket and pulled on an old gray hoodie. She added the Dodgers cap with the frayed edge to its bill that she had worn into the Eldorado and pulled the hood up over it. She took the Glock and its holster off her hip and put it in the box.
“You’re going naked?” Bosch asked.
“I’ve got my boot gun,” Ballard said. “I’m going to go a block north, then cut across and come back down like I’ve been walking. I’ve got my earbud in and I’ll call you on approach.”
“Got it. Be careful.”
“Always.”
Ballard walked to the north end of the parking lot, which was at least a hundred yards away from the badge buyer’s van. She waited a solid five minutes before there was enough of a break in the traffic for her to cross. She then walked south toward the line of parked vehicles. She kept her head down and her hands in the front pockets of the hoodie, one of them holding her phone.
As she approached, she pulled out her phone and called Bosch. He picked up right away.
“I see you,” he said. “It took you long enough.”
“Had to wait to cross,” Ballard said. “You see our guy anywhere?”
“The van is dark. I think he’s in one of the big RVs.”
“I’ll see what I can see.”
Ballard could see through the front windshields of the parked motor homes, giving her a limited angle on activities inside. She passed two campers and a large RV, and each was dark. The next RV had its interior lights on but appeared to be vacant.
Then she saw where everybody was. Two more vehicles down, an RV was parked in a spot where the cliff was concave enough to offer space for a circle of folding chairs around a flaming grill. The firelightshone on the faces of several men and women in the chairs, including a bearded man who Ballard believed was the badge buyer.
She reported all this to Bosch in a low voice as she approached the circle.
“They’ve got themselves a bonfire on the other side of one of the RVs,” she said. “I think our guy is in the circle.”
“Okay,” Bosch said. “What are you going to do?”
“Pick my way by and see if the van’s unlocked.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Ballard was now too close to the fire circle to risk speaking to Bosch. She kept her head down and worked her way around the circle. There was no sidewalk. She had to go between the line of campers and the cliff; otherwise she’d be in the traffic lanes. She counted five men and two women sitting around the flaming grill. They weren’t cooking anything, just warming themselves. One of the men called out to her as she passed.
“Hey, sweetie, you want a beer?” he said.
Ballard couldn’t tell which one had said it. “No, thanks,” she said.
She kept going, not turning toward the group.
“Then how about a ride?” the voice called.
Ballard didn’t respond.
“On my lap,” the man added.
This was met with raucous laughter from the circle. Even the women joined in, one issuing a high-pitched cackle that rose above the noise of traffic off the highway.
Ballard passed two more pickups with camper shells plastered with bumper stickers. Most had catchy slogans that derided liberal ideologies or the sitting president or both. She passed a thirty-five-foot-long RV with a name painted in script on the side:Road Warrior. She laughed to herself, remembering a game she played as a teenager with Tutu when they’d driven on a freeway. They would put the wordanalin front of the RVs’ names.
“What’s so funny?” Bosch asked.
“Nothing, really,” Ballard said. “I’m passing by the Anal Road Warrior.”
“What?”
