The Overlook Read Online Free PDF

were intimidated by her own question. Bosch wasn’t. He knew they needed to know precisely what had happened here.
    “Mrs. Kent, were you sexually assaulted here tonight?”
    The woman shook her head again.
    “They made me take off my clothes. That was all they did.”
    Bosch studied her eyes, hoping to read them and be able to tell if she was telling a lie.
    “Okay,” Walling said, interrupting the moment. “We’ll leave you to get dressed. When the paramedics arrive we will still want them to check you for injuries.”
    “I’ll be fine,” Alicia Kent said. “What happened to my husband?”
    “We’re not sure what’s happened,” Bosch said. “You get dressed and come out to the living room, then we’ll tell you what we know.”
    Clutching the bedspread around herself, she tentatively stood up from the bed. Bosch saw the stain on the mattress and knew that Alicia Kent had either been so scared during her ordeal that she had urinated or the wait for rescue had been too long.
    She took one step toward the closet and appeared to be falling over. Bosch moved in and grabbed her before she fell.
    “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine. I think I’m just a little dizzy. What time is it?”
    Bosch looked at the digital clock on the right-side bed table but its screen was blank. It was turned off or unplugged. He turned his right wrist without letting go of her and looked at his watch.
    “It’s almost one in the morning.”
    Her body seemed to tighten in his grasp.
    “Oh, my God!” she cried. “It’s been hours-where is Stanley?”
    Bosch moved his hands to her shoulders and helped her stand up straight.
    “You get dressed and we’ll talk about it,” he said.
    She walked unsteadily to the closet and opened the door. A full-length mirror was attached to the outside of the door. Her opening it swung Bosch’s reflection back at him. In the moment, he thought that maybe he saw something new in his eyes. Something not there when he had checked himself in the mirror before leaving his house. A look of discomfort, perhaps even a fear of the unknown. It was understandable, he decided. He had worked a thousand murder cases in his time, but never one that had taken him in the direction he was now traveling. Maybe fear was appropriate.
    Alicia Kent took a white terry-cloth robe off a hook on a wall inside the closet and carried it with her to the bathroom. She left the closet door open and Bosch had to look away from his own reflection.
    Walling headed out of the bedroom and Bosch followed.
    “What do you think?” she asked as she moved down the hall.
    “I think we’re lucky to have a witness,” Bosch replied. “She’ll be able to tell us what happened.”
    “Hopefully.”
    Bosch decided to make another survey of the house while waiting for Alicia Kent to get dressed. This time he checked the backyard and the garage as well as every room again. He found nothing amiss, though he did note that the two-car garage was empty. If the Kents had another car in addition to the Porsche, then it wasn’t on the premises.
    Following the walk-through he stood in the backyard looking up at the Hollywood sign and calling central communications again to ask that a second forensics team be dispatched to process the Kent house. He also checked on the ETA of the paramedics coming to examine Alicia Kent and was told that they were still five minutes away. This was ten minutes after he had been told that they were ten minutes away.
    Next he called Lieutenant Gandle, waking him at his home. His supervisor listened quietly as Bosch updated him. The federal involvement and the rising possibility of a terrorism angle to the investigation gave Gandle pause.
    “Well…,” he said when Bosch was finished. “It looks like I will have to wake some people up.”
    He meant he was going to have to send word up the department ladder of the case and the larger dimensions it was taking on. The last thing an RHD lieutenant would want or need