"He must be close," Rachel said.

"Yeah."

But Thomas drove several more blocks before turning right. Bosch slowed before doing the same.

"Valerio," Rachel said, seeing the street sign in the murk. "This is if"

When Bosch made the turn she saw the brake lights on Thomas's car. He was stopped in the middle of the road three blocks ahead. He was at a dead end.

Bosch quickly pulled to the curb behind a parked car,

"The dome light's on," Rachel said. "I think he's looking at his map again."

"The river," Bosch said.

"What?"

"I told you, Valerio cuts across the whole Valley. But so does the river. So he's probably figuring out a way to get around it. The river cuts off all these streets in here. He probably has to get to Valerio on the other side."

"I don't see any river up there. I see a fence and concrete."

"It's not what you would consider a river. In fact, technically that isn't the river. It's probably either the Aliso or Brown's Canyon wash. It goes to the river."

They waited. Thomas didn't move.

"The river used to flood in storms like this. It would wipe out a third of the city. So they tried to control it Contain it. Somebody had the idea to capture it in stone, put it in concrete. So that's what they did and everybody's house and home was supposedly safe after that"

"I guess that's called progress." Bosch nodded and then re-gripped his hands on the wheel.

"He's moving."

Thomas turned left and once his car was out of sight Bosch pulled away from the curb and followed. Thomas drove north to Saticoy and then took a right. He went over a bridge crossing the wash below. As they followed, Rachel looked down and saw the torrent of water in the concrete channel.

"Wow. I thought I lived in Rapid City."

Boseh didn't answer. Thomas turned south on Mason and came back down to Valerio. But now he was on the other side of the concrete channel. He turned right again on Valerio.

"That'll be another dead end," Bosch said.

He stayed on Mason and drove on by Valerio. Rachel looked through the rain and saw that Thomas had pulled into a driveway in front of a large two-story home that was one of five homes on the dead-end street.

"He pulled into a driveway," she said. "He's there. Jesus, it's the house!"

"What house?"

"The one from the photo in the trailer. Backus was so sure of himself he left us a goddamn picture."

Bosch pulled to the curb. They were out of sight of the homes on Valerio. Rachel turned and looked out all of the windows. Every home around them was dark.

"There must be a power outage around here."

"Under your seat there's a flashlight. Take it."

Rachel reached down and got it..

"What about you?"

"I'll be all right. Let's go." Rachel started to open her door but then looked back at Bosch. She wanted to say something but hesitated.

"What?" he asked. "Be careful? Don't worry, I will."

"Actually, yes, be careful. But what I was going to say is that I have my second gun in my bag. Do you-"

"Thanks, Rachel, but this time I brought my own."

She nodded.

"I should have figured that. And what are your views on backup now?"

"Call it in if you want. But I'm not waiting. I'm going down there."

The rain felt cold on my face and neck as I got out of the Mercedes. I pulled the collar on my jacket up and started heading back toward Valerio. Rachel came over and walked next to me without saying a word. When we got to the corner we used the wall surrounding the corner property as cover and looked down into the cul-de-sac and the dark house where Ed Thomas had parked his car. There was no sign of Thomas or anyone else. Every window at the front of the house was dark. But even in the grayness I could tell that Rachel was right. It was the house from the photo Backus had left for us.

I could hear the river but not see it. It was hidden behind the homes. But its furious power was almost palpable, even from this distance. In storms like this the whole city washed itself out over its smoothed concrete surfaces. It snaked through the Valley and around the mountains to downtown. And from there west to the ocean.

It was a mere trickle most of the year. A municipal joke even. But a rainstorm would awaken the snake and give it power. It became the city's gutter, millions and millions of gallons banging against its thick stone walls, tons of water raging to get out, moving with a terrible force and momentum. I remembered a boy who was taken when I was a kid. I didn't know him. I knew of him. Four decades later I even remembered his name. Billy Kinsey was playing on the river's shoulder. He slipped in and in a moment he was gone. They found his body hung up in a viaduct 12 miles away.

My mother had taught me early and often, when it rains…

"Stay out of the narrows."

"What?" Rachel whispered.

"I was thinking about the river. Trapped between those walls. When I was a kid we called it 'the narrows/ When it rains like this the water moves fast. It's deadly. When it rains you stay away from the narrows."

"But we're going to the house."

"Same thing, Rachel. Be careful. Stay out of the narrows."

She looked at me. She seemed to understand what I meant,

"Okay, Bosch,"

"How about you take the front and I take the back?"

"Fine."

"Be ready for anything."

"You, too."

The target house was three properties away. We walked quickly along the wall surrounding the first property and then cut up the driveway of the next. We skirted the fronts of two houses until we came to the home where Thomas's car was parked. Rachel gave me a last nod and we separated then, both of us pulling our weapons in unison. Rachel moved to the front while I started down the driveway toward the rear. The gloom and the sound of the rain and the river channel gave me visual and sound cover. The driveway was also lined with squat bougainvillea trees that had been let go for some time without training or trimming. But the house behind the windows was dark. Someone could be behind any glass watching me and I wouldn't know it.

The rear yard was flooded. In the middle of the big puddle stood the rusted twin A-frames of a swing set with no swings left on it. Behind it was a six-foot fence that separated the property from the river channel. I could see the water was near the top of its concrete siding and was rushing by in a mad torrent. It would flood by day's end. Further upstream, where the channels were shallower, it probably already had stemmed its sides.

I turned my attention back to the house. There was a full porch off the rear. There were no gutters on the roof here and the rain was coming off in sheets, so heavy that it obscured everything within. Backus could' ve been sitting in a rocker on the porch and I wouldn't have seen him. The line of bougainvilleas carried along the porch railing. I ducked below the sight line and moved quickly to the steps. I took the three steps up in one stride and was in out of the rain. My eyes and ears took a moment to adjust and that was when I saw it. There was a white rattan couch on the right side of the porch. On it a blanket covered the unmistakable shape of a human form sitting upright but slumped against the left arm. Dropping to a crouch I moved closer and reached for a corner of the blanket on the floor. I slowly pulled it off the form.

It was an old man. He looked like he had been dead at least a day. The odor was just starting. His eyes were open and bugged, his skin was the color of white paint in a smoker's bedroom. A snap-cuff had been pulled tight-too tight-around his neck. Charles Turrentine, I presumed. I also presumed he was the old man in the photo Backus had taken. He had been killed and then left there on the porch like a stack of old newspapers. He'd had no business with the Poet. He'd just been a means to an end.