In order to gain entrance to the gated community where McKittrick lives, Bosch pretends he is interested in a house for sale in the community and tours the house briefly. He goes back to the house after leaving McKittrick and eventually has a romantic encounter with the woman who owns the house, Jasmine Corian. He spends an extra day in Florida with Jasmine, and they reveal many personal secrets to each other in bed. On his way back to Los Angeles, he stops in Las Vegas to visit the widow of the other detective, Eno. He intimidates the widow's sister, who is taking care of the ninety-year-old invalid, into letting him take some of Eno's old files. From the files, he discovers that Eno had been receiving $1000 a week through a dummy corporation since one year after his mother's murder. He learns that this corporation's officers were Eno, Gordon Mittel, and Arno Conklin. When he returns to Los Angeles, there are four Los Angeles Police Department cops waiting for him inside his home. While he was in Florida, his boss, Harvey Pounds was found dead in the trunk of his car, tortured. Bosch is brought to the Parker Center for questioning. Harry realizes that when he used Pounds' name when trying to scare Mittel at the Shepard fund-raiser, it led to his death. Harry learns from LA Times reporter Keisha Russell that the writer of the article on Fox was Monte Kim. Russell gives Bosch his address obtained from the phone book. Bosch visits Kim and learns that he wrote the article on Fox's death, ignoring the illegal activities in his past in order to obtain a job with Conklin. Kim had photos of Conklin and Fox with two women (Meredith Roman and Bosch's mother) and used them to blackmail Conklin to obtain the job.

Bosch, believing that he finally has enough information to confront Conklin, visits him in his nursing home and discovers that Conklin was actually in love with Bosch's mother. On the day that she was murdered, they decided to go to Las Vegas and get married. Conklin had called Mittel to ask him to go with them to be his best man. Mittel declined and told him that marrying her would ruin his career. Conklin believes that Mittel murdered Bosch's mother. After leaving Conklin, Bosch is hit with a tire iron when trying to get in his car and awakes at Mittel's house with his head bleeding, locked in a game room. Before Mittel's enforcer can arrive, Bosch pockets a billiard ball that he hopes to use as a weapon. Mittel tells Bosch that Conklin has conveniently jumped out of the window of his room right after Bosch left. So the last loose end for him to clean up is Bosch. After Bosch tells him that he left his briefcase with his evidence in Conklin's room, Mittel nods to Jonathan to finish off Bosch. But Bosch makes Jonathan miss, hits him with the billiard ball, and eventually knocks him out. Mittel runs off, and Bosch follows. Mittel attempts to ambush Bosch and in the struggle, Mittel falls off a cliff and dies. Bosch returns to the house but cannot locate Jonathan. The police arrive, and Bosch next wakes up in the emergency room. Bosch realizes that he can prove that Mittel killed his mother by checking his fingerprints against the print found on the belt that killed his mother. He obtains the prints from the medical examiner's office but they do not match. Bosch has gone through all of this and still has not found his mother's killer.

He returns to talk to Hinojos. During this meeting, she gives Bosch her opinion on the photos from his mother's crime scene. She noticed that his mother was wearing all gold jewelry and the belt that was used to kill her was silver, which is a combination which a woman would not normally wear. Bosch's mother might not have been wearing the belt. The killer may have been wearing the belt and used it to kill his mother. Bosch believes he finally knows who killed his mother and returns to Meredith Roman's house, only to find that several days before she committed suicide. She left Bosch a note trying to explain her actions. He calls 911 and is about to leave when Jonathan confronts him with a gun. He had been waiting for him, letting him find Meredith and the letter. Since Jonathan believes he is going to kill Bosch and escape, he tells him the truth: that in actuality, he is Johnny Fox. His death was faked, and he remained with Mittel as his bodyguard. It was Fox who had killed Pounds and Conklin. The police finally arrive, and Fox is shot while trying to escape.