He leaned back against the wall and let gravity transport his big body down to the floor, similar to the one on which Lancaster’s corpse was now lying.

  He was alive. She was not. Right now it was a difference without significant distinction for him. He sat there as his little room was lit by the electric blue of a death that had touched him from nearly a thousand miles distant.

  Years ago Amos Decker had once come within a centimeter’s width of a trigger pull of shooting himself in the mouth and ending his life.

  But right now, part of him was as dead as Mary Lancaster.

  Chapter 3

  ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO dust. And other assorted bullshit, thought Decker.

  That was the way it always ended. That and a deep, unforgiving hole closed up with dirt. A suited Decker, usually comfortable only in jeans or wrinkled khakis and a loose sweatshirt, stared down at the eternal berth-to-be in the ground. It would soon be filled with Mary Lancaster’s boxed remains.

  It was a chilly, drizzly day in Ohio. For this area it was very normal weather in spring, the vestiges of winter clinging like a dewy spider’s web to a frosted windowpane. The crowd here was large; Earl and Mary Lancaster were well-known and well-liked, and Sandy had made many friends at her school. Decker eyed numerous former colleagues from the local police force, who all stared dourly at the ground.

  Alex Jamison had been on assignment and unable to come, but had sent a card and her condolences. Ross Bogart had done the same, along with flowers. They hadn’t known Lancaster that well, but Decker still wished they could have been here with him. He usually eschewed company, but not today.

  The casket had been closed. The gunshot had been fired upward through the mouth, leaving Mary Lancaster beyond the magic of the mortician’s cosmetics, and thus unviewable.

  Decker looked over at Earl Lancaster, ashen faced and lost and old looking, as he clutched the hand of his teenage daughter, Sandy, who was learning disabled. The girl’s eyes darted here and there, processing the world in her unique way. She might not understand death the way others did, Decker knew, and that might be a good thing, at least right now. But, at some point soon, she would realize her mother was gone. And she would wonder when her mother would be back. And Decker did not relish being in Earl’s position to have to explain what had really taken place when that gun had fired. There would be no good way to do so, he thought. But it still had to be done, because Sandy deserved an explanation.

  Sandy suddenly caught sight of Decker, broke free from her startled father’s grip, and ran over to him. She stared up at the giant man, her face sparkling in a sea of gloom.

  “You’re Amos Decker,” she declared brightly.

  This was a game that they played; well, she did. And Decker always answered as he was about to now, though it was not easy to form the words this time.

  “I know I am. And you’re Sandy Lancaster.”

  She grinned and cracked, “I know I am.”

  As soon as she finished speaking, Decker’s features crumpled.

  I forgot who she was. For a time there was no Sandy Lancaster in existence for me.

  Mary Lancaster, at least in her mind, could not have committed a graver sin than not remembering that her daughter existed. He was certain that was what had placed the finger on the trigger and given her the strength to pull it.

  He felt a nudge on his hand and opened his eyes to see Sandy’s small, slender fingers curling around his long, thick ones.

  “Amos Decker?” she said again, watching him carefully, perhaps too carefully. For some reason he knew what she was going to ask, and it panicked him beyond all reason. “Where’s my mommy? There are so many people. Do you see her somewhere? I need to talk to her.”

  Decker had never lied to Sandy, not once. He couldn’t lie to her now, so he said nothing.

  “Sandy!” Earl came running over and took his daughter’s hand. “Sorry, Amos.”

  Decker waved this apology off, turning to the side to wipe his eyes. Then he leaned close to the other man and spoke into his ear so Sandy wouldn’t hear.

  “I’m so sorry, Earl.”

  Earl gripped Decker’s arm. “Thank you. Um, we’re having a little gathering at the house right after the service. I hope you can come. Mary…would have wanted that.”

  Decker nodded, though he had no intention of going. Earl seemed to read this in his features and said, “Well, it was good to see you.”

  Decker glanced at Sandy to see her gaze riveted on him. He saw betrayal in her features, but that might have been due to his own sense of guilt placing it there.

  Earl said softly, “The police told me…that she called you. Thank you…for trying.”

  “I wish I had been more—”

  “I know.”

  He watched them walk off to the car provided by the funeral home. The rest of those in attendance began straggling away, some flicking nods and glances and sad smiles his way. No one approached him, though. They all knew the man too well.

  And then Decker was alone because he preferred it that way.

  As the cemetery workers started to lower the coffin into the hole precisely dug for it, Decker turned and walked mechanically along through the graves until he reached a certain spot beside a certain tree. He did not need a perfect memory to find this place. He simply needed a bereaved heart. This was a difficult pilgrimage for him. There was probably no other kind.

  Cassandra Decker. Molly Decker. Mother and daughter. His wife, their child. The love of his life, his flesh and blood, taken from him by a murderer’s hand. The flowers he had laid here on his last visit had long since disintegrated, much like the bodies lying below. He brushed these fragments away and knelt down next to the twin graves.

  Once, when he had been here visiting his dead family, a dying man named Meryl Hawkins had wandered out of the woods and demanded justice from Decker, in connection with the first case Decker had worked as a homicide detective. Decker had accepted the challenge, and in doing so had proved his younger self wrong and his older self correct. And Hawkins had been given justice, however belatedly, and posthumously.

  Decker had also tracked down his own family’s killer.

  He had served justice in both cases, but it was, without doubt, a hollow outcome, marred by the fact that the justice was delivered too late for the victims. No amount of justice could return the dead to the living; the satisfaction gained from learning the truth was dwarfed by the loss.

  He said the words he needed to say to his wife and child, and then rose from the cold ground and glanced to the left. There was an empty plot there.

  Mine. He had come close to filling it on several occasions, once by his own hand, while staring at his murdered child as she sat, in death, in her own house.

  Will my perfect memory fail one day and I’ll forget I had a daughter?

  He had still been on the line when the police had arrived at Lancaster’s house. He had talked first to the officer, and then the detective, a man he knew from the old days. There had been sadness exchanged on the loss of a life well known to them, a grudging acceptance of the choice made, and of the motive behind it.

  He walked back to his rental car. His flight to DC was scheduled for the next morning. He had no idea what would await him when he got there.

  And Amos Decker wasn’t sure he cared anymore.

  Chapter 4

  THE LETTER WAITING FOR DECKER was from the Cognitive Institute in Chicago, or CI as Decker and everyone else there referred to it.

  He had gone there the month before for some routine tests, which they had done on him annually ever since he had been there as a patient after his football injury.

  He put his suitcase down inside the door of his apartment, and tore open the letter with his thick finger.

  It was several pages long, which surprised him. Usually, they were much shorter. But usually there was nothing really to tell him. This time was different.

  He sat down and read it through twice, though his perfect memory had already imprinted all of the contents in his mind forever.

  He slowly tore the pages into strips and threw them into the trash can.

  Well…okay.

  His phone buzzed. He looked at the text and groaned.

  He was to come to the Washington Field Office immediately, or so commanded his superior at the Bureau. He glanced once at the trash can where the destroyed letter rested and then grabbed his car keys and walked out the door.

  * * *

  “Amos Decker, meet your new partner, Special Agent Frederica White,” said John Talbott in a voice that sounded like a game show host introducing a new prize.

  The massive Decker looked all the way down at the five-foot-three-inch Black woman, and she looked back up the mountain at him. It was unclear which one was more surprised by this announcement.

  “New partner?” said Decker, glancing at Talbott, who had taken over for Ross Bogart. “I didn’t ask for a new partner. Alex—”

  “Special Agent Jamison is not coming back, or at least not anytime soon. And so we have transferred in Agent White from Baltimore to work with you.”

  White had never taken her eyes off Decker. Her expression was unreadable. She was in her midthirties, lean and wiry, packing about 105 pounds on her petite frame. Her caramel-colored hair was cut to FBI regulation length and held in place with a pair of tortoiseshell barrettes.

  Decker noted the small hole in her left nostril for a stud, although FBI regulations forbade the wearing of any such item while on duty. At the end of her right jacket cuff he could just make out a greenish mark protruding from under the cloth.

  A tat.

  She had on two-inch zipper boots that lifted her within a foot of his height. No stilettos for FBI agents, despite what the TV cop shows had their female actors wear. Black jacket and slacks, white shirt, buttoned to the top. No cleavage—ditto on the TV shows. Thin lips, green flinty eyes, slender dark eyebrows atop them, a sharp-edged nose, high cheekbones, jutting chin—the woman was all sharp edges.

  “You can shake hands, you two,” said Talbott encouragingly.

  The two did not shake hands. They just stood there like they were afraid one was trying to get the jump on the other.

  Talbott, a man waiting for the full pension and the exit door that came with it, smiled deeply, and said in a fake cheery voice, “I’ll just leave you two to get to know each other better.”

  The door closed behind him.

  “I didn’t ask for this either, just so you know,” said White.

  “Then why are you here?”

  She gave him the full hiked-eyebrows treatment. The hole in the side of her nostril quivered with something, maybe suppressed energy or rage.

  “I was unaware I had a choice since the Bureau signs my paycheck. But I didn’t know I would be partnering with you until thirty seconds ago.”

  “Then we have that in common,” said Decker. “But I don’t want to work with a new partner.”

  “So you have a choice?” she said.

  “Apparently not.”

  “I know Alex Jamison. She’s a good agent. She told me things about you.”

  “Why? You said you didn’t know you were partnering with me until just now.”

  “Word gets around, Decker. Don’t think there’s another one like you in the Bureau.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Between me and her. By the way, I go by Freddie, just in case you were wondering.”

  “Is this enough getting to know each other? Because I’ve had my fill,” he said.

  “Good enough for me, but if we walk out of here now Talbott will just make us have lunch together or something, and I doubt you want that.”

  Decker edged over to the window and looked out on a cloudy day, his thoughts just as muddled. He detested change, and here he was being hit by it on all sides. He could either leave the Bureau or endure a new partner named Frederica/Freddie. Which scenario would be worse? He didn’t know.

  “I heard about your old partner back in Ohio. That was a real tragedy. My sympathies,” added White. She sounded sincere.

  Decker didn’t turn around. “She was a good cop. She didn’t deserve to go out that way.”

  “Does anybody?”

  “I can think of a few.”

  “Anything you want to know about me?”

  He turned to her, mildly intrigued, and said, “What do you think is important?”

  “I’m divorced. Got two kids. My mother lives with us, helps to take care of them. I grew up in Philly. I had three brothers, and I have one sister.”

  “Had?”

  “One brother died by gunshot during a shootout with another gang, and one’s in prison until he’s an old man. My oldest brother is an attorney and works for the Public Defender’s Office in Boston. My sister has her own tech business and lives in Palo Alto in a house worth more than I will ever make in my life.”

  “You always this open with strangers?”

  “You’re my partner. You have to have my back and I yours. Okay, to finish my personal highlight reel, I went to Howard University for my undergrad. Got my master’s from Georgetown. Joined the Bureau thirteen years ago. I’ve fired my gun twice in the line of duty. I’m small but I hit above my weight and I bite really hard. Got a double black belt in karate not because I love martial arts, but because I hate getting my ass kicked, both physically and symbolically. I do not tolerate idiots or laziness or bullshit, and I encounter way more of all three than I need to right here at the Bureau. I like to know where I stand at all times. As a person of color and a woman on top of that, I find it a necessity to my future well-being, and that of my family. And nothing is more important to me than that.”

  “How old are your kids?”

  “Nine and twelve. Daughter and son, respectively. Calvin, named after my father. And Jacqueline, but she goes by Jacky.”

  “Do you share custody with your ex?”

  “I was still carrying Jacky when my ex decided marriage and fatherhood were not for him. I have full and permanent custody. Calvin doesn’t even remember his father and that’s a damn good thing.”

  “You still live in Baltimore?”

  “I was working in Baltimore until this morning.”

  “Plan to move here?”

  “If I can afford anything down here, which I doubt unless I want to live in the nosebleed seats. And I’ll wait and see. Sometimes new assignments don’t stick.”

  “Yeah, sometimes they don’t.” Decker said a silent prayer on that one.

  “What about you?”

  “What about me what?” he said.

  “Anything to share?”

  “If you spoke to Alex, you know all you need to know about me.”

  “But nobody tells it as good as the person himself.”

  “I don’t tell anything remotely good about myself or anybody else.”

  White took this shot and fired off one of her own. “You know, you’re smaller than I would have thought.”

  He looked down at her. “I’m a wall, only not one you lean on.”

  “It’s just that Alex made you out to be nine feet tall and eight hundred pounds. Compared to that description, you’re sort of shrimpy. I can’t help feeling disappointed. But nevertheless, are we good to go, partner?”

  Decker said with all due candidness, “At this point, I don’t really give a shit.”

  “You always this way with the people you work with?”

  “Initially, yeah.”

  “Well, let’s work quickly through initially then.”

  Decker looked her over. “I’m sure you’re a fine agent. I have nothing against you. But change like this is not my thing. And I’ve had more of it in my life than most people.”

  She glanced up at his head. “Football player? Cleveland Browns? I hate the Browns. I’m an Eagles girl through and through. Hate the Baltimore Ravens, too, and that’s all I see now.”

  “I don’t really follow football anymore.”

  She glanced at his head once more. “Yeah, I guess I can understand that.”

  The door opened and there stood Talbott. His features grim, he did not seem remotely like the cheerful man from a few minutes ago.

  “You two have your first case. You’re heading to Florida. Right now.”

  “What happened?” said Decker.

  “A federal judge and her bodyguard. They’re both dead.”

  Chapter 5

  T​HANK GOD FOR MOTHERS,” SAID White as she settled in her plane seat next to Decker. “Especially on short notice.”

  “She takes care of the kids while you’re traveling?”

  “Yep. Otherwise, I couldn’t do it. Childcare is outrageously expensive, even when you can find it. Lucky she was a young mother. Still got a lot of energy.”

  “Five kids will age you fast.”

  “She worked, too, as the assistant principal at the school where we all went. My dad was a cop in Philly. Never made that much money.”

  “Is he retired?”

  “He died in the line of duty.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “My mother got a big settlement from the city.”

  “Why was that?” he said curiously.

  “Because the dude that shot my father was also a cop, who didn’t like the color of my dad’s skin. And then the department tried to cover it up and make it look like an accident. This was twenty years ago, I was still in high school.”

  “Civilizations don’t always progress, they sometimes regress.”

  “Didn’t expect that from you.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, to tell the truth.”

  After the jet lifted into the air, White said, “You read the email they sent about what happened in Florida?”

  Decker nodded.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think anything. Somebody else’s version of the facts in an email doesn’t mean anything to me. I need to see it for myself.”

  “Well, what I got from it was this was an inside job, or at least the killer knew things he shouldn’t have.”