Long Shadows (Amos Decker, #7)(4)

“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.