Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(123)

My damn casework.

And then she told him that they would just go out to dinner the next night. Her brother was staying over, so they’d have another opportunity.

Another opportunity that never came to be.

Those were the last words that Decker had ever spoken to his wife. He had gone into the house with the intention of slipping into bed without waking her, and then taking her, Molly, and his brother-in-law out to breakfast the next morning. As a surprise, to make up for that night.

And then he had walked into his home and entered a nightmare.

His life had never been the same. Not in any conceivable way.

And the bottom line was clear to him.

I was not there when my family really needed me. I failed them. I failed myself. And I don’t know if I can live with that.

“Decker?” prompted Mars.

“I guess I keep coming back here,” began Decker. “To imagine how it could have been…different.”

The light in the upstairs bedroom winked out. For some reason that made Decker withdraw even further into whatever hole he had mentally dug for himself.

His head was throbbing. It was like his brain was melting.

Something tapped on the window.

“Who the hell else did you bring?” snapped Decker.

He glanced at Jamison, who sat rigid in her seat. He eyed Mars in the mirror. He was sitting exactly the same way as Jamison.

Decker slowly turned to his left.

And saw the figure there.

And the gun pointed at his head.

He looked to his right and saw a figure and a gun at the passenger window.

Two others were at the two rear doors.

The driver’s-side door was wrenched open and something struck him so hard on the back of the head that it drove his face into the steering wheel.

And that was the last thing he remembered.





Chapter 79



WHEN DECKER CAME TO, he had a vision of something that felt familiar. When he opened his eyes fully and looked around, he understood why.

He was in the Richardses’ old home, sitting on the floor.

In the kitchen, where Don Richards and David Katz had died.

He felt the zip ties around his wrists and ankles.

He looked next to him and saw Jamison and Mars similarly bound. They were staring across at the doorway where a man was standing.

Bill Peyton, or more correctly, Yuri Egorshin, did not seem like a happy man.

There were three other men in the room. They all looked tough, hardened, chips of iron with guns in their hands. Decker didn’t recognize any of them from the American Grill. To him, they all looked like muscle. Russian muscle, which was pretty damn intimidating.

Egorshin pulled up a chair and sat down opposite the three bound people.

“You have royally messed up my work, Decker,” he said quietly. “I hope you realize that.”

“Well, it’s sort of my job.”

“If the optics weren’t so bad and other…conditions not so adverse to me, I could probably beat your bullshit search at the Grill. You found all that stuff without a warrant. None of it would be admissible.”

“Yeah, but the whole Russian spy thing? I’m not sure the Fourth Amendment really applies to protect people like you.”

“And there we have the limits of the democracy you Americans tout so fiercely.”

Decker glanced out the window into the darkness. “I’m surprised that you would bring us here.”

“What? You mean witnesses? Are you concerned the DeAngelos might have seen us?” Egorshin stopped and his lips set in a firm line. “You don’t have to worry about them. Whatever they might have seen, they will be able to tell no one about.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Decker grimly, his features turning angry.

“Do you know what Mr. DeAngelo told me right before I put a bullet in his head?”

Decker said nothing.

“He told me that all he wanted to do was retire down south. I saved him the expense. And I needed…privacy, to deal with you and your friends.”

Decker felt sick to his stomach about the fate of the DeAngelos. He said, “You’ve wasted a lot of time hanging around here. You could be gone from the country. Now it’s too late. It’s death penalty time for you.”

“Please don’t worry about me. I’m well provided for. I have assets in places you couldn’t even imagine.”

“I don’t know, my imagination is pretty good. And if you’re thinking about Peter Childress, you better have other assets.”

“This does not concern me in the least.”

“Why’s that?”

“For the same reasons that the DeAngelos do not concern me.”

Jamison blurted out, “You had Childress killed?”

Egorshin looked at his watch. “With confirmation twenty minutes ago. No, the assets of which I speak go far higher than a police superintendent in a nothing place like this.”

“What do you want with us?”

“After every intelligence operation there must be a debriefing.” Egorshin spread his hands wide. “So this, this is my debriefing.”

“We’re not going to tell you anything,” barked Jamison.

“I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that over the course of my career.” He held out a hand. One of his men pulled something from his jacket and handed it to Egorshin. It looked like a metal billy club.