Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(130)

“It is full of memories. Most wonderful. A few beyond horrible.”

“So which ones do you hold on to?”

“In my case I don’t have a choice. But I do have a choice in how I prioritize them.”

“Do you think you can do that?”

“I can try.”

Decker thought about the episodes in which the violent scenes of his finding his family murdered kept unspooling in his head.

“I can try harder, at least. I have to, in fact.”

“I wish you every success on that. I really do.”

Before he left, Decker surprised Lancaster by embracing her in a long hug.

“I didn’t expect that,” she said, when they each stepped back.

“Maybe neither did I. But…it felt good.”

“Yes, Amos, it did.”

Decker walked back to the car and climbed in. “I wonder what burgundy means,” he said.

“What?” asked Jamison, while Bogart and Mars looked on with puzzled expressions.

“When Hawkins walked up to me at the cemetery that day, there was a burgundy color around him. I’ve never experienced that before.”

They were all silent for a few moments, until Jamison said, “Maybe it’s your brain’s new way of signaling a good person in need of some help.”

“If that’s the case, I think I might see it a lot more often, then.”

As they were sitting there, watching Lancaster head off, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson and their daughter came out of the house and got into the Nissan Sentra. They drove off a few moments later.

Jamison glanced at Decker anxiously as he watched this happening.

In the backseat, Mars said, “They look like a nice family.”

“Yes,” said Decker. “I expect they are.”

Jamison’s fingers played nervously over the steering wheel.

Mars said, “It’s a happy house, then.”

Jamison cast him a sharp glance in the mirror before looking at Decker once more.

“A happy house,” said Decker quietly before nodding at Jamison.

She put the car in drive and they headed off.

Away from this place.

For now.

Yet Amos Decker would be back.

For a lot of reasons.