—Is me.
With his football career irreversibly over, he had gone on to become a cop and then a homicidedetective in his hometown of Burlington, Ohio. He had been married to a wonderful woman named Cassandra, or Cassie as he always called her, and they had had a beautiful child named Molly.
Had.
It was all past tense, because he no longer had a wonderful wife or a beautiful child.
Who killed you?
Who murdered you?
Well, Decker had figured out whohad taken his family from him. And the person had paid the ultimate price.
Yet it was nothing in comparison to the price that Decker had paid. That he would pay every minute until he drew his last breath.
“Aunt Alex says you can’t forget anything.”
Decker turned from these musings to the source of the query.
Zoe Mitchell, twin blonde ponytails, long-sleevedpink shirt with flowers on it, and white shorts showing off dimpled knees, stared curiously at him across the width of the wooden deck attached to the back of her house.
“My memory’s pretty good, yeah,” said Decker.
Zoe held up a sheet of paper. On it were about a dozen very long numbers. She passed it to him.
“Can you remember all these?” she asked hopefully.
Decker glanced at it and then handed the paper back to her.
“Does that mean you can’t remember them?” said Zoe, the disappointment clear on her freckled face.
“No, it means that I already did.”
He recited the numbers back to her, in the same order they appeared on the page, because that’s what he saw in his head: the page of numbers.
She broke intoa toothy grin. “That is so cool.”
“You think so?” said Decker.
Her pale blue eyes widened at his remark. “Don’t you?”
“Sometimes, yeah. It can be cool.”
He leaned against the deck railing and sipped his beer while Zoe watched him.
“Aunt Alex says you catch bad people.”
“We do it together. She’s got good instincts.”
Zoe lookedpuzzled by his response.
He explained, “She reads people really well. And she sees things that others don’t.”
“She’s my favorite aunt.”
“How many aunts do you have?”
She sighed. “A lot. None of them are as cool as Aunt Alex.” Zoe brightened. “She came to visit because my birthday is almost here. I’m turning six.”