Chapter 20
DECKER LAY INhis bed at the Mitchells’ house rubbing his glued-together scalp.
It was late, and he was tired and his head was throbbing.
He hadn’t been entirely honest with Jamison. It was true he had taken many hits as a football player. And he’d suffered a number of concussions over the course of his footballcareer. But this injury felt different. It feltdeeper. Moreinvasive.
The X-ray had shown that whatever had hit him had not penetrated his skull. There was no crack, no fracture, yet he still feltweird, and not just because his brain had bounced off the inside of his skull, which was basically the definition of a concussion. He just wasn’t sure why he felt so different.
Sleep would not come, so at around three in the morning, he showered, dressed, and went downstairs.
On the kitchen counter, he saw a slip of paper. He picked it up. It was the sheet of numbers that Zoe had shown him to see if he could remember them.
On a whim, he decided to put the matter to a test. He set the paper down.
He dialed the page up in his head and wentdown the columns. Everything was going fine until he got near the end. Then something in his head skipped, like a DVD with a scratch on its surface.
I can’t see the last two numbers.
In a semi-daze, he walked out the back door and sat down in a wicker chair on the rear deck. It was fortunate that where he was sitting was partially covered by an overhang, because a fine rainwas falling. Although it wouldn’t really have mattered to Decker. He had certainly sat out in the rain before. And evensleptin the rain when he’d been temporarily homeless back in Ohio.
He rubbed his temples. His perfect recall had been with him so long that he often took it for granted. There were elements of it that he also hated, like not being able to let time erode the horrificmemories of his family’s having been murdered. But still, he had come to count on his remarkable gift to help him solve crimes. And if it was now becoming fallible?
He closed his eyes and brought the page of numbers back up. This time he could see the last two numbers, but not three in the middle. They were fuzzed over, like someone had smudged the ink in which they’d been written.
Well, that’s great.
He stared across at the house that had been the genesis of the current investigation. If he hadn’t been standing out here having a beer and looking around, he and Jamison would never have been involved in any of this.
Who murdered you?
Decker wanted to know the answer to that question more than any other.
“Are you okay, Mr. Amos?”
Decker turned to see Zoe Mitchell standing in the doorway of the house in her pink PJs. She was holding a neon green blanket and her thumb hovered near her mouth. She looked anxious.
“I’m fine, Zoe.”
“Aunt Alex said you hurt your head.”
“It was nothing. Just a bump. You can’t sleep?”
She walked out and sat cross-legged on the deck next to him, herblanket held tightly to her chest. “Sometimes I just wake up. Then I go get some milk, but Mom forgot to get it today.” She stopped talking and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
When Decker looked down at her, he was suddenly seeing another little girl: his daughter, Molly.
“Does your blanket have a name?” he asked quietly.
Zoe shook her head.
“My daughter hada blanket too. She named it Hermione. You know, fromHarry Potter? Hermione Granger.”
“My mom won’t read the books to me or letme see the movies yet. She says I’m not old enough.”
“Well, when you are old enough you’ll love them.”
“What’s your daughter’s name?”