“Call her again.”
He had already tried six times, but he tried again. Voice mail. He checked his texts. She hadn’t responded. He shook his head. “Blank!”
“Does your sister have a cell phone?”
Gabe hit his forehead. “Duh!” He tried that number. Tried it three times. All he got was voice mail. “No answer. I’ll text her, but I suspect it won’t get anywhere.”
“Gabe, let me call the police. Maybe they can ping a location on the phone.”
“She insisted no police.”
“If she’s really hurt, do you think you should listen to her?”
Gabe felt panic in his stomach. “I don’t think that’ll get you anywhere, Peter. I think both my mom and my sister turned their phones off.”
“What about Sanjay? Does he have a phone?”
“No.”
“Then I’m out of ideas. You’re three thousand miles away and can’t get out there for another, what? Ten hours at the earliest. If she’s really hurt, time matters.”
“I’ve got a performance tomorrow in Boston. God, this is a total disaster! I need to call my agent and cancel. I certainly can’t play with this on my head.” He looked at Decker. “Can you come with me to Los Angeles?”
“Gabe, we’re about to leave for the airport.”
“Right. Of course.”
“Do you want me to cancel the flight? I will if you want me to.”
“No, no, no. There’s nothing you can do anyway.” Gabe’s eyes turned moist. “I love her dearly. But my mom is a disaster! Devek owes money to bad people. So it could have been them as well. I do think her current husband is even worse than my father.”
Decker raised his eyebrows. “Gabe, call your dad.”
Gabe turned to him. “What?”
“Call your dad. He’s on the same time zone, and he owns a private jet. He can probably get there in a couple of hours. Plus, he knows the Valley as well as I do. That’s where he and your mom met. And if she’s running from bad people, he can protect her better than anyone. Call your dad.”
“He’s not going to help.”
“Chris just told Rina he was concerned about your mom’s safety. Why wouldn’t he help?”
“He’s been waiting years for her to crash and burn. I think that’s what kept him alive all these years.”
Decker gave his foster son a skeptical look. “Do you have any better ideas?” No answer. “Do you want me to call him?”
“No, absolutely not.” A beat. “Go back to dinner, Peter. I’m twenty-four. I can handle this.”
“No shame in asking for help.”
“I don’t need help.” Even though he did. “Please. Go back before everyone realizes there’s a problem. I’ll let you know what’s going on later.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.” He watched his foster dad go back into the restaurant. With shaking hands, he tried to punch in the numbers that he knew by heart, but he kept making mistakes. In desperation, he looked it up in his contact list under Dad. Heart banging out of his chest, he pressed the number.
A lot of the time Chris turned his phone off. Sometimes he used burners. Sometimes he changed his number without telling him. Most of the time he didn’t answer even if the phone connected. Christopher Donatti was a very busy man. He didn’t like phone calls. He especially didn’t like phone calls from his son, who was always managing to interrupt some important business his father was doing.
His oft repeated line: You’re losing me money. This better be good.
But this time the phone did ring. Which meant the current number he had was still active. Gabe stood there shivering even though it was the height of summer in New York: the cold was coming from within. Trembling like a frightened child as he waited to connect. “Pick up the phone, you motherfucker!” A moment later he heard the line kick in.
“What?”
Thank you, God. “Dad, you’ve got to help me. Mom called. She’s in California. The San Fernando Valley I think, but I don’t know for sure. She’s badly hurt, but she won’t call 911 or go to the hospital—”
“Hold on. Let me go somewhere private.” A moment later Donatti was back on the line. “Your mother is on the West Coast?”
“Yes.”
“Where are her kids?”
“She had them, but now they’re gone. She’s in the middle of a messy divorce. She might have taken them out of India without her husband’s permission.”
“Ah.” A pause. “Someone took them back.”
“Dad, I know that she wouldn’t let them go without a fight, and I think she got a bad one. She sounded in real trouble. She wants me to come and get her, but I’m in New York and I don’t know where she is. Furthermore, she called me from a burner with a blocked number, so I can’t even call her back. Her regular phone is off.” Gabe paused, but his father didn’t talk. “I’m hoping she’ll call me back. As soon as she does, I’ll get more details. But in the meantime, you’re a lot closer to L.A. than I am. And you’re good at finding people.”
Another pause. His dad waited.
Gabe said, “Look, I know you parted on bad terms—”
“She had an affair, got knocked up by the motherfucker, had his bastard child, and then dumped me unceremoniously. Yeah, I’d call that bad terms.”
“I’ve had issues with her as well. I’ve forgiven her—”
“That’s certainly your prerogative.”
“She’s my mother, Chris!” Silence. “You know what it is to lose a mom.”
“I’m not moved. Try a different tactic.”
“You loved her once.”
There was a long pause. Gabe thought he might have hung up. But then Donatti said, “Who says I don’t love her still?”
Gabe took in a deep breath and then let it out. This was a battle he knew he was going to win. “Will you help her? Yes or no?”
“Yes, I’ll go.” No hesitation. “I’m entertaining about a dozen people in my outer office right now. Give me a half hour to get rid of them, gas up the jet, and get a flight plan. If she calls you, get a phone number. Also give her my number.”
“As soon as I know something, I’ll call you.”
“And I’ll tell you this, Gabe. She’d better want my help. I don’t have a good track record with your mother. If I don’t hear from her by the time I get to Los Angeles, I’m turning around and she’ll be your problem.”
“Agreed. Let me give you Mom’s number.”
“I have it. What about your sister? Does she have a phone?”
“She does.” Gabe gave him the number. “Both of them are going to voice mail.”
“Probably they don’t want to be tracked. I’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank—”
“Yeah, fine. Let me get going on this.” Donatti cut the line and pocketed his cell, running his fingers through his shoulder-length white hair, letting his conflicting emotions battle it out, not knowing what to feel now that the moment was actually here.
For over a decade, he had been formulating his delicious slap of vengeance … righteous justice in his mind. He had planted it, nursed it, fed it, watered it, sheltered it from the cold, and given it relief from the heat. He had watched it grow and blossom into something mean and unstoppable. It had consumed his thoughts. How he’d make her pay for what she did. And now that his chance for retribution was so close, so, so very close, all he could feel was the rapid beating of his heart, pounding not with revenge but with excitement.
He really, really wanted her back!
The thought of sex with her even after all these years was making him pant like a dog. He had had at least a thousand fantasies about it—some benign, some dark and cruel—all of them HD vivid in his brain. To see her face again … to feel her body. To hear her voice. It was her voice that had haunted him the most. Her voice that had kept him awake at night and dreaming through the days.
The first time she had dumped him was right afte
r high school, after she found out he murdered people for a living. Not his idea of a career, but he had no choice, and at least he was good at what he did. Three years later, when she was at her lowest—desperate and destitute with a child—he had forced her hand, threatening to take Gabe away if she didn’t come back to him. Theirs had been a rocky ten-year relationship. Problems, sure, but he never thought she’d have the guts to leave him.
But she did, abandoning him for a second time after getting pregnant by a doctor who had worked in the same hospital as she did. His bad for not keeping a closer watch. She had managed to escape his homicidal clutches long enough to turn his boiling anger into a constant simmer. He was fully intending to kill her. He had wanted to kill her, not with a gun—too easy and too fast—but with his hands: strangling her, watching the life being sucked out, murdering her face-to-face, eyeball to eyeball.
Trouble was, he didn’t want her dead.
He had finally, finally gotten his shit together, gotten off drugs, weaned himself from cigarettes, cut down on the booze. He exercised and ate a healthy diet. He had reformed while slaving away and had built his own little fiefdom. Lord of the manor, where no one dared to get in his way. He had money, he had sex, he had respect, and, most important, he had the ultimate control over everything in his life.
Now that same everything was about to blow up in his face.
Even though he just knew it would end in disaster, he also knew that he’d take the plunge into the deep end without a second thought, idiot that he was.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me a third time, and someone’s a moronic dumbass.
He flipped his hair out of his eyes, then walked out of his inner office into the fray he was hosting.
Here we go again.
Here we fucking go again!
AT SIX FEET four … well, maybe now six three and a half, allowing for shrinkage, Decker had always dreaded flying, cramming his oversize body into seats unfit for someone as tall as he was. The flight to Israel was long, and after he arrived, it took him hours to unfold. This time maybe it would be different.
He beamed as he thought of his children chipping in money to buy Rina and him business-class tickets. Such a lucky man. He stowed his carry-on overhead in a space reserved for his seat alone. Then he slid into a chair with a footrest. He played with the buttons, and everything worked. He had a bigger pillow than usual, he had a thicker blanket, he had his own TV and flight attendants offering him juice, water, or champagne.
He could get used to this.
Rina came over. She was seated three rows behind him. “Pretty luxurious.”
“Unbelievable.” Decker sighed. “That was really a surprise.”
“We did good with them young’uns,” Rina said.
“We did,” Decker answered.
“How’s Gabe doing?” Rina asked him. “Any word from his mother?”
“I don’t know, but he did get hold of his dad. Chris agreed to help.”
“Nice, if he doesn’t kill her first.”
“It’s been over ten years.”
“Why do I feel that Chris is the type of person to carry a grudge?”
“And yet he agreed.” Decker shrugged. “He must feel something other than anger toward her to put himself out like that.”
“With him, you never know.” When Decker’s phone buzzed, Rina said, “Turn that off. We’re on vacation.”
“It’s Tyler.”
“It’s eleven at night. He can’t miss you that much.”
“Yeah, this isn’t good.”
“Don’t answer it.”
Decker ignored her and clicked in the call. “What’s going on?”
“Someone found a body earlier in the evening.”
“Where?”
“In the woods about three miles from the diner where Bertram Lanz disappeared. A couple who was camping out decided on a sunset walk with their pooch. The dog started digging, exposing a face and a hand. It’s our jurisdiction.”
“Where are you now?”
“I just left the scene to call you. No bars up there. I’m going back as soon as I hang up.”
Decker’s heart sank. “You need me in Greenbury?”
“Peter!” Rina said.
“No, no. We’re fine,” McAdams insisted. “Coroner should be here momentarily. Kevin cordoned off the area, and we have someone watching the space overnight. We’ll do all the forensics tomorrow morning. I’ll keep you posted, but I thought you should know.”
The flight attendant started making announcements. Decker stuck his finger in his ear and said, “You sure you’re okay?”
“We’re fine, boss. Enjoy your time overseas.”
Right, he thought to himself. “Any first thoughts about the body?”
“Rigor’s come and gone, bloat’s come and gone.”
“Then the corpse is at least a few days old.”
“Looks older than that—weeks. There’s some decomposition.”
“Any insect activity?”
“The nostrils, eyes, and mouth are crawling with maggots.”
“Then part of the face was exposed to the air, so the flies could lay their eggs. What about animal activity?”
“No animal activity. Clothes are still intact.”
“Is the corpse male or female?”
“Probably female. We’re waiting for the coroner for confirmation. The face is messed up.”
“Bugs can do that. What about the clothes?”
“Jeans, plaid shirt, sneakers. Looks like a big woman’s foot or a small man’s foot. We’ll know once the coroner arrives. That should be soon.”
A flight attendant named Nurit came over to him. “Everything okay, sir?”
Decker looked at her. “Yes, thank you.”
She swallowed. “The woman across the aisle overheard you talk about corpses. I think it’s upsetting her.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Tyler asked.
“No, not you.” Decker smiled at the attendant. “I’m a police detective. I’ll finish up the conversation.” To Tyler: “I have to go. I’ll call you when we land.”
“Don’t worry about it, boss. I have it covered.”
Decker hung up. He muttered a sorry to the nervous woman across the aisle.
Rina stared at him. “You’re not going back.”
“No, I am not going back.”
“Thank you.” Rina sighed. “I hope this won’t ruin our vacation.”
“It won’t.” Decker smiled. “I promise. When we land, I’ll give you my laptop and my phone. How’s that for commitment?”
“I don’t need to confiscate your belongings, Peter. Just unplug and promise me you won’t let whatever is going on at Greenbury interfere with our downtime.” The flight attendant announced that everyone should take a seat. “You have your Ambien for sleep?”
“I do.”
“Take it as soon as we take off.”
“Will do,” he said. “I’m excited, Rina. A new adventure.”
“You’re very cute.” Rina kissed him. “See you in the Holy Land.”
Three hours later Rina was sound asleep and he was lying on his back, stretched out in relative comfort with his eyes wide open and thoughts whirling around in his brain. He would probably be sleeping if he had taken the pill, but he chose not to because other things were on his mind.
You can take the man out of the investigation but you can’t take the investigation out of the man.
He had promised Rina to unplug from work when they landed. She deserved that. But why toss and turn for hours when the solution to his insomnia was right at hand? Quietly, he stood up and took down his laptop from the overhead compartment. After he booted it up, he looked at his options for buying the plane’s internet. At first, he thought about doing a thirty-minute plan. Just a few quick questions and then turn off the noise. But an unknown force led his fingers to choose the two-hou
r plan. He typed in Tyler’s email address.
He wrote: I’m up. I can’t sleep. Tell me everything that’s going on.
Keep Reading …
If you enjoyed The Lost Boys, make sure you’ve read the previous book in Faye Kellerman’s Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series:
A murder
On a quiet suburban street in upstate New York, a body is discovered. Twenty-six-year-old Brady Neil lived a simple life—his murder seems senseless. But then Detective Peter Decker discovers Brady’s father was convicted of murder many years ago.
A disappearance
Decker begins to suspect Brady’s death may be connected to his father’s crimes. Then one of Brady’s closest friends vanishes; a pool of blood the only clue to his fate.
A ruthless killer who must be stopped
Who would savagely kill two innocent men? With a little help from his wife Rina, Decker must use all his skill to put the pieces of this deadly puzzle together … before the murderer strikes again.
Click here to order a copy of Walking Shadows.
About the Author
Faye Kellerman is the author of thirty-three novels, including twenty-two New York Times bestselling mysteries that feature the husband-and-wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. She has also penned two bestselling short novels with her husband, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman and teamed up with her daughter Aliza to co-write a young adult novel, Prism. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Also by Faye Kellerman
Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series
Walking Shadows
Bone Box
The Theory of Death
Murder 101
Predator
Blood Games
Hangman
Blindman’s Bluff
Cold Case
The Burnt House
Street Dreams
Stone Kiss
The Forgotten
Stalker
Jupiter’s Bones
Serpent’s Tooth
Prayers for the Dead
Justice
Sanctuary
Grievous Sin
False Prophet
Day of Atonement
Milk and Honey
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