Peter Decker 3-Book Thriller Collection. Faye Kellerman

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      Marge sighed. “You’re right. So what’s your next step?”

      “Damned if I know.” He snapped a pencil in two.

      “By the way, Pete. Dr. Hennon called. She says Armbruster and the Countess are a match, just as we thought.”

      Decker bolted out of his chair. “I just had a brainstorm. I’ve got to go down to the morgue and borrow a skull.”

      “Who do the teeth belong to?” Hennon asked over the phone.

      “I’m betting it’s the guy in the snuff film I told you about,” Decker said.

      “But you don’t know the man’s true identity?”

      “No idea.”

      “So how am I supposed to match him up with the teeth?”

      “I’m cutting a few stills out of the movie and I’m going to bring them over to you. Remember the photographic match you did on Armbruster before you got definitive results with the teeth X rays? How you lined up the cranium with the photo—”

      “I don’t like to give an opinion based on photographic matches alone. It’s too easy to make a mistake.”

      “I just want to see if the bones I found in the foothills match this creep in the movie. I’d like to see if I’m on the right track. Please, Annie.”

      “I don’t know when I can do it. I’m booked solid.”

      “I’ve got the skull. I’ll send it by, along with the stills. We’ll pay you extra for your time.”

      “That’s not the point. The living before the dead, Pete.” She paused. “I’ll work it in somehow.”

      “You’re a doll. I owe you one.”

      “How about dinner?” Hennon suggested. “Just between friends? Or is that against your dietary laws?”

      He should have kiboshed the invitation immediately, but something held him back. Goddam it, he wanted to go out on a normal date and eat normal food with a nice-looking woman. What was wrong with that? Just between friends.

      “There are exceptions,” he said calmly. “Maybe we can work something out.”

      He felt guilty as soon as he hung up the phone.

      “Have a seat,” Rina said. “We’re just starting dinner.”

      “I’m not hungry,” said Decker. “I just came over to say thanks.”

      “Please.” She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table.

      Decker sat down. She handed him a yarmulke and he put it on without a word.

      She placed a steaming bowl of creamy fish chowder in front of him. The soup was thick with chunks of white halibut, bits of diced potatoes, and lots of onions. In the middle of the table were slices of thick-crusted garlic bread, buttery and full of cheese. Rina poured him a bottle of chilled Dos Equis.

      “I’m really not hungry,” he repeated.

      “Don’t eat,” she said, quietly.

      He stared at the soup, smelling its rich aroma. He was hungry. He was starved. But he refused to eat. He was acting like an asshole and didn’t know why. He was the one who’d shown up drunk as a skunk, acting like a lunatic. Why was he mad at Rina? And why the hell hadn’t he told Annie no?

      Times like this reminded him that his divorce was a two-way street. He could hear Jan’s voice. You’re self-destructive, Peter. Her favorite word—self-destructive. She’d used it the day he’d quit the law practice; she’d used it the day she’d kicked him out of the house.

      The boys slurped the last of their chowder and gave him sidelong glances. Quiet. He was making everyone uncomfortable. He stood up.

      “I’ve really got to go, Rina.”

      “Boys, I want to talk to Peter alone for a minute,” Rina said. “Please go to your room.”

      “We didn’t bentch yet, Eema,” Sammy said.

      “The avayrah’s on me,” Rina answered.

      The boys left quickly.

      Decker said nothing. Any remark would come out trite or stupid.

      “Peter, what upset you so last night?”

      He rubbed his chin and realized what a lousy job her electric shaver had done on him this morning. For some odd reason, it embarrassed him to be scruffy in front of her.

      “Sometimes my work gets to me,” he answered.

      “Are you still working on the bones?” she asked.

      “Yes. I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “At least you will sit down while I’m talking to you?” He sat back down.

      “I’m acting like a jerk, Rina. I do that when I’m under pressure. I’m sorry.”

      She patted his hand. “It’s okay. I’m sorry you had a bad day … day night. I wish I could help you. If you’d tell me about it, maybe—”

      “Just drop it, Rina.”

      He was hurting her. He saw it in her eyes. She said nothing.

      “I won’t barge in on you like that again,” he said. “It was an exception.”

      “It’s all right.”

      “Thanks for taking in a stray dog.”

      “You’re not a stray dog, Peter. You’re the man I love.”

      Tell her you love her, damn it.

      He smiled weakly and was silent.

      Withholding son of a bitch. Why are you doing this to her? He ran his fingers through his hair.

      “What happened between us last night, Rina?”

      She stared at him for clarification.

      “I had a blackout,” he said. “Did we make love?”

      She shook her head.

      “You groped around a little, then passed out on the living room floor. I was scared to death. At first I thought you had a heart attack, but, baruch Hashem, you started snoring.”

      He rolled his eyes.

      “How’d I get into the bedroom?”

      “I’m not as weak as you think I am,” she said, quietly.

      “You carried me?”

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