Дэвид Балдаччи - The Fallen

“E. B. White. He signed that for a young friend of his about forty years ago. Do you see what her name was?”

Zoe read off the name. “Zoe!”

“That’s right.”

“How did you ever find that?” asked Amber.

“I have a friend who works at a rare books dealer in New York. She’s been on the lookout for something like this for me for about a year.”

Zoe said slowly, “This must have cost a lot of money.”

Jamison leaned over, hugged her niece, and kissed her on the forehead. “What it is, Zoe, is a great book that you can read over and over your whole life.”

“And every time I open it I can pretend that he signed it to me!”

“Yes, you absolutely can. That’s called using your imagination, which is what Mr. White used to write the story in the first place.”

Zoe said, “These are the best presents I’ve ever gotten.”

Amber smiled at her sister and gave her a thumbs-up.

And then the door to the restaurant opened and there stood Detectives Green and Lassiter.

Decker spotted them first, and then Jamison did a few moments later.

Jamison groaned, “Oh no, what do they want?”

Amber and Zoe looked over at the doorway. Zoe said sadly, “Does this mean you have to leave? Before dinner?”

Decker rose and said, “I’ll check. If something is up, I’m sure it can wait.”

He walked over to the detectives. “Look, we’re in the middle of a little girl’s birthday party. Can’t whatever it is wait?”

Green said, “We’re actually not here to see you, Decker.”

Decker looked puzzled. “Jamison, then?”

“No, not your partner.”

“Who, then?”

Green glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the table. “Amber Mitchell.”

Decker froze for a moment. “Her sister? Why? Is it about the murders?”

“That’s not why we’re here.”

Lassiter added, “When the call came in we recognized the name. We thought we’d handle it because we’d already met the family.”

“Recognized the name? What name?”

“Frank Mitchell. Amber’s husband.”

Decker glanced at Jamison and Amber, who were watching him closely, while Zoe was leafing through her book. He turned back to the pair of detectives.

“What about him?”

Green said, “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

Ten p.m.

Not a good time for introspection.

One was tired. Not ready for deep thought about critical issues.

And it was storming hard outside.

Decker sat in his chair, in his bedroom in the stricken house, and looked out at the water bucketing down.

And yet he was trying to be introspective, to make some sense of it all.

He set the empty beer can down on the floor and wiped his mouth.

It hadn’t tasted like beer, but rather acid. He couldn’t imagine anything tasting good ever again.

Streaks of lightning, followed by booms of thunder, seemed to form an uneasy synchronicity with the smacks of his heart.

Though he couldn’t possibly hear them over the roar of the storm, he knew that two women in the house, one very young and one only in her thirties, fatherless and widowed, respectively, were probably still bawling their eyes out. In his mind’s eye he could see them, hunched over, arms wrapped around their sides, as though struggling mightily to keep what little they had left inside somewhat intact and functional.

He used his finger to trace a circle on the window where condensation had collected.

One of the longest walks Decker had ever made had been from the front door of the restaurant back to the table. He had asked Green and Lassiter for permission to go and get the Mitchells and escort them out. He did not want the news that awaited them to come in a public place.

He didn’t know why he had thought of this. His old self would have done so instinctively. To be sensitive and compassionate had been reflexive with the old Amos Decker.

Then the blindside hit on the field had left him pretty much the polar opposite of what he had been. It was, to say the least, unsettling to occupy the same body but be a totally different person.

Yet still, he had thought about having them be told of the loss in a private place. And he had acted on that thought.

That’s something, isn’t it?

He had told them that the detectives wanted to talk to them about something important and that they preferred to do so down at the police station, only a few blocks away. He had told them that it couldn’t wait. It had to happen now.

He had seen an alarmed look in Amber’s eyes that made him believe she knew that what was happening would be quite personal to her. But she remained outwardly calm and collected. And he thought he knew why.

Zoe had still been looking at her book and smiling. Obviously, the mom was keeping it together for her daughter.

Cassie, Decker’s wife, would have done the same thing.

While they were collecting their things, Decker managed to whisper to Jamison, “It’s about Frank. It’s bad. The worst.”

At first, Jamison made no noticeable reaction to this, but then her face visibly paled and her hand trembled a bit as she put it on the table to support herself as she stood.

The detectives drove Amber and Zoe to the police station. Jamison went with her sister and niece in Green’s car, while Decker followed them.

At the station they all reunited.

Apparently nothing was said in the police car, because Zoe seemed fine — curious about what was going on, but otherwise all right.

That would not be the case for much longer.

They had gone into a private room. Well, Amber had gone in with the two detectives, while Jamison stayed outside with Zoe.

Surprisingly, Amber had asked Decker to accompany her into the room, where they had her sit, while Lassiter and Green stood facing her. Decker noted that in another corner of the room was a female police officer.

Green had spoken first.

“I’m very sorry to have to bring you this news, Mrs. Mitchell. It’s about your husband.”

Tears had welled up in Amber’s eyes and she had started to shake.

“Oh no, please, oh no,” she moaned.

Lassiter glanced at the officer, who came forward with a box of tissues and a bottle of water.

Decker stood back against the wall, watching all of this.

Green said, “There apparently was a terrible accident at the fulfillment center. They did tell us that your husband didn’t suffer. It was very quick.”

Amber was clearly no longer listening. She was hunched over, her face near the tops of her knees, rocking back and forth. “Oh, God, please. Frank, oh, please. Frank... ”

Green looked hopelessly at Lassiter, who pulled up a chair next to Amber and put an arm around her quaking shoulders.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Mitchell. So very, very sorry.”

Frank Mitchell, gone, just like that.

Amber and Zoe, bereaved, just like that.

Decker could relate. The very same thing had happened to him when, coming home one night, he had found his wife, her brother, and his daughter dead. Murdered. Gone from him for all time. One night. One breath.

If there was anything in life worse than that, he didn’t know what it could possibly be.

The mind, breathtakingly special as it was, had never been designed to take in such a crushing event with such little preparation. It took all the air from your body, all the rigidity from your muscles, all the synaptic impulses from your brain.

It left you lessened, hollowed, destroyed.

It had been well over two years now since Cassie and Molly had been taken from him, and Decker was still unable to plumb the total depths of what the loss had done to him.

Amber had composed herself in that police station room, wiped her face clear, walked out on steady legs, embraced her daughter, and escorted her home, her arm never leaving the child’s shoulders.