Peter worked not only as a cop but as a lawyer, devising defensive strategies, then penning police reports that would support his conclusions. His contention was simple: Noam had been a victim, pure and simple. Though he might have left New York voluntarily with Hersh Schaltz, he had never intended to engage in criminal activity. Upon their arrival in Los Angeles, Hersh now felt comfortable enough to display his true sociopathological nature because Noam was at his mercy—a minor cut off from his family and without any means of support. Noam had completely relied on Hersh for all the basics—food, clothing, and shelter. Hersh used Noam’s total dependency on him and combined it with the constant threat of death to hold the boy in a Svengalian trance. Noam had been forced to abet Hersh, acting out of fear for his own life.

There had been prior cases in the books to support the defense. But luck was with the boy and any legal defense turned out to be unnecessary. The higher-ups in the department felt the same way Peter had. Without witnesses or physical evidence to link Noam directly to the crimes, the DA felt the case was too weak to try. Charges were dropped—not even plea-bargained down. Simply dropped.

But the boy’s problems were far from over. In fact, it seemed to Rina, they were just beginning. She had stolen away for an hour and visited him before his parents came into town. Noam had become a shell, regressed to something only vaguely definable as human. Physically, he sat curled in his jail cell, shoulders to his knees, head tucked into his chest. He was unresponsive to her words, to her touch. Nothing—except constant prayer—held any interest for him.

Acting as a go-between for Peter and the police, Rina made the arrangements for the family to pick Noam up. But as the hour neared, she knew she wouldn’t come down and meet them at the station house. She told herself that it was Peter who needed her, not the Levines. And that was true. But she knew she couldn’t bear to see the look on Breina’s face once she had witnessed what her boy had become.

So Rina concentrated on Peter. On giving him pep talks, on making him as comfortable as possible. He didn’t complain much. That was just Peter.

She expected him to be slow to open up and she wasn’t surprised by his sudden, short-lived flare-ups of temper. When he refused pain medicine, she thought that he was just being stoic.

But she knew something was terribly wrong when Peter started acting illogical. Peter was the original rational being. If it made sense, you did it. If it didn’t, you didn’t.