AFTER THE BLANCS had left his office, Decker felt as if he had taken off a winter jacket in an overheated room: twenty pounds lighter and he could finally take a deep breath. Kathy Blanc had told him that her daughter’s apartment appeared in order, but she admitted that she hadn’t looked too closely.

Decker started working on scheduling his time. He’d manage a quick stop at home for dinner and then he’d go over to Adrianna’s place…or maybe he should go down to St. Tim’s and see what Marge and Oliver were doing. His mind was elsewhere when his cell rang and he neglected to pay attention to the caller ID number. Didn’t matter because the number was blocked, but the voice told him who it was in the single word.

“What?”

Sounding more annoyed than anxious, but that was typical Donatti. Decker’s heart started jogging. “Your cell out of order, Chris? I’ve been calling you for the last twenty-four hours.”

“You know how it is, Decker. Sometimes you just don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Where have you been?”

“Where have I been?” A laugh over the phone. “What difference does it make?”

“Just wondering what could have kept you so preoccupied that you wouldn’t bother checking your phone calls.”

Another laugh. “You sound pissed.”

“Where have you been?”

“Now you sound like you’re interrogating me. I don’t like your tone. Matter of fact, I don’t like you. You’ve got two seconds to tell me what you want before I hang up.”

“You don’t want to call me back, fine. But I would think you’d answer your son’s calls. He was so upset that he called me.” There was the expected pause. It could have been real or staged. “We’ve got ourselves a big problem, Chris. Terry’s missing.”

This time the pause was much longer. “Go on.”

The anger was gone, but his voice remained flat. Decker said, “That’s it. Terry’s missing.”

“What do you mean, missing?”

“We can’t find her—”

“I fucking know what the word ‘missing’ means. What do you mean that she’s missing?”

Donatti had gone from zero to sixty in five seconds. He was clearly agitated, but that could be staged as well. The veracity of his emotions was impossible to read over the phone. “You need to come into the station house, Chris. We need to talk.”

“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on?”