“Around seven in the morning, then,” Decker said. “Did she call you at home?”

The rabbi nodded. “She called me…” He strangled on a deep sigh. “She said she was okay… that she was being taken care of. But I couldn’t tell anyone—not even her parents, especially not her parents, especially not her father. She had sneaked out to call me, but it was against the rules if she wanted to stay where she was. If he found out that she broke the rules, he’d kick her out. So she had to go back really quickly… before anyone found out.”

“Who’s he?” Decker asked.

Jonathan shrugged helplessly. “We spoke for about… one, two minutes. Then she said she had to go. Just please, please don’t tell anyone that she had called.” He looked at Decker with puffy eyes. “I begged her to tell me where she was. I begged her to tell me who she was with. Of course she refused. Just that she was being taken care of by someone big and powerful. And that she was okay.”

A long silence.

“I told Chaim,” Jonathan admitted. “I couldn’t help it, Akiva. I just… he was my brother-in… if it had been my daughter…”

He turned away, beside himself with despair.

“I told him that he couldn’t tell anyone. I told him it was imperative that he kept this between the two of us. But he probably told Minda. Maybe she told the wrong person… I don’t know. I’m plagued with the thought that I inadvertently set her up.”

“It doesn’t sound like it—”

“She begged me not to tell anyone.…I should have taken it as a warning. Maybe my phone was tapped. Or maybe Chaim’s phone was tapped when I called to tell him. I should have pressed her to tell me more, but it was so short…”

“If she called you at home, we could trace the call. It’s probably a phone booth, but that could give us an approximate location of where she was staying… assuming that she walked over to the phone booth.”

“I should have gone to you.” Jonathan wiped his eyes. “Asked you for advice before I acted. The way I did it… not only did I break confidentiality… but it may have cost Shayndie her life.”

Decker exhaled, then shrank in his seat. Jonathan misinterpreted his body language. “You despise me.”

The laughter from Decker’s throat was strong and sour. “Oh my my!” He turned to his brother. “You think you screwed up, guy?” He looked at the van’s ceiling. “I messed up big time! I saw her, Jonathan. I saw her and let her go—”

“What?”

“I let her go because she was being protected… or so I thought.”

“What? Who?”

“It’s better if you don’t know,” Decker said.

Jonathan grabbed Decker’s shoulders, fury in his eyes. “I just bared my soul to you. Your response is not good enough!”

Decker’s immediate reaction was to punch back figuratively, but he stopped himself. Jon was right. He clasped his hands to prevent them from hitting or shaking. His heart was beating so rapidly, he felt choked off from oxygen.