“No, not at all.”

“Come on, Jen. It’s okay. Is he… hurting you at all?”

“Of course not!”

Decker watched her as she sniffed and wiped her face, her eyes redder but softer. “Your daughter?” he asked. “Is she Donatti’s kid?”

She laughed through her tears. “No.” A pause. “I wish to God she was his.”

Decker nodded. “Some jerk took advantage of you, huh?”

She was still furious, but fear made her answer him politely. “My sister’s husband.”

“Oh God…” Decker sighed. It was heartfelt. He leaned back and inched away from her. “I did a lot of Juvenile before I transferred to Homicide. You do Juvie, you deal with lots of sex crimes involving minors. That’s what it was, Jen. A sex crime. Because at fourteen, it certainly wasn’t anything you did. It was all about what he did. And what he did… was a sex crime.”

The tears going full force.

“They’re all the same… all of them.” Decker raked his hands through his hair. “They’re all monsters.” Another sigh. “Raping your wife’s fourteen-year-old kid sister. It doesn’t get any lower than that.”

No one spoke.

“Yes, it does,” she whispered. “It does get lower.”

Decker waited.

“No one believed me. My sister…” Jen clasped her shaking hands. “She called me a lying little slut. My father beat me. My mother stood by and didn’t do anything. They put my daughter in a foster home. When they tried to force me to sign papers… putting her up for adoption…I ran away.”

“What a mess! I am so sorry.”

“Mr. Donatti… he took me in. He—” She was choking back sobs. “He introduced me to my… to my husband. He… he was one of Mr. Donatti’s clients.” She wiped her face. “My husband…he proposed to me on my eighteenth birthday. Mr. Donatti told me to go for it… to marry him. He told me that he’d take care of me. And he does… my husband takes good care…” Another sniff. “He takes very good care of me. He loves me very much.”

“I’m sure he does, Jen. Who wouldn’t love you?”

She tried to stem her weeping. “My husband… he helped me get her back—helped me get my daughter from her foster parents. He paid for the lawyer; he paid for everything.” Again she broke into tears. “Oh God, I’m so stupid.”

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not! When Mr. Donatti finds out—”

“He won’t find out because neither one of us is going to tell him.”

She looked away and sobbed out, “He’ll find out!”

“So big effing deal!” Decker took her chin and turned her face to his. He looked her in the eye. “I’ll handle Donatti, all right?”

She didn’t answer.

Decker let go of her face, riding out her crying. Finally, after it had subsided, he said, “Jen, that Quinton girl I was telling you about? The one who was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know her at all?”

“No.” She sighed a sob and shuddered. “Just what I read in the papers.”