“I don’t want to go to the Caribbean. I hate beach vacations. I don’t tan; I just burn. And I can’t think of anything worse than sitting in the hot sun, sweating my ass off.”

Randy exhaled in disgust.

“Rina was also talking about going to Europe for a week to ten days. Mom said she and Dad would look after Hannah. Aunt Millie would also help out. Rates are a joke right now. No one’s traveling.”

“I wonder why,” Randy quipped.

“Gotta live your life,” Decker answered.

“Exactly, Peter. Listen to your own advice,” Randy told him. “Hey. How about if Sheryl and me and the kids come down on the weekend and give Mom and Dad an extra pair of hands?”

“Randy, you’ve been a peach.”

He smiled. “I was a pain-in-the-ass little brother, but you treated me okay. Now I’m rewarding you. Where you two going? Paris?”

“Paris and possibly Munich of all places. Rina has a close childhood friend who moved with her husband to Germany to start a yeshiva there.”

“Go figure.” Randy slapped him on the back. “Do it, Peter. Have a good time with your wife, and thank whatever God you believe in that you’ve got another day with a heartbeat.”

It came in the afternoon, the day before she and Peter were to leave for Paris, a plain white envelope with a stuck-on, pretyped label made out to MRS. RINA DECKER C/O LYLE AND IDA DECKER, followed by her in-laws’ address.

She turned it over. The return address was the same as the front label. Another flip back. The postmark told her it was mailed from New York City. Immediately, she grew suspicious, but who on earth would be sending her biological warfare in the mail. Still, she took care when she opened the envelope.

No powder of any kind.

No letter, either.

Only a small single-column newspaper article that had been neatly trimmed—razor cut rather than scissors. There wasn’t any mention of the paper’s name. Nor was there a date. Rina read the headline.

MAN SLAIN, FOUND ON STEPS OF CHURCH

On a routine patrol, Officer Willard Greaves discovered a grisly corpse sprawled across the front steps of Medford Methodist Church. The victim, sustaining a single shot to the head, was identified as Steven Gilbert, a computer teacher at the local community college.…

The article fell from Rina’s hands and fluttered down to the floor. She could feel her heart pumping blood clear up to her brain. Her voice escaped her for a moment; then she called out his name.

“Peter?”

No answer.

She picked up the article and tried to control her shaking hands. She cleared her throat and tried again, a little louder. “Peter?”

Nothing.

She went into the kitchen, the center of her in-laws’ house. Mama Ida had just baked a cinnamon apple cake, the warm air still saturated with sugar and spice. “Peter?”

“Out back.”

She took in a deep breath, exhaled, then went into the backyard. Peter was grilling their dinner, bass fillets caught from this morning’s fishing expedition. Hannah had awakened at four along with Daddy, Uncle Randy, and Papa Lyle. Her daughter was becoming an old-fashioned country girl—delighted with new adventure and the open space. It was going to be difficult to integrate her back into the confined classrooms of her religious Jewish day school. The only thing that Rina had going for her was that Hannah sorely missed her two best friends, Ariella and Esther Ruthie Chaya.