Decker was quiet, feeling drained and sick. He was at least five inches taller and outweighed Jacob by sixty, seventy pounds. He was not only a failure as a father, but also a failure as a human being. Still, he had a job to do, which he supposed made him a decent cop. One out of three, pretty good odds in baseball.

Jacob patted his hand. “I mean it, Dad. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Decker said, “Is there anything you remember about your location?”

“Yeah. That was the point of this whole awful thing. As we were riding home, I saw a street sign—Herald Way. About five minutes, maybe ten minutes later we were back on Devonshire. If I had been driving back then, I would have noticed more. But this was before I had my driver’s license. I didn’t know the streets like I do now.”

“How old were you?”

“About two months shy of sixteen. She was about twenty-two. Pretty heady stuff, huh. Obviously, she got off on younger boys—me, Ernesto, there were probably others.”

Consistent with what Erin had told him. Decker said, “She took you somewhere in the mountains, but not far from town.”

“Yeah.”

“If I drove you around up there, do you think you might remember more?”

“Possibly.”

Decker stood up. “Then let’s go for a ride.”

“What about Hannah?”

“You know where Sammy is?”

“Yeah.”

“Call him and tell him to come home to baby-sit. This takes precedence.”

“I could call up Eema—”

“Don’t do that!” Decker found his voice had risen. “She’d kill me if she found out I was taking you house hunting for a maniac.” His eyes went to his son’s cheek. “She’d also kill me for other reasons. I’m a first-class jerk sometimes!”

“Join the club.” He got up from his chair. “Forget it, Peter. I’ve been riding you pretty hard this last year. Whatever went on here will stay between us.”

Decker couldn’t remember the last time the boy had called him Peter. The anger was still there. He said, “While you’re calling Sammy, I’ll call up Webster and Martinez. I want some professional lookout riding with us. Besides, maybe they’ll know where the hell Herald Way is.”

35

It showed up on the map as a tiny vein that bled into the mountains. According to the latest L.A. street atlas, Herald Way did boast a single listed cross street—a bigger road but only in the comparative sense—called Manor Lane. Bert Martinez drove; Tom Webster sat shotgun, with his hand grazing against the butt of his holstered gun. In the back, Decker was belted in, but kept leaning his body over his stepson, covering him like a woolen overcoat. The valley daytime temperatures had reached triple digits, and the night remained warm and stuffy. Jacob was sweating under his father’s weight.

“Dad, I can’t breathe.”