“So are mine. And my father isn’t even Jewish. I was very offended by her statement. Then there’s this side of me…I was embarrassed by looking so Jewish, because Jewish girls don’t have a reputation for being hotties. That’s why I got the nose pierce. You probably think that’s awful, right?”

He did think it was awful. Awful and an awful shame. But he tried to keep his face neutral. “Feelings aren’t awful.”

She wasn’t buying. “Not true. Self-destructive feelings are very awful.”

Decker softened his tone. “Do you know where Ruby Ranger lives?”

Lisa nodded. “With her parents. Are you going to go talk to her?”

“Definitely,” Decker said. “But it didn’t come from you, all right?”

“She’ll think it came from Jake. He hated her. Every time she walked in the room, he’d leave. She once confronted him…something about him living an outdated life. That was a mistake! Wow, he got real scar—”

She suddenly shut down.

Jake got real scary, she had wanted to say. Decker would bring it up with him, a task he dreaded. The father part of him just didn’t have the energy to deal with another crisis. But the cop part kept pushing him on. He folded his notebook. “Thank you. You’ve been helpful.”

“Maybe I’ve been helpful to you,” she said. “But I certainly have not been helpful to Jake or to Ruby.”

He was minutes away from the shul. But his head was still spinning from what Lisa Halloway had just told him. He decided to make a quick pit stop at home. Be a concerned father and check up on his children. Besides, the longer car ride to his house would give him a few more minutes of thinking time.

How to approach Ruby Ranger. At twenty-two, she was not a minor, but he imagined that her parents still exercised monetary control over her. If he could get them on his side, maybe that would give him an in with Ruby. Still, if the young woman were so strongly opinionated with such outrageous ideas, it indicated that she wasn’t dominated by her parents. The age, early to mid twenties, was unpredictable.

It was getting late. The best thing was to wait until tomorrow. Maybe he’d have some other clever idea as to how to approach her. Maybe if she enjoyed baiting people, baiting a cop would be a big kick for her. He’d play dumb. If she hated Jacob, it would be even more of a kick to mess up his cop father.

Which brought him back to his stepson. After fifteen years of having a no-fuss, no-hassle kid, he was getting paid back in spades. Jacob was moody, sullen, and sarcastic. But scary? The kid never failed to surprise him.