“No, not in the car. Your wife said I can come back in an hour to talk to your son.”

Carter was silent.

“Or…” Decker tried, “I can wait here until Brook arrives. And you can go pick up your boy.”

Carter shook his head in confusion, tears in his eyes. “I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”

“Honestly? There’s nothing you can say or do for your wife at this moment. She’s in a state of shock. Your son will need you. And he’ll remember who came to pick him up. If you’re too unsteady to drive, I’ll send a car out for you.”

“I can drive.” Carter checked his pockets, then pulled out his car keys. “The school is ten minutes from here. I can make it.”

Decker nodded.

“You’ll wait here for Brook?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll tell her?”

“Yes, if you want me to.”

“Yes, I think…” He brushed back tears. “I suppose I’ll have to call my siblings as well. I have two younger brothers.” His wet eyes were frozen in grief. “Thank God, my parents are dead.”

Karl was also broad across the chest and had iron-pumper arms, indicating to Decker that somewhere in the ectomorphic Golding lineage was a rampant mesomorphic gene. His face was fairer, but his complexion was rumpled like tapioca pudding. No beard growth yet, so lumps and bumps were visible in all their glory. His eyes were bluer than his brother’s, swimming in a sea of red. His nose was also red. He peered at Decker, but nothing registered in his eyes. It was as if Decker were inanimate.

Decker said, “Just a few questions, Karl. Tell me when you’ve had enough.”

“Okay.” It was a whisper. “It’s important that we talk now?”

“Yes.”

The boy averted his gaze. “All right.”

They were sitting on a leather couch in the boy’s bedroom, as spacious as Decker’s living room. It held the same plaster adobe-colored walls as the rest of the house and was furnished very sparsely—a bed, a desk and computer, a TV on a stand, bookshelves containing more videos than the printed word. With the air-conditioning on full-tilt, the place was crypt cold.

Decker said, “First off, let me tell you how sorry I am.”

Tears leaked from the fifteen-year-old’s eyes. He rubbed them away.

“Your brother said a lot of things to me in confidence,” Decker continued. “Things that bothered him, and things that bothered me. I’m wondering if he expressed the same concerns to you.”

Karl looked up from his lap. “Like what?”

“Ernesto spoke to me about some of the fantasies he was having. Did he ever speak to you about them?”

The moments ticked on. One…two…three…four…

The boy whispered, “What fantasies?”