“Probably female, from the size. The face is messed up, and we can’t move anything else until the coroner comes.”

“Is the body nude or is there clothing?”

“Some rotting clothing. Looks like jeans, plaid shirt, sneakers.”

A flight attendant named Nurit came over. “Everything okay, sir?”

Decker looked up at her. “Yes, thank you.”

Nurit swallowed. “The woman across the aisle overheard you talk about corpses. I think it’s upsetting her.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Tyler asked.

“No, not you.” Decker smiled at the flight attendant. “I’m a police detective. I’ll finish up the conversation.” To McAdams: “I have to go.”

“Don’t worry, boss, I have it covered.”

Decker hung up. Rina had rematerialized. She was standing over him. “You are not going back.”

“No, I’m not going back,” Decker said.

“I hope this won’t ruin our vacation.”

“When we land, I’ll give you my laptop and phone. How’s that for commitment?”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Rina said. More announcements. “I have to sit down.” She kissed the top of Peter’s head. “And remember to take your Ambien as soon as we’re in the air. It’ll help with jet lag. I’ll see you in the Holy Land.”

“A new adventure,” Decker said.

“A new adventure.” Rina mussed his hair and left.

Three hours later, Rina was sound asleep. Decker, on the other hand, was stretched out with his eyes wide open, with a ton of thoughts whirling around in his brain. He probably would have been sleeping if he had taken the pill, but he had chosen not to.

You can take the man out of the investigation, but you can’t take the investigation out of the man.

He had promised Rina to unplug from work when they landed. She deserved that. But why toss and turn for hours when the solution to his insomnia was at hand? Quietly, he stood and took down his laptop from the overhead compartment. After booting up, he looked at his options for buying the plane’s internet. He thought about the thirty-minute plan. Just a few quick questions and then he’d turn off the noise. But an unknown force led his fingers to choose the two-hour plan. He typed in Tyler’s email address.

He wrote:

I’m signing off on all my electronics when we land.

But for now, I’m up and I can’t sleep.

Tell me everything that’s going on.

CHAPTER 1

THIS WAS HOW I remembered it, after gaining consciousness, lying on the floor, bloodied and battered.