Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [2]
“Is she okay?”
“Seems to be.” A shrug. “She asked me how I was.” Behind his glasses, his eyes were gazing at a distant place. “I told her I was fine and not to worry . . . that everything was cool. Then I signed off.” He shrugged again. “I didn’t feel like making chitchat. Tell you the truth, I’d rather she not contact me. Is that terrible?”
“No, it’s understandable.” Rina sighed. “It’ll take a lot of bridge building before you get some trust—”
“That’s not gonna happen. It’s not that I have anything against her. I wish her well. I just don’t want to talk to her.”
“Fair enough. But try to keep an open mind. When she contacts you again, maybe give her a few more seconds of your time. Not for her sake, but for yours.”
“If she contacts me again.”
“She will, Gabriel. You know that.”
“I don’t know anything. I’m sure she’s busy with the baby and all.”
“One child isn’t a substitute for another—”
“Thanks for the pep talk, Rina, but I really don’t care. I barely think about her.” But of course, he did all the time. “The baby needs her way more than I do.” He smiled and patted her head. “Besides, I’ve got a pretty good substitute right here.”
“Your mom is still your mom. And one day, you’ll see that. But thank you very much for the nice words.”
Gabe returned his eyes to the newspaper article. “Wow, the boy was local.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Do you know the family?”
“No.”
“So like . . . does the lieutenant investigate cases like this?”
“Only if the coroner has questions about whether it was a suicide.”
“How can the coroner tell?”
“I really don’t know. You can ask Peter when he gets home.”
“When’s he coming home?”
“Sometime between now and dawn. Do you want to go out to the deli for dinner?”
Gabe’s eyes lit up. “Can I drive?”
“Yes, you can drive. While we’re there, let’s pick up a sandwich and take it to the Loo. If I don’t bring him food, he doesn’t eat.”
Gabe put down the paper. “Can I shower first? I’m a little sweaty.”
“Of course.”
Gabe could tell that Rina was still evaluating him. Unlike his father, he wasn’t an adroit liar. He said, “You worry too much. I’m fine.”
“I believe you.” Rina mussed his hair, damp with perspiration. “Go shower. It’s almost seven and I’m starving.”
“You bet.” Gabe smiled to himself. He had just used one of the Loo’s favorite expressions. He had been with the Deckers for almost a year and certain things just filtered in. He became aware of hunger pangs. It had just taken time for his stomach to calm down for his brain to get the message that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that he was famished.
It’s not that he had a nervous gut. But guns did strange things to his digestive system.
Completely unlike his dad.
Chris Donatti never met a firearm he didn’t like.
Chapter Two
Since the Hammerling case was aired on the TV show Fugitive, Decker had been getting calls, most of them dead ends. Still, he made it a habit to probe every single lead no matter how inane the tip. A serial killer was on the loose, and there was no such thing as half-assed investigation. The current tip was a spotting in the New Mexican desert in a small blip of a town somewhere between Roswell—known for its close encounters with UFOs—and Carlsbad, known for its network of underground caves. In the middle of nowhere was always a great place to hide out. Plus that region was in a direct line to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where, by some estimates, there had been more than twenty thousand murders in the past decade. The vast majority of the dead had been participants in vicious drug wars. But there was also a large minority of young female victims, possibly five thousand of them, called feminicidios, most between the ages of twelve and twenty-five, with no apparent connection to one another. The Mexicans’ penchant for violence would provide convenient cover for someone like Garth Hammerling if he could avoid getting killed himself.
Decker raked fingers through his thick head of hair, which retained some