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Chapter26
DECKER HAD JUST SETTLEDinto his bed.
His arrest and the bail hearing had shaken him more than he cared to show. With someone like Childress breathing down his neck, solving this case was going to be even harder. And it was difficult enough as it was.
He rolled over and punched his pillow, shaping it to be more comfortable.
Decker’s memory—his albatross and gold mine all in one. It allowed him incredible tools to successfully do what he did, but also imprisoned him within an indestructible cell of recollections any other human being could simply allow time to extinguish.
He was actually glad Lancaster had had to recuse herselfand Jamison had gone back to the FBI. Better to suffer this alone. After this case, he might just chuck the FBI and move off somewhere by himself. Well, he might not have a choice about that, actually. He knew Bogart was growing weary of his constantly going off on his own cases. The FBI was many things, and a bureaucracy with rules and ways of doing things was one of the main ones. Decker couldn’t keep bucking that bureaucracy and those rules without suffering the consequences.
So it might just be me going it alone after this.
This admittedly self-pitying analysis came to an abrupt halt when the knock came at his door.
Groaning, he looked at his watch.
It was nearly eleven o’clock.
He turned over and closed his eyes.
Knock, knock.
He ignored it.
Then pounding followed.
He jumped out of bed, slid on his pants, padded across the small room to the door, and flung it open, ready to read the riot act to whoever was there. And if it was Natty, to perhaps do more than that.
It was not Natty.
Instead, there stood Melvin Mars—all nearly six-foot-three, two hundred and forty chiseled pounds of him.
Decker was so taken aback that he blinked and then closed his eyes for a full second. When he reopened them, Mars was still there.
Mars chuckled at this. “No, I’m not a dream, Decker, or a nightmare.”
The pair, rivals from their college football days,had run into each other again when Mars, aHeisman Trophy finalistand lock to be a first-round NFL pick as a running back from Texas, had been sitting on death row for murder when another man had come forward claiming to have committed the crimes. This revelation had come on the very eve of Mars’s execution.
Decker had helped to prove Mars’s innocence, and Mars was given a full pardon and a huge monetary reward from both the federal government and the state of Texas as compensation for the erroneous guilty verdict as well as the racist and brutal treatment Mars had received at the hands of his prison guards. He owned the apartment building in D.C. where Decker and Jamison lived, leasing apartments out to those hardworking folks who otherwise could not afford rental prices in the capital with its high cost of living. He had been dating a woman whom they all had encountered during a previous investigation. Harper Brown worked for military intelligence. Unlike Mars, she came from money, but the two of them hit it off immediately. The last Decker had heard they were vacationing somewhere in the Mediterranean.
“What the hell are you doing here?” said Decker.
“Just happened to find myself in the area.”
Decker looked at him skeptically. “Alex called you and told you to come here and watch over me, didn’t she? Because she couldn’t.”
“If I lied and said no, would it matter?”
“Come on in.” He closed the door behind Mars, who took a look around.
“Man, the FBI must have a pretty hefty per diem to let you stay in a luxury place like this. Couple levels above the Ritz.”
“This actually used to be my home.”
“I get that, Decker. My prison cell in Texas was a lot smaller and it didn’t have a window.”
“Do you have a place to stay? This only has the one bed.”
