“Then she’ll find out about my stupidity. Frankly, who needs the friction? Besides, it was neat…being on the edge like that. It had a certain pulse.”
“You talk as if you enjoyed it, Yonkeleh.”
“A little…a lot, actually.”
“Don’t say that!” Decker cried out. “You’ll give your mother a heart attack.”
“So we won’t tell my mother that, either. Another little secret.” He sighed. “Lord knows we’ve had enough of them over the past couple of years.”
Decker threw his hand over his son’s shoulder. Jacob was so young, yet weighted down. “I know I have zero credibility with you, but you’ll be all right. It’ll work out, Yonkeleh.”
“Sure it will.”
“It will. All you need is a brilliant, stunningly beautiful, wonderful, Jewish, religious girl with a sexy body and an overactive libido.”
“Right!”
“They do exist—”
“No, Dad, they don’t exist!”
“Oh, they do.” A slow smile spread across Decker’s face. He raised his eyebrows. “Believe me, they do.”
Jacob stared at him. “Eeeuw!”
“Eeeuw?”
“Yes, eeeuw. Stop smiling like that! That’s my mother!”
“We all come into the world the same way, Yonkel, both prince and bastard—”
“Stop! I love my mother!”
“I love your mother, too. Just a little bit…differently than you do—”
“Oh, gross!” He stalked off toward the car.
Decker smiled broadly, sticking his hands into his pants pockets. Poor Jacob. He thought he had invented sex.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Malka Hier and the staff at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. May you go from strength to strength.
About the Author
FAYE KELLERMAN introduced L.A. cop Peter Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus, to the mystery world nineteen years ago. Since then she has published fifteen Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Forgotten and Stalker. She is also the author of Moon Music, a contemporary thriller set in Las Vegas, and The Quality of Mercy, an historical novel of Elizabethan England. Ms. Kellerman lives in California with her husband, noted author Jonathan Kellerman, and their four children, three dogs, and fish too numerous to count.
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Also by Faye Kellerman
RITUAL BATH
SACRED AND PROFANE
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
MILK AND HONEY
DAY OF ATONEMENT
FALSE PROPHET
GRIEVOUS SIN
SANCTUARY
JUSTICE
PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD
SERPENT’S TOOTH
MOON MUSIC
JUPITER’S BONES
STALKER
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE FORGOTTEN. Copyright © 2001 by Faye Kellerman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JUNE 2007 ISBN: 9780061841415
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