And I will miss the woman every minute of every day. Because she understood me better than anyone other than my wife. And she was my friend.
As Decker stared out at the water, he began to wonder what his new partner’s kids looked like. Whether they took after their mom. And he thought of Donte, the child she had lost. And whether White’s mother would actually like him when they met. And whether she really was a good cook. And what the next case they would work on might be about. And about how Freddie White might become just as good a friend to him as Mary Lancaster had been.
And me to her.
Just regular stuff that people thought about every day.
That was the thing about life. You actually had to spend time living it.
Or else what the hell did any of it really matter?
So he sat there with his beer and his thoughts and watched the river cruise on by.
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Acknowledgments
To Michelle, the ride continues and I’m so happy you allowed me to come along for it!
To Michael Pietsch, Ben Sevier, Elizabeth Kulhanek, Jonathan Valuckas, Matthew Ballast, Beth de Guzman, Ana Maria Allessi, Rena Kornbluh, Karen Kosztolnyik, Brian McLendon, Albert Tang, Andy Dodds, Ivy Cheng, Joseph Benincase, Alexis Gilbert, Andrew Duncan, Janine Perez, Lauren Sum, Morgan Martinez, Bob Castillo, Kristen Lemire, Briana Kuchta, Mark Steven Long, Marie Mundaca, Rachael Kelly, Kirsiah McNamara, Lisa Cahn, John Colucci, Megan Fitzpatrick, Nita Basu, Alison Lazarus, Barry Broadhead, Martha Bucci, Ali Cutrone, Raylan Davis, Tracy Dowd, Melanie Freedman, Elizabeth Blue Guess, Linda Jamison, John Leary, John Lefler, Rachel Hairston, Tishana Knight, Jennifer Kosek, Suzanne Marx, Derek Meehan, Christopher Murphy, Donna Nopper, Rob Philpott, Barbara Slavin, Karen Torres, Rich Tullis, Mary Urban, Tracy Williams, Julie Hernandez, Laura Shepherd, Maritza Lumpris, Jeff Shay, Carla Stockalper, Ky’ron Fitzgerald, and everyone at Grand Central Publishing. Every day you toil away not just to publish and promote my books, but those of so many others. You make the world a better place, because books make people more informed and engaged.
To Aaron and Arleen Priest, Lucy Childs, Lisa Erbach Vance, Frances Jalet-Miller, and Kristen Pini, for always going the extra mile for me.
To Mitch Hoffman, for understanding Amos Decker almost as well as I do.
To Jeremy Trevathan, Lucy Hale, Trisha Jackson, Stuart Dwyer, Leanne Williams, Alex Saunders, Sara Lloyd, Claire Evans, Eleanor Bailey, Laura Sherlock, Jonathan Atkins, Christine Jones, Andy Joannou, Charlotte Williams, Rebecca Kellaway, Charlotte Cross, Lucy Grainger, Lucy Jones, and Neil Lang at Pan Macmillan, for continuing to push the boundaries on how books are published and promoted.
To Praveen Naidoo and the wonderful team at Pan Macmillan in Australia, who have made me a number one bestseller.
To Caspian Dennis and Sandy Violette, can’t wait to see you in person again. It’s been too long.
To the charity auction winners, Julia Cummins （National Multiple Sclerosis Society） and Kasimira Roe （The Mark Twain House & Museum）， I hope you enjoyed your characters.
To Arthur Dykes, I hope you enjoyed your character—and his full head of hair. Thanks for all your great work over the years.
And to Kristen White and Michelle Butler, who keep me sane!