Long Shadows: From the number one bestselling author (Amos Decker series Book 7)

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It’s so difficult to understand time, Amos, night and then day. But then, everything is very difficult for me to understand right now. And…it’s so very frightening because…every day there seems to…be less and less of me…th-there.” Mary? Mary!” he shouted into the phone. When no response came, his energy wilted. Why are you screaming? She’s gone. You know she is. She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. She said, “I just remembered her before I called you. And only because I looked at a photo with her name on it. I forgot I had a daughter, Amos. For a time there was no Sandy Lancaster in existence for me. Can you understand how…terrible that is?” What about tomorrow?” she said, interrupting these thoughts. “Will I remember her tomorrow? Or Earl? Or you? Or…me? So what does it matter? Can you tell me that?”

Mary Lancaster, at least in her mind, could not have committed a graver sin than not remembering that her daughter existed. He was certain that was what had placed the finger on the trigger and given her the strength to pull it. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. He said the words he needed to say to his wife and child, and then rose from the cold ground and glanced to the left. There was an empty plot there. He and Lancaster had successfully partnered on many cases. Having a perfect memory was a godsend for a detective, but a thousand-pound ball-and-chain for a human being. Time did not heal any of his past miseries. If anything, they were more intensified.They went to visit Earl’s mother in Cleveland. She’s not doing well. Probably won’t be long for this world. She’s old, and gaga like me, actually.” He sighed as the tragic sincerity of her words hit him especially hard. “I know, Mary. I understand why you feel that way.”

He knew exactly what she was referring to. “It seems to,” he answered. “But everyone’s mind changes, Mary, healthy or not. Nothing is static. Normal or not, whatever normal is.” Since I pretty much can’t forget anything, it’s not likely I’d forget you, is it, Mary?” He patted himself on both cheeks, working to remove the fuzziness from his mind. Then his thoughts settled on the timing of the call, which was in itself a warning. He was about to speak again, to convince her to wait for help. He had his lines ready. He was about to deliver them. They would make her put the gun down, he was sure of it. My only gripe with Baldacci's books is that there inevitably comes a point when they're over, and that he only publishes two of them a year. I always enjoy reading Baldacci, and this one was the best in a while among many excellent ones. But also not alike,” she retorted in a tone she hadn’t used before. It was an escalation of sorts, at least he took it that way.He had gone there the month before for some routine tests, which they had done on him annually ever since he had been there as a patient after his football injury. He had served justice in both cases, but it was, without doubt, a hollow outcome, marred by the fact that the justice was delivered too late for the victims. No amount of justice could return the dead to the living; the satisfaction gained from learning the truth was dwarfed by the loss.