He zoomed in on the figure of the man he suspected was Jasper Ford. “Damn!” He’d hoped for a voilá!, for an unmistakable image of the man living next door.
But the improved color density had sharpened the contrast between the brilliant sunset and the male figure silhouetted against it. His features remained dark and indiscernible. His hair wasn’t a sleek ponytail, but a wreath of frizzy curls. The nose in profile? It could possibly be Jasper’s, but Drex couldn’t swear to it, and, besides, he could have had rhinoplasty. Even a slight alteration could make a significant difference in his appearance.
He studied the close-up for several minutes before admitting that if there was something new and revelatory to see, he was missing it.
He returned the photo to its original size, sat back in his chair, and took it in as a whole, wondering what it was in particular that Mike and Gif had wanted him to see. Little of the yacht itself was visible in the picture, and Drex didn’t see anything of consequence from what was shown. The enhancement hadn’t changed Marian Harris’s image that dramatically. There was nothing to see in the background except for the blazing sky.
The partygoers? The doctored chromaticity had deepened some hues, lightened others, making it easier to delineate forms within the mishmash of faces and limbs. Individuals were now distinguishable. One in particular on the fringe of the crowd caught Drex’s eye because of a slender shaft of light shining on her hair and—
And matching it to the golds and reds that threaded through the sunset.
He sat perfectly still for a long time because he was too sickened to move. He could only stare at the face, which was out of focus, but dreamworthy, unquestionably lovely, and indisputably identifiable.
He got his voilá!, after all.
Chapter 11
Starting from the time he received that initial call from Deputy Gray in Key West, it took Rudkowski three days to find the hotel.
During that seventy-two hours, he’d pulled together every resource at his disposal in an attempt to tree Drex Easton without causing too much of a stir. He wanted to keep the higher-ups unaware that Easton was at it again.
The son of a bitch.
Rudkowski was tempted to let him move forward without intervention. Why not sit back in his La-Z-Boy, overdose on ESPN, and allow Easton to self-destruct? Rudkowski’s life would be simpler once Easton was completely wiped off the landscape.
But in the process of destroying himself, Easton would create a shit storm. Some of it was bound to blow back on Rudkowski. He wasn’t one of those rah-rah, diehard agents who thought the FBI was an exalted company of which he was fortunate to be a member. He wasn’t a blindly loyal disciple of the bureau.
He was, however, fanatically devoted to his pension.
He didn’t give Easton the satisfaction of calling Mike Mallory or Gifford Lewis, demanding to know where the hell he was and what he was up to. His cronies would report straight back to him that Rudkowski was on the warpath, and Easton would get a kick out of that. Even more, he would enjoy knowing that, so far, he was winning this current game of hide-and-seek.
But Rudkowski had agents surreptitiously keeping a close watch on Mallory and Lewis. For the past three days, they had reported for work as usual. After office hours, each had gone directly home. Neither was married, both lived alone, they seemed not to have any social life or any friends except for each other and Easton. On the surface they appeared to be the two biggest dullards on the face of the earth.
Rudkowski wasn’t fooled. He sensed that behind the closed doors of their drab apartments, they toiled into the wee hours, diligently working underground for their ringleader, Easton.
Rudkowski would continue to have their activities monitored, although he knew it was futile. Neither of the men was likely to make a slip-up, and neither would betray Drex Easton, not even if his life depended on it.
Rudkowski knew that because there had been a time when their lives had depended on it, and neither had caved.
Twice over the course of the past three days, Rudkowski had called Deputy Gray in Key West to inquire if he had heard anything more from Easton. He hadn’t. Rudkowski pulled rank and got a sergeant in the sheriff’s department down there to see if he could retrieve the telephone number that had called there twice on Sunday, the calls several hours apart. It took a while, but the sergeant came through and passed the number along to Rudkowski.
It was a short-lived victory, because when Rudkowski called the number, he got a recording telling him that the call couldn’t be completed as dialed. Unsurprising, really, considering the savvy bastard he was dealing with. Easton would have destroyed that phone within minutes of speaking with Gray.
Miracles did happen, however. Rudkowski’s shrinking belief in them was fully restored just that morning soon after he had arrived at his office. Another agent who’d been helping him on his search popped in. “You still on Easton’s tail?”
“What have you got?”
“That last cell number you had for him?”
“No longer good.”
“Not any more, but it was nine days ago. He sent a text from it.”
“To who?”
“Mike Mallory.”
“Shocker. From where?”
“A chain hotel in Lexington. I got the address.”
Rudkowski signed out for the remainder of the day and recruited another agent to drive him the seventy-something miles from Louisville to Lexington. When they reached their destination, Rudkowski left the second agent waiting in the car, preferring to handle this interview alone.
When the double automatic doors opened, a group of uniformed men and women filed past him pulling roll-aboards toward a waiting van. Flight crew, Rudkowski figured. Their departure left the lobby empty.
The receptionist greeted him as he approached the check-in desk. “Good afternoon, sir.”
“Hi.” He produced his badge and gave the young woman time to read his name on his ID. “It’s pronounced just like it’s spelled, short u. I need to speak to the manager, please.”
“She’s at lunch. She left me in charge.”
He leaned across the counter and read her name tag. “Ms. Li?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m here to ask about a guest—”
“Special Agent Easton?”
Rudkowski scowled. “How’d you know?”
“Because he’s the only FBI agent I’ve checked in.” She beamed a smile. “He’d be hard to forget anyway, because he was so nice.”
Rudkowski wanted to grind his teeth. “Yeah. Hell of a guy.”
“Are you—”
He cut her off. “I’ll ask the questions, Ms. Li. If you don’t mind.”
Her warm smile turned cooler. She bobbed her head.
“How many nights did he stay?”
“He didn’t.”
“He checked in but didn’t stay?”
“They were here for only a couple of hours. But Mr. Easton paid for a full day.”
“‘They’? Did he bring a woman?”
“Nothing like that,” she said, her lips pursing primly. “He was here for a meeting with two associates.”
“Mallory and Lewis?”
“I didn’t get their names.”