“Gif and I were debating what to do about you when Locke and Menundez showed up. The transmitter was too far away to pick up what they were saying until you moved into the kitchen. For all we knew, they’d come to arrest you. We know now they asked you to make an ID.”

“If you already know all that, why are you bringing it up?”

“The time gap. Surveillance cameras show you leaving the airport at four forty-seven.”

“Eight,” Mike said.

Drex gave him a frown but corrected himself. “Four forty-eight. Talia, where were you between then and ten o’clock?”

“Does it matter?”

“It’ll matter to Locke, Menundez, and every other investigator on this case, county, state, and federal, including our own Bill Rudkowski.”

Mike said, “It’ll matter a lot if, during that five hours, you hooked back up with your husband, say on the beach, where you were flashing a light so he would know where to make landfall after ensuring that Elaine Conner was no longer breathing.”

Talia was developing a tremendous dislike for this man, and hoped that the drop-dead look she gave him conveyed as much. She went back Drex. “From the airport I drove downtown.”

“And did what?”

“Walked around.”

“Such a nice night for a stroll,” Mike said. “In the drizzle and rain and all.”

“I was unmindful of the weather.”

None of the men took issue, but they were regarding her with patent doubt.

“Where did you walk?” Drex asked.

“Along Bay Street. I went into a restaurant and lingered.”

“Lingered, why?”

“There was no rush to get home. I believed Jasper had gone to Atlanta.”

The men looked at one another and seemed to conclude that her answer was at least credible, if not truthful.

“Where did you park downtown?” Gif asked.

“I got lucky and found an empty parallel spot on one of the side streets.”

“Fucking lucky, I’d say,” Mike muttered.

Her temper snapped. “I’ve had it with you and your snide editorials. If you want to accuse me of lying, do it. If not, stop with the mumbling, all right?”

Drex patted the air in a calm down gesture and suggested that Mike dispense with his remarks unless they were pertinent. He asked Talia for the name of the restaurant. She told him.

“The waiter will remember me. I had two glasses of wine and ordered dinner. But I didn’t have an appetite and never touched the plate. The waiter noticed and asked if the food wasn’t to my liking. He offered to bring me something else. I declined, tipped him well, and left.”

“Did you pay with a credit card?”

“Yes.”

Drex turned to Gif. “Relay all that to Locke. Their guys can do the fact-checking.”

Gif left the room to make the call. Drex glanced at the clock. “Menundez texted that Rudkowski is going to interview you downtown at police headquarters.” He looked her over, taking in her dishabille. “You’ll need to be ready in twenty minutes or so in order for Mike and Gif to get you there by ten o’clock.” He pushed back his chair and stood.

“Aren’t you coming with us?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got other things to do.”

She stood up. “Such as?”

“Such as going after your husband without being hamstrung by red tape. Good luck.”

“Wait. What’s going to happen with this Rudkowski?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Guess,” she said tartly.

“Well, if I were to guess, he’ll spend most of today taking turns grilling you hard, then leaving you alone for long stretches of time to search your conscience, to ruminate on and perhaps reassess your position. Don’t say a word unless a lawyer is with you.”

“You’re worried about my welfare?”

“No, I’m worried about testimony being tossed out because it was obtained without counsel present. Rudkowski may claim you as the feds’ own, but if Locke is also allowed to interrogate you, he’ll be the good cop. Menundez is young and yet to prove himself, so you can probably count on him to be tougher. But you probably won’t see anyone familiar. Except your lawyer. I hope you have a good one.”

“What about them?” She indicated Mike, who was inspecting what was left of the doughnut selection, and Gif, who’d just returned and announced that Rudkowski’s plane had landed.

In answer to her question, Drex said, “The three of us are out of Rudkowski’s favor and unsure what form his payback will take. Could be a slap on the wrist, or much harsher discipline. Mike and Gif have volunteered to face his wrath and that of the bureau, giving me a head start tracking down your lawfully wedded husband.”

“Who could be dead!”

“He isn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. Furthermore, so do you, Talia.”

“I know no such thing.”

“Come on. You don’t believe for a second that he’s foundering out there in the ocean, praying for rescue. Know how we know? Tell her, Gif.”

The other man said, “If you thought that your husband was in a struggle to survive a watery grave, you would be hysterical.”

Drex rounded the table and bore down on her so that she had to grab hold of the back of her chair to maintain her balance. “Hysterical. As in out of your mind. Frantic. You’d be tearing at your hair and raising hell with the Coast Guard, with every damn body, to find him, save my husband.” He leaned in closer, and added softly, “You haven’t.”

She angled away from him, but he only made a countermove to keep his face within inches of hers. “When you were told there was a man at the helm of Elaine’s boat, and I was ruled out, it was no mystery to you who it was. Which leaves Mike, Gif, and me, and all the other cops working this case, with only two possible conclusions.

“One, you knew who the man was all along because you two conspired to kill Elaine. Or,” he said, slapping his palm against the file lying on the table, “you believe Jasper Ford is the latest incarnation of our man. You believe he harmed these eight women. Now nine. He befriended them, robbed them, killed them, and disposed of them.”

She hiccupped a sob. “I don’t want to believe it.”

“But you do, don’t you?”

Drex was stirring her long-held, secret fear that she didn’t really know her husband. Ambiguities and uncertainties, which she had staved off, rationalized, chalked up to an illicit affair, and even taken blame for, were now closing in on her. They were so cruel and frightening, she tried to keep them at bay. “What evidence do you have against him?”

“Not a frigging bit.”

“Then—”

“But answer me this. Do you honestly believe they’re going to find Jasper or his body? In a dire emergency, would your water-savvy husband have left a vessel as tricked out as that yacht? Even if their phones weren’t working, even if all fail-safe systems had failed, he wouldn’t have swapped that yacht for a damn dinghy.

“Do you actually expect him to come staggering through that door battered and bruised, embrace you, and give you an account of a harrowing experience? No. You don’t. You strike none of us as a lady who’s waiting in desperation for her missing and feared-dead husband to return.”