Gif could tell that Locke was beginning to feel the pressure of what this turnabout with Talia meant to him. He would get a lot of departmental backlash for losing a material witness and possible suspect.

In addition to that, Rudkowski was going to blow a gasket. He would require appeasement, and the only appeasement that would satisfy him would be to have Drex’s head served on a platter.

Above all, Locke was confounded by what Drex had done, which to the detective would seem outlandish. It didn’t fit his code of professional conduct or conform to the rules of law enforcement.

Gif took pity. “Detective, listen. Drex isn’t playing a dirty trick on you, although it may feel like that. I guarantee that somehow he’ll make it up to you. Menundez, too. Believe me, he wouldn’t have surrendered his badge unless he was convinced that it was the best, maybe only, course of action left to him. Something compelled him to whisk Talia out of here, or he wouldn’t have done it.

“Don’t make the mistake of discrediting him, or questioning his commitment to capturing the serial criminal we acquainted you with last night. Drex has never been this close to getting him, and he won’t squander the chance. He’ll go for broke. He’ll go to any lengths, even if it means his own downfall.”

With reluctance, and what sounded like grudging respect, the detective said, “I sensed all that. The guy’s passionate. But you’ve worked with him for a long time. I just met him. Has he ever done anything this out of line before?”

Gif looked over at Mike, who gave a shrug that said Locke would hear of Drex’s shenanigans sooner or later. Gif said, “I’m sure Agent Rudkowski will be all too glad to fill you in.”

“I’ll relay this latest news to him on our way there.”

Gif started. “You’re coming here?”

“Rudkowski had already made up his mind not to wait on Easton to deliver Mrs. Ford. He was coming to the house to question her. After I break this news to him—”

“Duck when you tell him,” Mike said.

“—he’ll want to begin the search for her where she was last seen. How will he react to Easton’s resignation?”

“With glee. And he’ll want to kill him for pulling this stunt. I’m glad it’s you, not me, who has to tell him. Good luck. We’ll see you when you get here.” Gif clicked off.

“Poor guy.”

Mike had his back to the room, looking out the front window. In a low rumble, and a rare show of empathy, he said, “Chalk up another victim to this son of a bitch.”

“Number nine.”

“Shit, Gif.”

He sighed. “Yeah. And we have no way of knowing how many we’ve missed.”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

Gif said, “I’ll text Drex about the coroner’s ruling. It won’t come as a shock. He already knew.” He sent the text to the last cell number he had for Drex, not knowing if that phone was still in existence.

The news about Elaine Conner had cast a pall over him and Mike. They maintained a lengthy silence, then Mike snorted with his customary disdain. “Those two uniforms are searching the bushes across the street.” They had asked the two young officers who’d been guarding the house to take a look around the immediate neighborhood for a sign of Drex and Talia. “Do they really think they’re going to find them in the thicket?”

It was a rhetorical question, which Gif didn’t bother answering. Mike turned away from the window and posed another. “How the hell did they disappear in such a short amount of time on foot? Even for Drex, it was slick as owl shit.”

“She knows the neighborhood, and you can bet he has committed it to memory in the time he’s been here. He got to my motel the other night by jogging to a local mini-mart and calling Uber. I dropped him back there the next morning.”

“Should we drive over, check it out?”

“He wouldn’t use the same location, and I doubt he’d use the same method.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Mike said. “I only suggested it because I’ve got nothing else.”

Gif did some rough calculation in his head. “When I came through the kitchen, they were nose-to-nose in conversation.”

“Was she still in her pajamas?”

“Yes, but they had a good ten, twelve minutes after I joined you,” Gif said.

“Enough time for them to make their getaway while we were waiting for peeing cops and fetching Nutter Butters. Jesus,” Mike said, ridiculing his own gullibility. “How did he talk you into leaving him alone with her?”

“He didn’t. I volunteered to check on you.”

“You only thought you volunteered,” Mike said. “You were manipulated.”

Gif shot him a grim smile. “And here just last night, he told me that we were too smart for him.”

“Not this morning, we weren’t.”

“What worries me?” Gif said, idly scratching his frowning forehead. “This time he might have been too smart for his own good.”

“Worries me, too,” Mike said. “I told you the woman was a hazard to Drex’s thinking. He’s off to God knows where with her, which, mark my words, will lead to nothing good. Not only that, he’s left us to Rudkowski.”

Gif’s gaze shifted to the cookbook still on the dining table. “He also left us with an assignment.”

The envelope addressed to Rudkowski was waiting for him on the dining table. He fingered the mocking note from Drex as he glared at the two young police officers who’d served as guards the night before.

“Where are they?”

His bellow made one of the officers jump. “We don’t know, sir. We’ve been combing the neighborhood. A lady down the street knows Mrs. Ford, but she—”

“Not them,” Rudkowski barked. “Mallory and Lewis.”

“Oh. They left. About—” The officer consulted his partner, who said, “Twenty minutes ago. About.”

Rudkowski looked over at Locke. “You told them we were on our way?”

“Lewis said they would see us when we got here.”

Rudkowski walked a tight circle, holding onto his temper by a thread. When he came back around to the young policemen, he asked, “Did they happen to say where they were going?”

“To meet you.”

“What car did they leave in?”

“Must’ve been Lewis’s. He was driving.”

“Did you happen to get a license plate number?”

“No, sir, b-but why would we?”

Menundez stepped forward. “Signals got mixed is all.”

Rudkowski’s blood pressure spiked. “After everything I told you on the drive here about this trio, you think mixed signals is the reason Mallory and Lewis have also flown the coop?”

Locke came to his younger partner’s defense. “They may have heard from Easton and had to leave in a hurry. Before we jump to conclusions, why don’t you call them?”

Rudkowski snapped his fingers. “Good idea. Why don’t you?”

Locke bobbed his head at Menundez. As the younger detective moved away to follow the directive, he shot Rudkowski a look of contempt, which Rudkowski ignored. “You two,” he said to the uniformed officers, “get back to what you were doing, which was precious little.”