“You’re a detective, too?”

“Police chaplain.”

“Oh.”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble…”

“Well, sure. Sure.” The young attendant gave Gif a reassuring wink. “Of course you can go in, Mrs. Ford,” he said, speaking to her as though she were deranged. “I don’t think anyone’s in there. Weather’s keeping the golfers in the card room. But let me double-check. I’ll be right back.”

Gif commended her performance. Talia commended his. But as they left the country club, dejection settled over all four of them. Feeling dispirited down to his bones, Drex gave the responsibility of driving back to Gif, leaving him free to concentrate.

The abbreviated search of the house hadn’t yielded anything. The trip to the country club had been a bust. He had nothing to work with. Nothing. As before. As always. Jasper had left nothing behind to come back for. Except Talia.

He’d taken only a wedding photo and…and what?

He stirred, stilled, stirred again. “Talia, you and Jasper took roll-aboard suitcases to the airport, correct?”

“Yes.”

“One each?”

“Yes. To carry on.”

“Did you pack for him, or see what he packed?”

“No. By the time he came home from the club, I’d finished packing. I left our room to him and went down to the study to catch up on emails and business-related calls. I worked right up until time to leave for the airport.”

“Mike, in that security video showing Jasper getting into the taxi?”

“Yeah?”

“He had his roll-aboard with him, right?” Drex thought he remembered correctly, but he wanted to check Mike’s computerized memory to be sure.

“He placed it in the back seat with him.”

Drex resettled, turned his head, and stared out the rain-streaked car window. Jasper had left behind a custom-tailored wardrobe and took with him only what he could pack into a roll-aboard. He fit his whole life into a piece of carry-on luggage. With the tip of his finger, Drex followed a rivulet of rainwater as it trickled down the outside of the glass.

What had he packed into that roll-aboard? Where was it now?

Gif drove them to the suite motel where he and Mike were already checked in. Gif pulled under the porte cochere. Mike said to Gif, “I’ve got this, Reverend Lewis.” He turned to Drex. “Every suite has two bedrooms.”

Drex didn’t rise to the bait. “Then it works out even.”

Mike shot a look at Talia, then squeezed himself out of the passenger door and lumbered into the lobby.

“Understating the obvious,” she said to Drex, “he doesn’t like me.”

“Don’t take it personally. He doesn’t like anybody.”

A few minutes later Mike returned and passed a card key to Drex. “Not that you asked, but we brought all your stuff from the garage apartment.”

“Thanks.”

“We didn’t figure you’d be returning for it,” Gif said.

In a lame attempt to lighten the mood, Drex said, “I miss the place already.” No one reacted.

Gif said, “What about your car?”

“Temporarily abandoned. They may impound it. I don’t know. Don’t care. I’ll worry about that after…After.”

Gif parked. They all got out. Mike said, “Here’s ours. Yours.” He pointed to another of the suites, facing his and Gif’s from across a gravel courtyard dotted with dwarf palmettos.

“I’ll see Talia in, then come and get my things,” Drex said.

Without further discussion, he walked Talia to their door, unlocked it, and told her he would be back within a few minutes. “Keep the chain on.” Looking as downcast as he felt, she nodded.

He waited until he heard her secure the lock then, heedless of the rain, strode across the courtyard and rapped on the door. Gif opened it. Drex went past him and made a beeline to Mike, who was sprawled in a chair in the living room looking not dissimilar to Jabba the Hut.

“Cut it out, Mike.”

“What?”

“Give me a fucking break. You know what.”

“All right.” Mike raised his hands as though in surrender.

“I mean it,” Drex said, stressing the words.

“Be nice or take my leave?”

“I couldn’t have phrased it any better. I need you. But I don’t need your shit. The situation is bad enough without it. Be nice. Or leave.”

Mike raised his hands higher. “I said, all right.”

Drex backed away. Now that the air had been cleared between them, he said, “Rudkowski has probably already blacklisted you. Do you think you can hack the autopsy report on Elaine?”

“Won’t have to.” Mike nodded toward Gif. “He bullshitted it out of somebody in the coroner’s office.”

“Email it to me, please, Gif.”

“Sure,” Gif said.

Drex spotted a stack of cookbooks on one of the living area end tables. “I see you got my message. Start digging into them.”

“They don’t look used enough to hold secrets,” Gif said.

“Maybe not, but check anyhow.”

“In the meantime, what are you going to do?”

They both looked toward Mike as though expecting an innuendo involving Talia. He raised both hands again. “What? This is me, being nice. Besides, that setup was so easy it was beneath me.”

Drex actually gave him a grudging smile as he lifted his duffel bag off the sofa. “I’m going to my room to think.”

“About what?”

“About what I would do now if I were Jasper.”

Chapter 29

Talia released the chain and opened the door. She looked so forlorn that Drex asked her what the matter was.

“I’m sorry my brainstorm didn’t pay off.”

“Most brainstorms don’t. We celebrate the odd occasions when they do.”

“Those odd occasions are what keep you going?”

“What keeps me going is that I haven’t caught him yet.”

“It’s going to be more difficult now that you’ve resigned. Maybe if you appealed to Rudkowski, he would disregard what you did this morning.”

“You heard him. Does he sound like a man to whom a mea culpa would make a dent?”

“No.”

“However, I might attempt it except for the time it would cost.”

“And you think time is of the essence, don’t you?”

Not wanting to alarm her—yet—he hedged. “I need to shut myself off and think. Are you going to be all right for a while?”

“After the night and morning I’ve had? I need some downtime, too.”

He gave a strand of her hair a tug then kept hold of it. “I wish I’d seen you in action in the locker room. Gif said you struck just the right note. Somewhere between a pit bull and pitiful.”

“I’m out of my league.”

He tucked the strand of hair behind her ear and rubbed the lobe he’d taken a bite of earlier. “I’m afraid I am, too.”

“Why do you say that?”