What a well-deserved comedown! He wouldn’t be so cocky when standing before a judge, would he? He wouldn’t be glib and disarming. The court would not go all aflutter over the dimple that Elaine had found so dashing. Drex Easton, humbled to the level of a common criminal, would be a sight to behold.

Not that Jasper would go anywhere near that courthouse.

In his current incarnation, the chances of being recognized were slim to none. But it would be foolish to risk exposure when he was so close to being free and clear of this venture and ready to move on to his next.

He turned off the TV and wiped down the remote. Everything else in the room he had already thoroughly sterilized. His suitcase was packed except for the last two items to go into it. It lay open on the end of the bed. He’d hung the Do Not Disturb card on the outside doorknob to ward off the housekeeper, both while he remained and after he was gone.

Watching the noon news had been the last item on his agenda before taking his departure. He confessed that the half-hour delay had been a trifle self-indulgent, but he couldn’t resist watching all the reports about himself, and he had enjoyed them immensely. He could leave Charleston feeling very proud.

Although it did stick in his craw that he was leaving with a major ambition unfulfilled: killing Talia. He had never before abandoned a project without completing it, and it galled him to do so now.

He was undeterred, of course. He would kill her. But the risk of doing so presently was too great. He would wait for several months, perhaps for as long as a year. Which, now that he thought on it, wouldn’t be at all bad. The anticipation of ending her life, especially when she believed him dead, would ferment in his imagination like a fine wine. He could spend idle days fantasizing it.

He wondered if she and Drex had consummated their grubby, base lust for each other? Of course they had. No doubt that’s what they’d been doing while she was supposed to have been cooperating with the police investigation. Jasper didn’t care a whit if they’d screwed like rabbits. He only wished the two of them knew how utterly indifferent he was to it.

It also nagged him that he had to leave without learning what had drawn Drex’s attention to him in the first place. Over the course of many years suggested that for most of Drex’s adult life he had nursed an obsession so consuming that he had bucked the FBI in order to indulge it.

Jasper couldn’t help but wonder what had instigated that fixation. Had it been a particular episode, an individual, or had Easton simply been born with a righteous zeal to seek justice for those who couldn’t obtain it for themselves?

He would like to have had those questions answered. Strictly out of curiosity. He wasn’t afraid that Drex and his fancy PhD would one day close in on him. Whatever authority Drex had possessed previously he’d been stripped of. He’d overstepped, flouted rules, and now was up to his neck in criminal charges. Jasper would love to be inside that courtroom when Drex had to answer for them.

But no. It would be unwise to tempt fate. He would leave as planned. Talia and Drex could play out the rest of their plebeian, romantic melodrama without him.

It wasn’t as though he wished to be the star of it.

New challenges awaited him. He was off to meet them. The FBI was moving closer to identifying and apprehending a serial perpetrator? He had left a signature? He’d been outsmarted? That was a laugh. Who did they think they were dealing with?

“I’m not an amateur, you know. Just ask her.”

He looked behind him at the dead woman on the bed. She lay facedown, her head at an odd angle to her shoulders. The back of her dress had ridden up, revealing thick thighs, lumpy with cellulite.

Stupid cow. He’d needed refuge and hadn’t wanted to press his luck by checking into a hotel. She’d been so trusting. But then, why wouldn’t she be? He had appeared harmless.

He loathed the idea of touching her again, but he tamped down his revulsion and used a tiny pair of manicure scissors to clip the threads securing a button to the neckline of her dress just above the zipper. Holding it by the eyelet, he twirled the small, fabric-covered sphere. What clever way could he sport it, he wondered.

He didn’t have to decide now. He could take his time and be creative, as he’d had to be with some of the buttons already in his collection. But he never failed to come up with an ingenious way in which to hide them in plain sight.

He replaced the scissors in his leather manicure set, zipped it up, and placed it in his suitcase, then removed the velvet pouch from the inside pocket. Over the past two days, he had increased his collection from an even dozen to fifteen buttons. The FBI had underestimated his achievements by six women, proof that their agents weren’t as brilliant as that moron on TV had boasted. Jasper’s nimble mind could run circles around Dr. Easton’s.

Indeed, it had, hadn’t it?

He worked open the pursed top of the velvet bag and was about to drop the new addition into it when, yielding to an irresistible urge, he dumped the contents onto the top of the dresser. The hectic pace of the past few days had prevented him from looking at his souvenirs arrayed like this.

He wondered if the FBI’s “striking similarities” and “signature” were the missing buttons. Had Easton made that connection? Jasper didn’t see that it mattered, except that it caused another, sharper pang of regret that there wasn’t a button from Talia. That would have been the best prize of all.

But he really must get over that disappointment. He couldn’t allow himself to be detained by it. For the time being—and only for the time being—Talia was beyond his reach. Accept it.

He soothed his irritation by separating the buttons so he could admire them independently and reminisce on how he’d come by each one. There were three pearls, but each of a different size. Two were made of tortoiseshell. Four of various shapes and textures were solid black. The matte white one had adorned the skirt of the woman he’d killed last night. Naturally, all the brass ones looked somewhat military. One silver disk had a finish as smooth as satin. And, now, this cloth one.

He took a moment to appreciate its uniqueness, then it went first into the pouch. One by one he added the others, each joining the collection with a satisfying clink. He was about to pull the drawstring closed when something struck him as odd. He paused to consider, then upended the bag and spread out the buttons again. He counted them. Recounted. Meticulously, he grouped them into rows of five.

He hadn’t miscounted. One of the rows was short a button.

With his heart knocking and a sweat breaking out over his shaved head, he squeezed the velvet pouch to see if one of the smaller buttons had become trapped by an inside seam. He didn’t feel anything, but to be sure, he turned the bag inside out.

He searched among the magazines stacked on top of the dresser. He felt along the bottom of the television set, thinking that perhaps one had slid beneath it. He pushed aside the ice bucket and plastic wrapped glasses.

It wasn’t on the dresser. He dropped to his knees, looked under the bed, the desk, the dresser. He crawled across the floor, madly skimming his hands over the carpet.

He stood up, breathing as though he’d swum miles. Starbursts of red exploded behind his eyes. Twin freight trains roared through his ears.

One of his trophies was missing.

Chapter 38