Twice, she hastily sorted through the color-coordinated blue grouping of garments. The jacket wasn’t there.

“Are you looking for this, Mrs. Ford?”

She spun around.

Jasper stood in the door opening. He was wearing the blazer. Secure in its buttonhole was a single button. Brass, round, with an embossed anchor.

His smile was obscenely obsequious, his voice a perfect imitation of Mr. Singh’s. “It wasn’t lost at all.”

Drex’s outburst startled Menundez. He braked hard, forcing traffic around them to do the same. Tires screeched. Horns blared.

Above that additional clamor, Drex shouted to Locke, “Call Mike. Call Mike. Do it now. Tell him not to go to their house. Call Talia. It’s a trap. Menundez, turn around. Head for Talia’s house.”

Locke looked at him with fury. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re going to court.”

“Jasper’s not going there. Shit! I’ve got tell Mike.” Drex lunged for Locke’s phone, but the detective drew his hand back and kept it out of his reach. Beside himself, Drex shouted, “Menundez, turn the fucking car around!”

Realizing the more deranged he appeared, the less likely they were to listen to him, Drex forced himself to speak calmly. “Please. I know I lost it there for a sec, but you’ve got to listen to me.”

“We have listened. That’s why we’re here. Everybody’s in place. He’s one of ours.” Locke swept his hand toward a guy geared up in latex and a helmet holding up a tricked-out bicycle. He was looking at them with a cop’s wariness.

Drex wanted to weep, wanted to tear at his hair, wanted Menundez to turn around!

“You’ve got to trust me one last time.”

Locke’s phone rang in his hand. Drex lurched forward again, trying to grab it. “Answer, answer, it might be them.”

Locke clicked on. Rudkowski shouted through the speaker. “Where are you? They’re about to call our case. Get that son of a bitch in here. Now!”

Drex didn’t wait to hear any more. He reached for the back seat door handle.

“Don’t do it!” Menundez shouted.

Drex turned his head and stared straight into the bore of the detective’s pistol. “Shoot me then, just get to Talia’s house.” Rudkowski’s screaming was acting like a power drill against his skull. “Hang up on that idiot and listen to me!”

Locke didn’t move. Menundez didn’t lower his pistol. Drex, his voice cracking, said, “I beg you. He set it up to kill her, and he will.”

The two detectives looked at each other. Menundez continued to hold the pistol on him, but he tilted it down. Locke said into his phone, “We have an emergency,” then clicked off, leaving Rudkowski raving. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Locke, hearing Drex’s conviction behind the single word, motioned for Menundez to get them underway. The younger man wasted no time. He popped a magnetic beacon on the roof of the car and, motioning frantically for other cars to move aside, cleaved a route through the logjam. At his first opening, he stamped on the accelerator.

“All right,” Locke said, “you’ve got what you wanted. You had better have a damn good explanation for it.”

“First, call Mike.” The detective did so without argument. They all listened with mounting anxiety as Mike’s phone rang several times without being answered.

Through clenched teeth, Drex said, “Please no, no.”

“He’s all right,” Locke said. “He texted pictures. The envelope is there, right where the tailor said it would be.”

“It may be there, but it wasn’t a tailor who left it. Call Talia’s phone.”

Locke did. “Goes straight to voice mail.”

“I told her to turn it off,” Drex said in anguish. “Menundez, kick it up!”

Locke ordered Drex to calm down. “Why do you think Jasper is at their house?”

“He would never have left those buttons with a tailor. He wouldn’t have left them with anybody. It was Jasper who called Talia and made her, all of us, believe in the fortuitous kindness of Mr. Singh.”

Menundez swore.

Still skeptical, Locke said, “You thought you were right about the courthouse.”

“A mistake I’ll have to live with. Die with.”

“We’ve skipped out on the court, on the prosecutor, Rudkowski. We’re screwed and so are you if this turns out to be a bust. You had better pray to God you’re right.”

Heart in his throat, Drex said, “I pray to God I’m wrong.”

Chapter 40

The man standing in the open bedroom doorway was barely recognizable to Talia as the groom with whom she had exchanged marriage vows. He had shaved his head and beard. Unlike the natty dresser he’d been, he had put the blazer on over a pair of dark cargo pants and a golf shirt, both of which were ill-fitting and sloppy.

But of course the blazer was only for effect, she realized now.

How had he gotten in without Mike intercepting him? Likely, he had already been inside the house when they’d arrived. He had let himself in, turned off the alarm, and reset it.

It sent shivers up her spine to think of him lying in wait, in anticipation of springing this perfectly laid trap.

Her heart was pounding, but she tried to appear unafraid. With as much composure as she could muster, she said, “Hello, Jasper. Since we parted ways at the airport, you’ve been awfully busy.”

“I could say the same for you, sweetheart.”

“Stop talking like that,” she snapped. “You sound ridiculous.”

“I agree wholeheartedly. But it worked to fool you.”

His smile was backed by a condescension that was all too familiar. She wondered that it hadn’t made her skin crawl all those months that she had spent with him, as it did now.

“Maybe you would like the voice of Daniel Knolls better.” He switched from the Indian accent to a throaty rumble. “You don’t remember me the night of Marian’s party, do you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Marian introduced us. You responded politely, but with disinterest.” He strolled farther into the room. She moved backward an equal distance. Her caution seemed to amuse him.

He said, “I, on the other hand, took a great deal of interest in Marian’s young, attractive, and very affluent friend. Marian had grown tiresome. I had already solicited for her replacement on an online dating service, but I never had to pursue it because you were such an ideal candidate. You virtually dropped from that blazing sunset sky and into my lap. That very night, I began contemplating Marian’s demise.”

Talia’s shudder was involuntary.

He noticed it, though, and her revulsion seemed to please him. “In effect, Talia, you’re to blame for Marian’s ghastly end. Come to think of it, Elaine’s, too. If not for your friendship with them, they would still be alive.”

When she flinched, he said, “What’s the matter, Talia? Can’t take the chastening for getting your friends killed?”

“My friends are dead for only one reason. Because you are criminally insane.”