She followed the direction of his gaze to the control box on the wall next to the back door. “The alarm went off?”

“Not the siren. It was shut off during the warning beeps with time to spare. Strange, because no one was at home.”

She shook her head in confusion. “When was this?”

Menundez returned in time to hear her question. “Five oh-seven,” he said. “Patrolmen were dispatched. Saw no sign of a break-in.”

“A glitch in the system, you think?” Locke asked.

Menundez said, “Or else someone who knew the code was here.”

If they’d been speaking in a foreign language, Talia couldn’t be more confounded. “Like who?”

“We hoped you could tell us,” Menundez said.

“I’m sorry. I know nothing about the alarm going off, so I can’t explain why it did.”

“Quite a coincidence that cops have come to your house twice in one day,” Locke remarked.

Disquieted by the way the two were regarding her, she folded her arms over her middle, even knowing how defensive it looked. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

“We have to eliminate every possibility.”

“Possibility of what?”

She had addressed the question to Locke, but Menundez answered. “The possibility that Mrs. Conner’s death wasn’t an accident caused by misjudgment on her part. The possibility that foul play was involved.”

Before Talia could process that, Locke asked, “Did you walk your husband into the airport, see him off?”

It took several seconds for his seemingly unrelated inquiry to sink in. “No. No, we said our goodbyes in the parking garage. Why?”

“Because some of the people we’ve talked to who saw the Laney Belle leave the marina said that a man was steering her, not Mrs. Conner.”

Talia hugged her middle a little tighter.

Locke continued. “We were also told that Mrs. Conner often allowed your husband to pilot the boat.”

“That’s true,” Talia said, “but it couldn’t have been Jasper this evening.”

“Had Mrs. Conner ever invited anyone else to take the wheel?”

“Not to my knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t.”

“You two were close friends.”

“Yes.”

“Were you acquainted with all her other friends?”

“Many of them.”

“Male friends?”

“Some.”

“If she had a new man in her life, would she have told you?”

“More than likely,” she said huskily.

“Has she taken a romantic interest in someone recently?”

Willing herself not to glance toward the apartment across the way, she gave her head a brisk shake.

“She wasn’t seeing anyone?”

“In the way you’re implying, I don’t believe so.”

The two detectives looked at each other, then back at her. Menundez said, “Mrs. Ford, is it possible that your husband changed his mind about going to Atlanta at the last minute?”

“He would have notified me. He would have been home hours ago.”

“Unless he was onboard the Laney Belle with Elaine Conner,” Locke said.

“That’s an offensive implication, Detective Locke.”

“The implications to you are more dire than marital unfaithfulness. If your husband was on the yacht, and there was an emergency, an accident, he could have suffered an injury. As we speak, search-and-rescue teams are out looking for him, or his—”

The kettle screeched. Talia nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned quickly and lifted it off the burner. In the process she sloshed some of the boiling water onto her hand. She cried out. The detectives lurched forward, ready to lend assistance, but she warded them off.

“I’m fine. It’s fine.” She tucked her scalded hand into her opposite armpit. “You believe that Jasper is either in need of rescue or already dead? Is that what you’re saying?”

Their grim expressions confirmed it.

“You’re wrong. If he were going out on the water with Elaine tonight, he would have told me.”

“Did they take the yacht out together often?”

“Not often. But there have been occasions.” She wet her lips. “Were you given a description of the man who was with her?”

“Not a very good one. No one actually saw him board the yacht. It was a gloomy dusk. The mist limited visibility. One witness said the man he saw in the wheelhouse was wearing a baseball cap. Other than that—”

“Baseball cap?”

At her startled reaction, Locke and his partner came to attention. Locke said, “That’s been confirmed. A baseball cap was found on the yacht.”

Talia wilted against the edge of the countertop. “Orange, with a white capital letter T?”

“University of Tennessee,” Locke said.

She covered her face with her hands.

“Does your husband own a cap like that?”

She shook her head, said no into her moist palms, then lowered her hands. Her throat seized. She had to swallow several times. “No. But our neighbor does.”

“Next door?”

“He rents the garage apartment behind the house next door.”

Menundez said to Locke, “The patrolmen who responded to the call about the alarm talked to that guy.”

Locke asked Talia, “Was he acquainted with Mrs. Conner?”

“Jasper and I introduced them.”

“What’s his name?”

Menundez was hurriedly swiping the screen of his phone. “I’ve got it here.”

“My name is Drex Easton.”

Startled, the three of them turned as one. He was standing in the open doorway between the screened porch and kitchen. How had he opened it without their hearing him? He was wearing the same dark suit he’d worn the night he escorted Elaine and her to dinner. The same shirt and tie.

But an altogether different countenance.

His right hand was raised and open to show a small leather wallet with a clear plastic window and a gold badge. His eyes zeroed in on Talia’s. “FBI Special Agent Drex Easton.”

Chapter 21

Rudkowski was sprawled on his hotel room bed, watching without much interest the dirty movie on the room’s flat screen, nursing his third scotch, and wondering how a man who weighed almost three fifty could vanish into thin air. It had been some trick, but Mike Mallory had managed it, and Rudkowski was made to look like a fool. Again.

His cell phone rang. He spilled half his whiskey in his haste to mute the bump-and-grind sound track and answer his phone. “Rudkowski.”

“It’s Deputy Gray.”

“Who?”

“In Key West. We talked a few days ago.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” Rudkowski sank back onto his pillow. “Make this quick, please. I’ve got a situation here.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to reach Agent Easton, and, like the time before, he didn’t leave me his number this morning. It was my oversight. I should have made sure—”

“Hold it. This morning? You talked to Easton this morning?”