Now, his setup looked very “writerly,” should anyone be surreptitiously observing, which he sensed someone was.

While seated at his computer as though working on his book, he was actually reading additional material excavated by Mike. Marian Harris’s parish church had held a memorial mass. After the forensic pathologist had completed his examination and turned his findings over to the authorities, her remains were cremated and placed in a vault in the church cemetery.

Although her will had specified allocations for various charities, there was nothing in the coffers to bequeath. The only asset not liquidated prior to her disappearance had been her yacht. As stipulated in her will, it was sold at auction, the proceeds gifted to the parish.

Drex hadn’t asked Mike to research all that, but he was grateful to him for doing so. Marian Harris hadn’t been confined forever in that shipping crate. Drex took some comfort in that.

But not much.

He wanted the son of a bitch who’d done that to her. With an instinct that was almost feral, he felt he had found him.

Throughout the evening, lights in the house across the lawn came on and went off. Shadows moved across window shades. Drex watched Jasper make himself a sandwich. He ate it at the kitchen table while perusing the Sunday newspaper. He saw Talia switch on a light as she entered a room upstairs.

He got only a glance before she shut the door behind her, but he saw that her hair was messily piled on top of her head, and that she had changed out of the oversize white linen shirt and wide-legged pants she’d worn on the cruise.

When they were on deck, and the wind had struck her just right, it had blown aside the fabric of her shirt, affording Drex a glimpse of a white tank top with skinny straps, a fragile-looking collarbone, an oh-so-slight suggestion of cleavage above the snug tank.

Nothing had actually been revealed. Which had been as frustrating as hell. Also as erotic. He’d wanted to unwrap her and explore the tantalizing terrain his imagination had mapped out.

Evening descended into night. Shortly after ten o’clock, he set aside his eyeglasses, folded up his computer, and turned out the lights inside the apartment. But he stayed at the window. He watched and waited until the house across the way remained dark for half an hour.

As he slipped out of the apartment and down the exterior staircase, his pistol was a reassuring pressure against the small of his back.

Jasper, sitting in the deep shadows of his screened porch, watched Drex ease through the door of the apartment, close it silently behind himself, and quickly descend the stairs. In total darkness. Even though there was a light fixture mounted on the exterior wall at both the top and bottom of the steep stairs, which Drex had referred to as killers.

He reached the ground without mishap. He didn’t go to his car. Instead, he made a hard right turn and moved along the far side of the garage and eventually out of Jasper’s view. Moments later, he reappeared from behind the garage at the opposite corner.

Jasper didn’t move or do anything else that would give away his presence, watching as Drex continued along the back boundary of his lawn, moving parallel to the house, staying in sight except for those seconds when he was swallowed by a deep shadow or blocked from view by a tree trunk.

And, one of those times, he didn’t reappear. He remained behind the trunk of the largest tree on the property.

Jasper lunged from his chair and barreled through the screen door. With long, rapid strides, he covered the distance between him and the tree. He almost collided with Drex has he stepped out from behind it. Jasper clicked on the flashlight he’d brought with him and aimed it directly into Drex’s face. “What are you doing?”

Drex rocked back on his heels. “Jesus, Jasper. You scared the shit out of me.”

He smiled his boyish smile. It had made Elaine’s heart go pitter-pat. It made Jasper suspect that it was artificial and aptly employed whenever it suited him.

Currently it was meant to distract him when Drex reached behind his back with his right hand. He raised his left to shield his eyes from the flashlight’s beam. “I thought you were probably in bed by now.”

“I ask again, what are you doing out here?”

“Look, man, I’m sorry. I—”

“What have you got?” Jasper directed the light down, and leaned around to try to see what Drex was concealing behind his back.

Drex took a hasty step backward.

“What’s in your hand? Let me see.” Jasper thrust out his left hand, palm up.

Drex hesitated, then brought his hand from around his back and dropped a dead mouse into Jasper’s palm. Jasper yanked his hand back. The mouse fell to the ground.

“I would have waited till morning to throw him out, but he was stinking up the apartment.”

Jasper reigned in his temper as well as his rapid breathing. “Where were you taking it?”

“That community dumpster in the next block? I thought I’d throw him in that. Save him rotting in our trash cans at the curb. I guess I should have gone the long way, used the street. I opted for the shortcut across your yard. I’m sorry as hell I bothered you.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” he lied. “All I saw was a tall, dark figure,” Jasper said, forcing a smile. “If you take a shortcut again, you should identify yourself.”

“I didn’t think I’d be seen.”

“Oh, I’m always watching.”

They held each other’s gaze for several beats, then Drex bent down and picked up the lifeless mouse by the tail. Holding it between them, he gave a jocular shrug. “Guess I won’t need a cat, after all.”

Jasper chuckled.

“Well, good night.” Drex started off.

Jasper let him get only a few yards away before calling out, “Hold it.”

He turned.

“Take this.” Jasper walked forward and passed him the flashlight.

“Thanks. There wasn’t one in the apartment.”

Jasper smiled. “What are neighbors for?”

When Drex returned from depositing the mouse in the dumpster, he took his third shower of the day and went to bed, pulling the sheet only to his waist. The fan, aimed directly at him, hummed from the side of the bed.

His mission that night had been to get a different perspective of the layout of the Fords’ house, in an attempt to figure out a way to get inside. From behind the tree, he’d been using the zoom on his phone’s camera to try to spot security devices on windows and doors. When Jasper had burst from the house like a man possessed, he’d had no choice but to brazen it out.

Fortunately, he’d thought to take along the dead mouse as his excuse for being in Jasper’s backyard, should he be caught. He didn’t believe Jasper had bought the excuse entirely. But they’d played out the scene as though he had. It hadn’t been easy for Drex, make-believing with a man whose heart and mind were darker than he’d initially thought.

He still didn’t know how he would breach the castle, but he had come away knowing that Jasper was vigilant to an extraordinary degree. Meaning that Drex would be damned lucky to succeed in planting just one bug. He wished he could plant one in every room.

But even if he could manage that, there were some areas he’d rather not infiltrate. Mainly the bedroom shared by Jasper and Talia. He didn’t think he could stomach listening in on an intimate conversation or, God forbid, lovemaking.