Uncertainty in his eyes, the detective asked quietly, “Can you make the shot?”
“I don’t know. I hope so, but I’m nursing no illusions. If I fail, it’ll be spectacular. But it will be my own throat I’ve cut. Only mine.”
“That’s just it,” Locke said. “If you’re put out of commission for good, it’ll be a hell of a waste of talent and guts. I want you to win. I just wish you would play by the rule book.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t.”
“Don’t play dumb, Mrs. Ford. Don’t act like you didn’t know that I wanted to talk to you. You are a material witness in a felony case involving the kidnap and murder of Elaine Conner, as well as the unexplained disappearance of your husband.”
Talia’s only previous exposure to Special Agent Rudkowksi had been the dialogue she’d overheard while hiding in the safe room with Drex. Her opinion hadn’t improved upon meeting him. Since he’d entered the interrogation room where Menundez had ensconced her, Rudkowski had been railing at her, virtually without taking a breath.
As he continued to rant, she kept her expression as aloof as possible, her gaze steady on him. She wasn’t accustomed to the cops-and-robbers environment, much less to being shouted at. Her failure to react with fear and trembling had roused him to become increasingly loud.
Menundez said now, “Ease up, Rudkowski. She’s not a suspect.”
“I’ll determine that.”
Talia seized her first opportunity to get a word in edgewise. “Agent Rudkowski, I’m well aware of the seriousness of the crimes.”
“Are you? Then why have you hampered the investigation by avoiding this interview? You also tampered with evidence.”
“I did no such thing. When I left my house before you served the search warrant, I took nothing from it except a couple of changes of clothing and some toiletries.”
“Your husband’s cookbooks. Menundez here says they filled that shelf above the stove. That shelf was conspicuously empty.”
“I didn’t take the cookbooks.”
“Then it was Easton.”
“He had nothing with him when we left the house. Not even his personal belongings.”
“Then his cronies made off with them. How come? What did they do with them?”
Since Jasper’s cookbooks had turned out to be a disappointing false lead, and therefore irrelevant, she saw no point in either denying the action or defending it. But Rudkowski’s yammering about them was keeping him preoccupied, which was what Drex needed her to do.
The agent propped his hip on the corner of the table, crowding her in an obvious attempt to be intimidating. “What tactic did Easton use to get you to pull a vanishing act with him?”
“No tactic.”
“Come on. He’
s a con man. Did he schmooze you with his boyish charm? Hate to be the one to break it to you, but you wouldn’t be the first to fall for it, you know.”
“He convinced me that my husband is a career criminal and, given the opportunity, would very likely try to kill me.”
He scoffed. “You believed that?”
“If I had a grain of doubt, it was dispelled last night when Jasper killed that woman and critically injured Mr. Lewis.”
“Those crimes have not been attributed to Jasper Ford. They’re relative to nothing. Alleging that your husband was involved is just another of Easton’s wild hares. Had your husband ever met Gif Lewis?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then how did he recognize him to attack?”