Alisha got up, looking unsteady on her feet. Those expensive Prada shoes weren’t the best in which to make a run for it, but they matched the rest of her designer ensemble. Training shoes would have attracted undue attention. Rickard had told her to wear them. Now he wasn’t so sure it had been his best idea. They made her legs look as long as a boring week. Two or three men in the diner watched her progress toward the restrooms, including the old guy from earlier. She was so beautiful that she was distinctive. She’d be recalled, and so would the man who was with her.

“Can’t let that stop me.”

She’s baggage. That’s all. He should have left her in the gutter where he’d found her, instead of wooing her and making her his wife. He’d allowed his desire to totally control a woman to overwhelm his best senses. In hindsight, she’d always been a liability, and one that could ultimately lead to his downfall.

As soon as she was through the restroom door, he opened up her phone and checked her incoming calls. Withheld numbers. He checked her outgoings. Withheld numbers again, but one of them coincided with his arrival back at the parking lot at his apartment. He closed the phone and placed it in his pocket alongside his own phone. Took out his ceramic knife and cupped it in his palm.

He stood up and walked toward the restrooms.

Just baggage, he thought again.

Chapter 22

22

We didn’t get access to the crime scene but it didn’t really matter. I’d seen enough death in my time to know what it would be like. The blood and the stench; the frailty of flesh versus bullets and blades; the surety that, somewhere down the line, I could be found in similar circumstances.

I waited in our car with Rink and Harvey while Walter and Bryce spoke to the detectives on-site. The Miami PD had turned out, but so had the FBI. There were CSI techs and people from the coroner’s office. And there were a large number of reporters from the press and TV. The latter were our greatest inconvenience. Once we attracted an inquisitive look from a reporter who wandered off and came back carrying a BlackBerry. He was searching the screen and then peering back our way.

“Better move,” I said to Harvey, who was our driver. Last thing any of us wanted was for the reporter to start yelling that there was a cop killer in their midst. The police on-scene might act first and ask questions later.

Harvey started up the Chrysler and pulled out past the cordon of yellow tape. I averted my face as we passed the reporter but in my peripheral vision I could see him doing a double take between me and whatever was on his screen. But then we were gone and the moment had passed.