“Maybe if we walked back and took the same alley he did. It’s not the safest move, but we need to go after—” I stopped as I turned in the direction of the alley. “Or maybe not.”

There was the silver-haired man, jogging across the road, a cashmere cardigan in his hand. His wife, waiting on the other side, took it and pecked his cheek. Then they headed into the opera.

“Fuck.”

I took a deep breath, working past the sharp disappointment. “I second that. So should we—?”

The intermission buzzer sounded.

“Head back in,” Jack said. “Try afterward.”

Our postshow plan was to get outside ahead of the crowd and watch for any middle-aged men exiting alone. Sounded great. Failed miserably. We even split up, and each of the four of us followed a lone man over forty-five…only to discover he was just bringing the car around for his wife or girlfriend.

Chances were that the killer wouldn’t walk back alone to his car. He’d follow someone as far as he could. So when our first idea failed, we tried hanging out in the main lot, looking for men veering off from a group. Again, abject failure.

Finally, as the last of the opera-goers dispersed and we started looking obvious standing around, we admitted defeat and headed back to the motel.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-FIVE

Earlier this evening I’d envisioned two possible scenarios. One, the killer would see he had no chance at success, and cut his losses. Two, he’d try, fail and be caught. Even when I’d considered the possibility that he’d kill someone, I’d been certain he’d be caught before he could escape. To succeed, and so easily, without a single apparent slip…I’m an optimist, but there’s a point at which realism and optimism collide, and we’d reached it. Tonight only proved that we were in over our heads and it was starting to seem that nothing short of handing over two hundred million would stop the killings.

I didn’t remember the trip to the motel or the walk to the room. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at myself in the mirror. I’d run my hands through my hair so many times I must have looked like Medusa—all snaky curls and jutting bobby pins. I’d caught my dress in the car door and dragged the hem over ten miles of wet road. I looked like bedraggled alley cat. And I didn’t care.