“That’s him,” Janelle said. “I figured he was up to no good. Told him to get the hell out.”

“You did the right thing. If he is who I think he is, the man’s an unstable nut job. A real piece of crap.”

“Is he the suspect? What kind of case is it?”

“I can’t really talk about it, but can we take a look at the video?”

“Sure. Follow me.”

As Janelle led them to her office, Max leaned into Niki and whispered, “Piece of crap?”

Niki whispered back. “I was being nice.”

Janelle took a seat at her computer and spent some time pulling up the footage. Max narrowed the time frame down to the half hour before Sandy’s credit card placed her at the gas station. After she cued up the footage, Janelle left the room. Max put the picture of Sandy next to the computer screen on the left and the Honda Passport on the right.

The Passport was white, which, if Max remembered correctly, was the most popular color for passenger vehicles on the road in the United States. They had a license plate number, but they saw right away that the resolution and the angle of the camera wouldn’t allow them to see a plate. The one thing they had going for them was that one of the Passport’s roof racks was broken off.

Max and Niki scanned the footage for a while before Niki said, “You promise this woman we’re looking for isn’t your girlfriend or something? I’d hate to be aiding and abetting a stalker.”

“Why do people keep thinking I’m a stalker?”

“It’s your shifty eyes—a common trait among meth heads.”

“And I shaved for this.”

“You weren’t exactly rocking that caveman look, Max.”

“I was going for lumberjack.”

“Swing and a miss.”

The camera picked up vehicles in the lane closest to the bar. If Max was correct in his assumptions, Sandy would have traveled that lane to get to the gas station. A light-colored SUV passed in front of the camera and Max stopped the footage and backed it up. The angle of the camera caught the roof with two intact racks. It was close, but it was definitely not Sandy’s car.

He tapped the play button again and they watched, the color of the passing cars becoming more unreliable as the bodies reflected the light from a setting sun.

After a minute, Niki said, “The thing I have never been able to figure out is how you thought it would be a good idea to mail your badge and gun to me—make it my problem to do your dirty work. I can’t for the life of me understand how that seemed okay.”

What could Max say? How could he explain it without admitting that he had killed a man? He was searching for an out when the surveillance footage offered one. A white vehicle entered the screen. “Is that it?” he said.

Niki froze the frame and zoomed in on a white SUV with a broken luggage rack. A match.