Bill used the time to check the news on the Miami Herald’s site, reading the latest about a homicide and an escaped convict.

“I think there’s a Denny’s on Collins Avenue,” Rachel said as she left the bathroom and put on earrings. “We can walk to Walgreens after. I need a few—” Rachel stopped in her tracks. Her attention jerked to the headline and photo of Vida Warren on her husband’s screen. “I don’t believe it! Bill?”

“What? Denny’s, then Walgreens. I heard you.”

“That’s her! Remember when we saw that couple fighting in Miami at the café in the market?”

Bill scrutinized the photo. “Yeah, sure looks like her.”

“We were sitting beside them. They were having a fight. The guy grabbed her, knocked off her hat and sunglasses.”

“And he grabbed her again when she left. They made a scene, all right.”

“That’s her, Bill! Oh no, she’s been murdered?” Rachel joined him, leaning closer to the screen, both of them eating up the story.

“Says they’re looking at this convict who escaped and was captured,” Bill said.

“Call the police, Bill.” Rachel went to her bag, sifting through a travel book jammed with receipts. She was a stickler for documenting all their spending.

“Tell them what we saw?”

“Yes, tell them what we saw. We have to report it. Here.” Rachel held out a receipt. “See? It was the Café Romero Sunrise, Bayside Marketplace. We’ve got the time and date, here.”

“Right,” Bill said as he looked at it. “Okay. I’ll call. They can check security cameras. Might help their case.”

“My God.” Rachel put her hand to her mouth as Bill got the number for the Miami-Dade police and reached for the phone.

Approximately ten miles west of the Burkes’ motel in Miami Beach, Lex Prewitt, manager of the Oceanwave Gardens, was riding an alcohol-fueled buzz while dealing with what the Miami detective was asking.

“Listen,” Prewitt said, “I lost count of how many cops have been in here these days asking me the same questions over and over. I mean, it’s—” he raised his mug to drink “—it’s insane, really.”

“Isn’t it early for that?” Detective Holbrent nodded to the booze-laced coffee.

“Working here, I need it. With all that’s going on. Been like a damn police convention.”

“This is important, Mr. Prewitt. So let’s be clear, now you say you in fact remember a man aggressively asking about Vida Warren, and you took him into her residence, unit twenty-nine?”

“That is correct.” Prewitt nodded with certainty. “Guy said he was a relative.”

Holbrent held out his phone with Loften’s photo.

“No,” Prewitt said. “Not him. This guy was clean-cut, like he didn’t belong here. Never saw him before.”

“Did he give his name? Did you see his vehicle?”

Prewitt shook his head.

“Can you give more of a description?”