“But probably exactly what happened,” Dolan said as kicked off his shoes, lay down on a cot, and stretched out. “Someone should check down there to see if he ditched his clothes. Maybe there’s evidence on them that can help pinpoint where he’s been hiding.”

“Are you really going to just crash right now?” Jessie asked, amazed.

“Nope,” he replied. “First I’m going to wrap this scratchy blanket around myself. Then I’m going to crash.”

Jessie turned back to the others, who were equally stunned. Murph recovered first.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he said. “You should get settled in. Someone will bring you that ibuprofen. But the sooner you can get to sleep, the more effective you’ll be tomorrow. Assuming you still want to go out tomorrow.”

Jessie gave him a dirty look. She was about to add a snarky reply when the sound of loud snoring from Dolan’s cot echoed through the cell.

“Can someone get me earplugs too?” Jessie asked.

*

Jessie didn’t get much sleep.

Part of it might have been Dolan’s snoring. But she suspected she would have had problems even if he was silent. Her racing thoughts were more of an issue. Truthfully, having him in the cell, even with the noise, was more comforting than frustrating. Not that she would ever tell him.

Around 5 a.m. she gave up on sleep and got up to take a shower, change into the extra clothes the overnight marshals had brought from the safe house, and get some coffee. When she returned with a cup for him an hour later, he was curled up on the cot in the fetal position. His snoring had been replaced by a soft whistling wheeze.

She was tempted to let him sleep longer. But they needed to check the status of the Crutchfield and Thurman searches and see if the medical examiner had anything new on Claire Stanton. And all that was before making the trek to Malibu to meet with Jett Collison.

So, with more satisfaction than she was proud of, she gave Dolan’s cot a hard kick. He snorted loudly and rolled over, barely catching himself before toppling over onto the floor.

“What the..?” he muttered.

“Rise and shine, Double Bourbon,” Jessie said in her most intentionally annoying chipper tone.

Dolan’s only response was to pull the blanket over his face and shoot her the middle finger.

“Oh, obscene finger gestures from such a demure FBI agent,” she teased.

“I’m not that demure,” he muttered from under the blanket.

“I got some coffee for you, Sunshine,” she chirped happily. “Then we’ve got to get to work.”

“Are you kidding?” he moaned. “Maybe in a couple of hours.”

“In a couple of hours, we need to be halfway to Malibu to interview a movie star,” she reminded him. “Before that, we’ve got overnight reports on Claire and our dual killers to review. Time is going to fly by.”

“You don’t want to sit this one out after what happened last night?” he asked.