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her here?” Alex asked. “He might know something.”
    “We have a partial plate on his truck,” Speck said. “Plus there’s a bumper sticker shaped like a tomato that says un centavo más. It’s a slogan of the migrant workers. We’re thinking he was on his way up to Immokalee when he found your wife and brought her here. But he bolted because he’s probably an illegal and didn’t want to get busted.”
    “Any chance of finding him?” Alex asked.
    “Not much.”
    “What are you doing then to find my wife?”
    “We’re canvassing the neighborhood around the hospital,” Speck said. “We also put out an alert with your wife’s description. But the nurse told me that your wife dressed herself, removed her IV and left her room. We also have a videotape from the ambulance bay of her leaving the grounds. She didn’t seem disoriented. If anything, she seemed scared.”
    He paused. “What would your wife be scared of, Mr. Tobias?”
    “Scared?” Alex’s eyes moved from one cop to the other. “She has fucking amnesia. Of course she’s scared. Jesus, I can’t believe this . . .”
    “Calm down, sir.”
    “No! Don’t tell me to calm down, goddamn it.” Alex stopped, feeling the weight of the cop’s eyes on him.
    Stay cool. Don’t lose it.
    “I need to ask you some questions, Mr. Tobias.”
    “Yes, yes . . .”
    “Where were you Friday afternoon and evening?”
    “What does this—”
    “Just answer the question, sir.”
    Alex drew a deep breath. “Friday afternoon I was in my office until about five and—”
    “Where is that, sir?”
    “What?”
    “Your office.”
    “On Las Olas, in the New River Center Building.”
    “Where did you go after you left your office?”
    “I went home, picked up my bag and drove to Palm Beach.”
    “Palm Beach? Why did you go there?”
    “I had a golf date with a client. What does this have—”
    “You said you picked up a bag?”
    “Our tee time was seven Saturday morning so I went up the night before. I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton.”
    “What’s your client’s name?”
    “Dan . . . Dan Nesbit.”
    “What about your wife?” Speck asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Was your wife at home when you left?”
    Alex hesitated. “Yes, I think so.”
    “You think so?”
    “I . . . I was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t talk to her before I left.”
    “Why didn’t your wife go with you to Palm Beach?”
    “It was just a golf thing with a client. She doesn’t play golf.”
    “Did she have any plans Friday evening?”
    Alex hesitated again. “I don’t know. She didn’t mention anything.”
    The taller cop was scribbling away in his notebook.
    “What time did you check in to your hotel?”
    Alex looked back at Speck. When the cops had first arrived at the hospital, their attitude had been solicitous, respectful. Now it was different. It was as if the short cop had grown five inches in two hours. And he was looking down at Alex as if Alex were . . .
    It hit him like a punch in the gut—they were treating him like a suspect. For what ?
    “Mr. Tobias? What time did you check in at the hotel?”
    “Between seven and seven thirty.”
    A clap of thunder rattled the window. Speck’s radio spat out some static and a message, but Alex couldn’t make it out. Speck turned down the volume.
    “Did you call your wife Friday night from Palm Beach?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I . . . I was pretty tied up with the client. We had dinner and drinks.” He paused. “Dan’s a big drinker. It was a late night.”
    “When did you return to Fort Lauderdale?”
    Alex had been looking at the window, and it took a moment for him to realize Speck had spoken again.
    “I’m sorry, what?”
    “When did you get home, sir?”
    Alex felt his stomach churning again. Why the fuck had he drunk that second vodka earlier? Why the fuck hadn’t he eaten anything?
    “Ah . . . I got home around three.”
    “You mean yesterday, sir, Saturday?”
    Alex