Something shifted in Claudia's expression, genuine and without calculation."Daniel."She almost smiled at the name."He was with me for fifteen years.Exceptionally talented, good with clients, just a lovely man to have in the shop."She paused."He left five years before everything fell apart.He had an opportunity to work at a medical device company, applying his platinum skills in a different field.I hated to lose him but I understood.I always felt that he deserved every good thing that came his way."She looked at them steadily."If you're asking me whether Daniel Hartley could have anything to do with this, I can't imagine it.I genuinely cannot."
“And what about Voss?”Miles asked.
“God, such a sweetheart.Not too long after things went south, she moved up north.To Maine, I believe.”
“And she’s still there?”
“Yes, I believe so.I haven’t spoken to her, but I see her posts on Facebook from time to time.”
"Well, we certainly appreciate your time and your honesty," Vic said, bringing things to a close."This helps tremendously."
"Can I ask," Claudia said, "whether you're close to finding whoever this is?"
"We're working on it," Miles said.
She nodded and didn't push further.She walked them to the door and held it open for them, and there was something in her manner as they left that made Miles think she was going to think about this conversation for a long time after they were gone.
They said goodbye and went back down to the street.The morning had warmed up while they were inside and the light through the oak trees was sharp and clean.Miles put on his sunglasses and stood for a moment by the car.
"Brennan," Vic said.
"Brennan," he agreed."She confirmed the technical ability.And the anger.Even if itwaspointed in the wrong direction initially."He opened the car door."Kane's whole philosophy is about redirecting that kind of resentment.Giving it a target that makes ideological sense to the disciple."
"You think Brennan found Kane."
"Or the other way around.Either way, I think we need to find Brennan and see."Miles pulled out his phone and checked the address Kim had sent them over with her initial list of data.“He’s in New Jersey.Not a drive I was expecting to have to make, but…let's go."
Vic got in on the passenger side and Miles started the car.As he pulled out onto the street, he took one last look up at Claudia Ashford's window.She was standing there, watching them go, her arms folded across her cardigan in the morning light.
He turned his eyes back to the road and headed for the highway, suddenly curious if maybe her agreeable nature had been a front after all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The address Kim had pulled for Thomas Brennan put him in a third-floor apartment in a residential building in Hoboken, a narrow five-story walk-up wedged between a dry cleaner and a cell phone repair shop.It was a dingy place, the sort of building you might drive by fifty times withoutreallyseeing it.
Miles and Vic took the stairs up, found apartment 3C at the end of a short hallway, and knocked.They were greeted with only silence—aside from the muted sound of traffic through the walls.Miles knocked again, harder this time, but there was still no response.He pressed his ear slightly toward the door and listened; he could hear no movement, no television, no sounds of anyone deciding whether or not to answer.He stepped back and looked at Vic.
"Try the super?"she said.
"Yeah, I guess.”Still, he knocked a third time and waited.Still nothing.He exhaled through his nose and looked down the hallway, at the water-stained ceiling tiles and the single overhead fixture casting its flat light across the worn carpet.The building had the tired, compressed feel of a place where people lived close together and kept mostly to themselves.
"All right," Miles said."Let's find the super, get a confirmation he actually lives here.Maybe he's working somewhere.If so, we can find out where and pay a visit to him there."
They turned and started back toward the stairwell.Miles was already thinking about next steps, about whether Kim could pull a cell phone number or a work record, when he registered the figure at the far end of the hallway.
A man had just come around the corner from the stairwell as they made their way through.After a few steps, the man stopped dead when he saw them.He was broad-shouldered and heavyset, somewhere in his mid-fifties, wearing a canvas work jacket with the collar turned up despite the weather.He was carrying a paper bag from a deli.He stood there for two full seconds, looking at them with an expression that was not confusion or curiosity but something much more specific than either.
He turned to go back the way he'd come, as if he’d forgotten something.Only, there was an almost robotic quality to the way he was moving.It was the deliberateness of it that caught Miles.Not a casual pivot, not someone who'd forgotten something.A decision.
"Mr.Brennan?"Vic called out.
The man broke into a run right away.
He was fast for his size, already through the stairwell door by the time Miles covered half the hallway, still not quite sure what the hell was going on.Miles hit the door at full speed and took the stairs down in long strides, gripping the railing at the turns, hearing Brennan's footfalls below him, the heavy slap of work boots on concrete.Third floor, second, the first-floor door banging open ahead of him.
Miles came out into the lobby, saw the front door still swinging, and went through it onto the sidewalk.
Brennan had turned left and was running hard, shouldering past a woman walking a dog, the paper bag from the deli still somehow in his hand.Miles went after him, closing the distance, his body still slightly off-kilter from switching into chase-mode so quickly.Brennan was apparently not the best runner, and Miles could feel the gap shrinking with every few lunging strides.
