Page 24 of Her Last Vow

He paused for a second, and Rachel could literally see Hartley’s face go a shade paler.

“We can trace that address back to you whenever we need to,” Novak added. “But we'd rather hear it from you first."

Hartley didn't say anything for a few seconds. He glanced past them at the hallway, empty except for a doormat two units down, and then looked back at Rachel like he was recalculating something.

In the end, Hartley apparently decided on honesty. "Fine," he said. "Yeah. That's me. I sent Tanner those names."

"Why?" Rachel asked.

"Because somebody needed to." His arms stayed crossed, but his voice had gone quieter, more urgent. It was the tone of a man who was starting to realize that his life may have very well just taken a drastic and unexpected turn. "You think I did it for money? Tanner never paid me a dime. He couldn’t because I never gave him my name!”

“Do you know him well?”

“Bryce Tanner? No. I don't even watch his videos, honestly. The guy's a mess. I sent him that data because Apogee is selling people something that's going to get them killed.” Some of the bitterness slid away for a moment and something resembling emotion slipped in. “And nobody inside that building wants to hear it."

"Explain that to me," Rachel said.

"The peak isn't what they tell people it is," Hartley said as he let out an exasperated sigh. Rachel got the sense that he'd been waiting a long time for someone to actually ask him this. "Sloan markets it as the high point. The best version of you, biologically. Champagne emojis, congratulations, hit your peak, all that bullshit. What the model is actually detecting is the moment the rate of decline in your body starts to outpace the rate of repair. That's not a summit. That's an inflection point. It's the first measurable sign that your systems have stopped keeping up with themselves."

"So the peak is the beginning of the decline," Novak said, nearly phrasing it as a question.

"It's the beginning of the end of compensation," Hartley said. "Your body's been quietly losing ground for years before that point, but it's still winning the argument against itself. The peak is the day it stops winning. But Apogee reframes that and instead throws a party for it. They tell users this is the best day of their biological life, and then six weeks later that same user is supposed to just go about their business while their own numbers are sliding in the background. But nobody wants to hear that, because a warning doesn't sell subscriptions. A celebration does."

"You're saying the model works," Rachel said. "You're just saying the company is lying about what it means."

"Yeah, at the core of it. The model itself…it’s accurate. That's the part that keeps me up at night." Hartley shook his head slowly and leaned against the doorframe. "If it were junk science, none of this would matter. But it's good. It's really good. Which means when it tells someone their systems have started losing the fight, that's real information…and instead of using it to get people into a doctor's office, Sloan slaps a champagne glass emoji on it and calls it a milestone.”

"Have you ever raised this concern internally?" Rachel asked.

"Twice. Once in a team meeting, once directly to Sloan." Hartley's mouth twisted. "He told me I was overthinking the marketing language and that the science speaks for itself. That I was making an issue out of nothing. He built this thing off his own research, and I think somewhere in his head he sees it as less of a product and more like a…like a piece of him, you know? You don't get to tell a guy like that his baby is dangerous. Not without him deciding you're the problem instead of the idea. And look…I’m not stupid. I have a great job that pays very well. I just zipped up and said nothing else about it.”

"So you went around him," Rachel said. "Fed a stranger with an online following individual predictions because Sloan wouldn't listen to you."

"I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I wanted the pattern out there so somebody with actual leverage would start asking questions." His voice had risen slightly, defensive again. "Which, apparently, worked, because here you are."

"Two people are dead, Mr. Hartley."

"That's not on me." But the certainty in his voice had already started to crack around the edges. He was looking at them nervously again, deciding that maybe he wasn’t as out of the woods as he’d originally assumed.

"Where were you last night?" Rachel asked.

"Last night? I was here. I usually leave the office around six or so.”

“No other stops along the way?” Rachel asked.

“No. I came straight home. Had some leftover pizza for dinner from the other night and watched some old movie on Netflix.”

“Can anyone vouch for that?” Novak asked.

“No. I’m…I’m sort of dating someone but we only see each other once a week. We texted a bit last night, but it was pretty late. Like, near midnight or so.” As he spoke, he seemed to understand that none of this sounded particularly good for him.

"Look,” he went on, more anxious now. “I don't keep a log of every night I'm alone in my own apartment." His voice had climbed again, thinner now than it had been a minute ago. "Nobody can vouch for me because I live by myself. That's not a confession, that's just how a lot of people live."

“Is there any way to place you here specifically?” Novak asked. “Building cameras, a neighbor, a delivery?"

"I don't know. Maybe there's something on my building's cameras. I wasn't exactly planning ahead for a night I'd need an alibi." Hartley's jaw worked, and he glanced down at the hallway carpet like the answer might be sitting there. "I don't order much delivery. I cook. I don't have a doorman here, just the badge system downstairs, which I'm sure logs entries and exits, but I couldn't tell you what those logs would even show. I've genuinely never had a reason to think about it."

"You had access to the names of the victims and their exact predicted dates," Rachel said, drawing him back on course. "You've got a documented grudge against the man who runs the company. You've spent over a year convinced the app you helped build is quietly killing people, and now people are dying on the days you flagged."