Page 26 of Her Last Vow

"Your attorney's not here yet," Novak said, not for the first time.

"Then I'll wait." Hartley didn't look up from the table. “Nothing’s changed.”

That was fine with Rachel. Hartley had ended up coming along peacefully, if a bit begrudgingly, and that was the important thing. And because he worked for a company like Apogee (not to mention having admitted to them that he was the leak), it made perfect sense to her that he would want a lawyer present.

As they waited for the lawyer to arrive, Rachel's phone buzzed against the tabletop. She glanced at the screen, saw a number with a local area code, and stepped out into the hallway to take it. Novak watched her go as he was left with Hartley and the silence he seemed determined to keep.

“This is Agent Gift,” she answered when she was in the hall.

“Agent Gift, it’s Detective Corbin…from the Pike scene.”

“Yes, of course. What can I do for you?”

"Well, for starters, you and your partner can come give me a hand,” he said in a flat and worried tone. “We've got a third one. Male, mid-twenties, found in his garage about half an hour ago.”

“An Apogee watch?”

“Yep, still on his wrist, and it says the same thing the others did."

Rachel felt something cold settle low in her chest. "Peak achieved."

"Yeah."

"That's not…” She nearly said that’s not possible as she glanced back through the narrow window in the interview room door at Hartley. He was still sitting there with his arms crossed and his lawyer still absent. They had the leak, but he and the killer were apparently not the same. Depending on the timing of this new murder, it seemed Hartley was going to have a very solid alibi.

“Who discovered the body?”

"An ambulance actually. The Apogee noticed an extremely low pulse rate, and these things apparently have a built-in function that calls for help."

"Send me the address,” she said. “We're leaving now."

She ended the call and stepped back into the room long enough to catch Novak's eye and tilt her head toward the hallway. He was up and out of his chair within seconds, murmuring something to the uniform posted outside about keeping an eye on Hartley.

“We have to go,” Rachel said.

“But his lawyer…”

“Will be happy to head back home when he gets here. Detective Corbin just called. It looks like we’ve got a third victim.”

“Jesus, how fresh?”

“Half an hour or so, they think.”

Novak looked back over to the attending officer, but he didn’t have to say anything. The officer had apparently overheard everything. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll handle things here.”

They made their way back through the precinct and Rachel suddenly felt as if they'd wasted a tremendous amount of time securing that interrogation room. They crossed the parking lot at a jog, and when they were in the car, Rachel pulled up the address, and Novak pulled out of the parking lot with a gentle squeal of tires.

“Hartley's been with us, in our presence, for the better part of an hour," Novak commented when they were on the road.

"I know."

"So either we've got the wrong guy sitting in there, or we've got two people involved in this."

“He’s still the leak that was getting info to Tanner. Before this is all over, I’d say there’s a very good chance we’ll need to speak with him again.” Rachel watched the streetlights slide past the window, thinking through what Kline had told her earlier in the night…about Hartley's righteous, exhausted anger at his own company. "I think he's exactly what he told us he is. A guy who leaked data because he thought somebody needed to see it. That's not the same profile as somebody walking into people's homes with a needle."

“So you think Hartley is innocent?”

“Well, I certainly do now, if this body is as recent as Corbin suggested.”