Free Tell No Lies by Gregg Hurwitz Page B

get away cleanly and quickly.
    “Step back, A-Dre.”
    In his three years of running groups, he’d never had a confrontation with a member erupt into violence. A-Dre crossed his arms, glowering.
    First time for everything.
    Daniel held the glare well past the point of comfort. Finally A-Dre laughed and sidled off him. “Just playin’.”
    As Daniel headed to the elevator, A-Dre stood in place, staring after him. A power play. Unless there was some reason he didn’t want Daniel to see what he drove. When Daniel got into the elevator and turned around, A-Dre was still there, watching him across the quiet parking lot until the closing doors wiped him from view.
    Before the car could rise, Daniel flicked the emergency stop toggle switch and waited, listening. Footsteps ticked across concrete. A pause. And then the unmistakable roar of a motorcycle coming to life.
    Daniel stood with his hands pressed to the cold metal doors until the sound of A-Dre’s motorcycle faded away.
    Hardly incontrovertible evidence. But still.
    The toggle switch clicked back loudly, and Daniel rode the elevator up to the lobby, passed through security, and took the stairs to the second floor. Moving down the hall, he found himself in a haze of suspicion, studying each face as it floated past. He hadn’t considered how it would feel being back here in the building.
    Unsettled, he paused by the out-of-service water fountain to call Cris. “Just checking that you’re okay.”
    “I’m fine, babe.”
    “Don’t sound fine.”
    “Corrupt landlord, illegitimate eviction notices, driving the families out one at a time.”
    “So … a normal day.”
    She made a noise of amusement. “How are you doing?”
    “A bit rattled, still. But okay.”
    Over the line he heard elderly voices arguing in Tagalog. “I gotta jump, mi vida, or there’s gonna be a matricide in my office.”
    He watched a rat scuttle along the seam where wall met floor, then vanish through a crack in the baseboard. “Okay. Just … be careful today.”
    “You’re telling me ?”
    Pocketing his phone, he continued to the administrative offices. The receptionist blew on her painted nails and head-tilted him through to the vast metal file cabinets paneling the confidential-records room in the back.
    He dug out A-Dre’s paperwork and thumbed through until he found an informed-consent form filled out by pen. Sloppy handwriting, but definitely not a match for the death-threat letters.
    Big exhale. He figured he would have recognized that scratchy penmanship if he’d seen it before. Okay. Suspicion averted.
    He started out. Halted in the doorway.
    There were five more group members.
    That creep of paranoia, termites beneath the flesh. This, he thought, is how it begins.
    Back to the cabinets, pulling files for the three remaining men, confirming what he already knew. Then he checked the handwriting of the two women just for good measure. In case—what? This was getting ridiculous.
    Sheepishly, he retuned the files, shoved the drawers closed. All right, then. His people were in the clear. That was that.
    Unless the killer had someone else write the letters for him. Which would be a smart move if you were, say, a seasoned criminal planning a murder.
    He gazed at the floor-to-ceiling banks of cabinets. Thousands of files. He recalled his own words. There’s no one in the building who wouldn’t be a suspect.
    So what had he learned snooping on his clients like a low-rent Big Brother? Not much.
    His gaze snagged on one of the drawer labels: KAAL–KEANER .
    That scrawled name— lyle kane —bobbed up from the dark waters of his mind. The man who was going to be killed tomorrow night at midnight. The man who, according to SFPD, didn’t exist.
    Daniel tugged out the weighty drawer, his fingers scrabbling across the tabs. Kanatzar, Kandt —then a jump straight to Kaneko.
    So there was no Lyle Kane on Bay Street or anywhere else in San Francisco, nor was there a Lyle Kane who’d ever