Free The Edge of Doom by Amanda Cross

he might have gone. The super was reluctant to give this permission, but did, hovering over Reed as he opened drawers and closet doors. Nothing of the slightest significance emerged from this search. Nor was there anything worth noting in or on the desk: no address book, no date book, no computer. The closets contained only a minimum of clothes, supposedly Jay’s. The contents of the linen closet and the kitchen cupboards obviously belonged to the apartment’s owners. The only clue to be found was the blatant evidence that nothing of Jay’s remained, no sign of him, no indications, apart from his few clothes, that he had ever been here.
    “Did you meet Mr. Smith?” Reed asked the super.
    “Oh, yes. I greeted him when he moved in. We only allow apartments to be sublet for brief periods, and under certain conditions. I always keep an eye on subtenants; there’s rarely any trouble. He was a pleasant man.” Which, Reed thought, probably meant that he was a good tipper and didn’t complain about anything.
    They left the apartment, the super carefully double-locking the door and then escorting them to the building’s entrance. Clearly, life in this multiple dwelling was closely watched; there were monitors in the entrance hall, showing the elevators and all of the lobby not directly in the doorman’s vision, allowing him to oversee all comings and goings. Somehow, Kate admitted as they walked away, the place made her nervous. She supposed that if one lived there, one might get used to it. Maybe.
    “Most of the tenants are probably older people who have moved back to the city from the suburbs, or from large city apartments,” Reed said. “They value security above all else.”
    “Do you suppose Jay knew the people he rented the apartment from?” Kate asked.
    “I doubt it. Though he must have been pretty thoroughly vetted. I think I’ll get in touch with the building’s management firm and see what information he gave them.”
    This additional inquiry, however, produced nothing of interest. Jay had given the name of the architecture firm with which he still maintained some connection, his bank, his broker. In addition, he had paid all the rent he would owe in advance, so there was no question of his defaulting.
    “Do subletters always do that?” Kate asked that evening as they reviewed what information they had gathered—hardly new information at all.
    “No. It’s a bit unusual. Why pay in advance instead of letting the money accumulate interest in the bank or elsewhere? It almost seems as though he was preparing for a quick exit, if necessary.”
    “Which you think he has done—exited, I mean?”
    “It looks that way. Of course, there may be a perfectly simple explanation. Time will tell.” But from his tone, Kate rather doubted Reed believed this.
    “Would you have broken into that apartment if we hadn’t got in as we did?” Kate asked.
    “I’d hardly have broken in,” Reed said, smiling. “But I would have managed to get in some way or other.”
    The question was: what to do next? Ought they to do anything?
    Reed walked up and down the room, deep, Kate suspected, in the contemplation of various plots. “I don’t like it, Kate,” he finally said. “I haven’t really liked it from the beginning; I admit that. To turn up as he did is odd enough, but then to disappear. If it weren’t for the DNA evidence, I’d set the police after him.”
    “Or at least a private detective.” She grinned at him.
    “I think we just wait a few days and see if anything happens.”
    “And then?”
    “We just wait.”

    Reed, however, while he was ostensibly waiting, got in touch with Yale’s alumni office, asking to confirm that Jason Ebenezer Smith had been a student in the architecture school; he gave the years of attendance as Jay had included them on his résumé. The answer, when the alumni office called him back, hardly astonished him. There had been no one of that name in the class Reed had mentioned,