"Okay." Kara opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
Max gave Tyler a thoughtful look, wondering who that friend was and why he was taking off on his own. "I'm still keeping an eye on you, Brennan."
"Likewise," Tyler returned. "But I didn't set you up before, and I'm not setting you up now."
"Likewise," he echoed as he left the room and headed back into the bullpen to see what Kara wanted to do next.
Kara was happy that Max and Tyler had called a temporary truce, although she wasn't sure how long it would last. But she couldn't worry about them; the clock was ticking, and every minute counted. She'd no sooner gotten back to her desk when Wes came over, an unusual gleam in his usually unemotional gaze.
"Got a new lead on Hartford," he said.
She was happy to hear that since Hartford's phone had been disconnected, and he hadn't been back to his house in the last twenty-four hours. "What is it?"
"His former mother-in-law owns a rental house on Long Island and a vacation home on the Jersey Shore."
She thought about that. "Text me the Long Island address. I feel like Hartford would want to stay a little closer to the action." Then she turned to Max. "Let's go."
They headed down to the garage, and she grabbed the keys for one of the team's SUVs. Max's Jeep was too well known at this point. She slid behind the wheel as Max got in next to her. After putting the address into the GPS, she shot out of the parking garage, eager to find Hartford and figure out if her theory about him was correct.
"You were good back there," Max said, surprising her with his words.
"In the meeting? I was just relating the facts."
"In a way that made sense. But I was actually talking about the way you forced Tyler and me to talk to each other."
She flung him a smile. "That was easy. I have a stubborn younger brother, who I used to babysit. And when his friends came over, there was often some sort of dispute. I found the best way to handle it was to make them talk to each other. For some reason, males of all ages seem to prefer to avoid that."
"You're not wrong," he said. "I will say that Tyler's speedy exit to talk to an unnamed friend still raised my suspicious radar."
"I get it. But you have a lot of meetings with unnamed people, too. I'm going to trust Tyler to be on the right side, just as I trust you. If I'm wrong, I'll deal with that when it happens. But I don't think I am."
"You're probably not. When you made me look back in time, I have to admit my evidence for distrusting him was pretty flimsy."
"And his for you." She paused, changing the subject. "I really hope we can pick up Hartford today. If he's not guilty, then a lot of my assumptions are wrong."
"It seems unlikely he'd have done a disappearing act if he wasn't guilty of something."
"I agree. But if we're wrong, we could waste a lot of time."
"Always a risk, but I trust your instincts, Kara."
She was touched by his words. "I hope I don't let you down."
"You won't," he said confidently.
She turned her attention back to the road. Only one way to find out.
Chapter Twenty
The house belonging to Hartford's former mother-in-law sat on twenty acres overlooking Oyster Bay, a sprawling Tudor mansion that spoke of generations of wealth and privilege. They parked at the end of the long driveway, using the landscaping to approach the house without being seen from the windows.
"There he is," Max said quietly, pointing toward a large window at the back of the house where they could see David Hartford stuffing papers into a leather briefcase.
"Back door," Kara whispered, spotting a service entrance partially hidden by ivy.
Max tested the handle. Locked, but it was an old lock that yielded quickly to the lock picks Kara pulled out of her bag. They slipped inside through what appeared to be a mudroom, then moved silently through the house toward the study.
As they reached the open door, Kara pulled her weapon, as did he. Then she moved into the room with purpose. "David Hartford, FBI. We need to talk."
