After securing their horses, Walker followed Osborne into the building and down the hall to an office that screamed money with dark woods and soft leather. Osborne strode in with no hesitation, though he came to an abrupt halt only three steps in.
A man stood inside staring at a painting, but it sure wasn’t Herschel. And if the lack of response from Oz were any indication, whoever it was wasn’t someone he had expected to see.
“Kaplan?”
The stranger turned, but no light entered his eyes. Nothing but animosity. Strange. Why seek him out for a visit if he didn’t actually want to see him? “Osborne.” His gaze flicked to Walker, but he apparently didn’t deem him worth a greeting. “Your new boss seemed real pleased with your work. Told me to pass along to Pinkerton how well he trains us.”
Us. Another detective, then. Though the way he and Osborne stared bullets at each other, Hughes obviously hadn’t chosen a good word when he called him a “friend.”
Osborne didn’t say a thing.
Kaplan aimed a stream of tobacco juice at a spittoon and pulled a wrinkled paper from his pocket. “Hersh asked me to deliver this personally. I wouldn’t have if I didn’t owe him a favor.”
A breath of dry laughter puffed from Oz’s lips. “And here I thought you came for tea.” He reached for the paper and then frowned. “You read it.”
“What do I look like, a fool? No way was I going to be party to anything underhanded, if you’d managed to turn him somehow.”
Walker leaned into the wall. Turn him? What, did this guy think Osborne was here, working with Hughes and the KGC, because he wanted to be?
Possible. Possible indeed that none of his former friends knew about his cover. The first rule Mr. Lane had taught him as a Culper was that safety lay in anonymity. The fewer who knew what an intelligencer was about, the better.
Kaplan waved a hand. “No secret, though. Pinkerton had a new job for him and sent him away. Don’t know where or for how long, and that doesn’t say neither. But that last part?” He leaned over, jabbed a finger at the bottom of the page. “About me being the one most likely to listen to any other ‘advice’ you have? He’s dead wrong on that.”
Osborne inhaled, the long and deep kind meant to instill patience. “Kap…I don’t know what my brother did or said to you. But please, you have to listen.”
“No, I don’t.” As if to prove it, he grabbed the hat sitting on Hughes’s desk and shoved it on his head. “I promised Hersh I’d give you the letter, and I gave you the letter. Duty done, favor repaid, that’s it.”
Osborne slid over a step, between Kaplan and the door. “Just hear me out. The KGC intends to act. Soon. Kidnap the president and all the important cabinet members besides. If you can just make sure he goes to Fort Sumter like they say he might, that would stymie them.”
With a grunt of incredulous laughter, Kaplan shoved past him. “If that’s what you want, then you can be sure I’ll advise the opposite.”
“Kap, please.” Osborne grabbed at his arm, hopeless fury in his face. “Just look at me. Look me in the eye.”
Something shifted in Kaplan’s expression too. Went from animosity to resignation. “That’s the problem, Osborne. I looked you in the eye every day and never had a clue who I was seeing. I don’t know you.” He pulled free. “I don’t know if I ever did.”
Osborne didn’t make another attempt to detain him. He just stood there working his jaw and staring after him, crushing the letter in his hand.
Walker cleared his throat. “Interesting friend, Oz.”
Smoothing out the paper again, Osborne shook his head. “Did I ever mention I had a twin?”
A twin. All sorts of possibilities rose up then, in light of that conversation. “Nope.”
“Apparently I never mentioned it to them either.” He slid the letter into his pocket and met Walker’s gaze, straight and unwavering. “Thanks to him, I don’t have many friends left.”
“Well.” Funny how brothers could be sometimes. Some were like the Arnauds, sticking together no matter what, through disagreement and distance. Some…weren’t. “I guess it’s a good thing you’ve made some new ones here then.”
A flare of his nostrils was the only indication of feeling. But it was enough. “It is.”
Walker turned to the door, eager to get out of Hughes’s lair. He led the way back into the warm spring sunshine without any difficulty, but then he let Osborne take the lead.
They zigzagged around, always with a gait that spoke of purpose. Though if Osborne had a method to his route, Walker couldn’t detect it. Maybe they were his usual rounds. He didn’t volunteer anything, and Walker didn’t ask. No doubt he was still mulling over the confrontation with Kaplan, and a man needed some silence to mull.
Apparently it didn’t distract him, though. He came to a halt at the exact moment Walker did, when a familiar top hat came into view. Of one accord, they plastered themselves to the side of a box car before Hughes could spot them.